Jerzy Grotowski
Encyclopedia
Jerzy Grotowski was a Polish theatre director and innovator of experimental theatre
, the "theatre laboratory" and "poor theatre" concepts.
Grotowski was born in Rzeszów
, Poland
on 11 August 1933 and died in Pontedera
, Italy
on 14 January 1999, aged 65.
where he was invited by the theatre critic and dramaturg Ludwik Flaszen to serve as Director of the Theatre of 13 Rows. There he began to assemble a company of actors and artistic collaborators which would help him realize his unique vision. It was also there that he began to experiment with approaches to performance training which enabled him to shape the young actors - initially allocated to his provincial theatre - into the transformational artists they eventually became. He married Daniela Orsi.
Among the many productions for which his theatre company became famous were "Orpheus" by Jean Cocteau
, "Shakuntala
" based on text by Kalidasa
, "Dziady (Forefathers' Eve)
" by Adam Mickiewicz
and "Akropolis" by Stanisław Wyspiański. This last production was the first complete realization of Grotowski's notion of 'poor theatre.' In it the company of actors (representing concentration camp prisoners) build the structure of a crematorium around the audience while acting out stories from the Bible and Greek mythology. This conceptualization had particular resonance for the audiences in Opole, as the Auschwitz concentration camp was only sixty miles away. "Akropolis" received much attention, and could be said to have launched Grotowski's career internationally due to inventive and aggressive promotion by visiting foreign scholars and theatre professionals. A film of the production was made with an introduction by Peter Brook
, which constitutes one of the most accessible and concrete records of Grotowski's work.
In 1964 Grotowski followed success with success when his theatre premiered "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" based on the Elizabethan drama by Marlowe, featuring Zbigniew Cynkutis in the title role. Foregoing the use of props altogether, Grotowski let the actors' bodies represent different objects, establishing an intimate dynamic of relation between actors and spectators by seating audience members as the guests at Faust's last supper, with the action unfolding on and around the table where they were seated.
In 1965 Grotowski moved his company to Wrocław relabeling them a "Teatr Laboratorium", in part to avoid the heavy censorship to which professional 'theatres' were subject in Poland at that time. Work had already begun on one of their most famous productions, "The Constant Prince". Debuting in 1967, this production is thought by many to be one of the greatest theatrical works of the 20th century. Ryszard Cieslak's performance in the title role is considered the apogee of Grotowski's approach to acting. In one of his final essays, Grotowski detailed how he worked individually with Cieslak for more than a year to develop the details of the actor's physical score before combining this central element of the performance with the work of other actors and the context of torture and martyrdom intrinsic to the play.
The last professional production from Grotowski as a director was in 1969. Entitled "Apocalypsis Cum Figuris" it is widely admired. Again using text from the Bible, this time combined with contemporary writings from authors such as T.S. Eliot and Simone Weil, this production was cited by members of the company as an example of a group 'total act'. The development of Apocalypsis took more than three years, beginning as a staging of Slowacki's Samuel Zborowski and passing through a separate stage of development as a staging of the Gospels, Ewangelie (elaborated as a completed performance though never presented to audiences) before arriving to its final form. Throughout this process, Grotowski can already be seen abandoning the conventions of traditional theatre, straining at the boundaries of what he later termed Art as presentation.
Grotowski revolutionized theatre, and, along with his first apprentice Eugenio Barba
, leader and founder of Odin Teatret
, is considered a father of contemporary experimental theatre
. Barba
was instrumental in revealing Grotowski to the world outside the iron curtain. He was the editor of the seminal book, Towards a Poor Theatre (1968) which Grotowski wrote together with Ludwik Flaszen, in which it is declared that theatre should not, because it could not, compete against the overwhelming spectacle of film
and should instead focus on the very root of the act of theatre: actors co-creating the event of theatre with its spectators.
. This was a fitting vehicle for Grotowski and his Poor Theatre because his treatment of the play in Poland had already achieved wider recognition, and was published in Pamiętnik Teatralny (Warsaw, 1964), Alla Ricerca del Teatro Perduto (Padova, 1965), and Tulane Drama Review (New Orleans, 1965). It marked the first time many in Britain had been exposed to "Poor Theatre". The same year his great book called Towards A Poor Theatre appeared in Danish, published by Odin Teatrets Forlag. It appeared in English the following year, published by Methuen and Co. Ltd., with an Introduction by Peter Brook
, then Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. In it he writes feelingly about Grotowski's private consulting for the Company; he/they felt Grotowski's work was unique but equally understood that its value was diminished if talked about too much, if faith were broken with the consultant.
Grotowski's company made its debut in America under the auspices of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the fall of 1969. BAM built a theatre for Grotowski's company in the Washington Square Methodist Church in Greenwich Village. Three productions were presented: Akropolis, The Constant Prince and Apocalypsis Cum Figuris during a three week run.
, Grotowski's longtime friend and the American director whose work he most strongly endorsed, in My Dinner with Andre
. Various collaborators who had been important to Grotowski's work in what he termed his "Theatre of Productions" phase had difficulty following him in these explorations beyond the boundary of conventional theatre. Other, younger members of the group came to the foreground, notably Jacek Zmysłowski, whom many would consider Grotowski's closest collaborator in this period. Theatre critics have often exoticized and mystified Grotowski's work on the basis of these paratheatrical experiments, suggesting that his work should be seen in the lineage of Antonin Artaud
, a suggestion Grotowski strongly resisted. Later in life, he clarified that he quickly found this direction of research limiting, having realized that unstructured work frequently elicits banalities and cultural cliché from participants.
and Mercedes Gregory helped Grotowski to settle in the US, where he taught at Columbia University for one year while attempting to find support for a new program of research.
) to secure resources for his projected research in Manhattan, in 1983 Grotowski was invited by Professor Robert Cohen to UC Irvine, where he began a course of work known as 'Objective Drama'. This phase of research was characterized by an investigation of the psychophysiological impact of selected songs and other performative tools derived from traditional cultures on participants, focusing specifically on relatively simple techniques that could exert a discernible and predictable impact on the doer regardless of her belief structures or culture of origin. Ritual songs and related performative elements linked to Haitian and other African diaspora traditions became an especially fruitful tool of research. During this time Grotowski continued several important collaborative relationships begun in earlier phases, with Maud Robart, Jairo Cuesta, and Pablo Jimenez taking on significant roles as performers and research leaders in the project. He also initiated a longstanding creative relationship with American director James Slowiak and discovered the individual to whom he would ultimately pass responsibility for his life-long research, Thomas Richards, son of legendary African-American director Lloyd Richards
.
, who coined the phrase "art as vehicle" to characterize the focus of his attention. "It seems to me," Brook said, "that Grotowski is showing us something which existed in the past but has been forgotten over the centuries; that is that one of the vehicles which allows man to have access to another level of perception is to be found in the art of performance." Toward that end, he drove Richards to take on increasingly greater responsibility and leadership in the work, until he was not only the primary doer in the practice of Art as Vehicle, but also its leader and "director" (if such a term can be accurately used) of the performance structures created around these Afro-Caribbean vibratory songs, most significantly 'Downstairs Action' (filmed by Mercedes Gregory in 1989) and 'Action', on which work began in 1994 and continues to the present. Italian actor Mario Biagini, who joined the Workcenter shortly after its founding, also became a central contributor to this research. In 1995, Grotowski changed the name of the Italian center to the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards to signal the unique and central place Richards held in his work. Although Grotowski died in 1999 at the end of a prolonged illness, the research of Art as Vehicle continues at the Pontedera Workcenter, with Richards as Artistic Director and Biagini as Associate Director. Grotowski's Will declared the two his "universal heirs," holders of copyright on the entirety of his textual output and intellectual property.
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
, the "theatre laboratory" and "poor theatre" concepts.
Grotowski was born in Rzeszów
Rzeszów
Rzeszów is a city in southeastern Poland with a population of 179,455 in 2010. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River, in the heartland of the Sandomierska Valley...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
on 11 August 1933 and died in Pontedera
Pontedera
Pontedera is an Italian industrial town in Tuscany, Italy, in the administrative province of Pisa. It is the headquarters of the Piaggio company, which in the 1930s was a major aircraft manufacturer and which now manufactures motor vehicles such as the Vespa and the Ape...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
on 14 January 1999, aged 65.
Theatre of Productions
Grotowski made his directorial debut in 1958 with the production "Gods of Rain" which introduced Grotowski's bold approach to text, which he continued to develop throughout his career, influencing many subsequent theatre artists. Later in 1958 Grotowski moved to OpoleOpole
Opole is a city in southern Poland on the Oder River . It has a population of 125,992 and is the capital of the Upper Silesia, Opole Voivodeship and, also the seat of Opole County...
where he was invited by the theatre critic and dramaturg Ludwik Flaszen to serve as Director of the Theatre of 13 Rows. There he began to assemble a company of actors and artistic collaborators which would help him realize his unique vision. It was also there that he began to experiment with approaches to performance training which enabled him to shape the young actors - initially allocated to his provincial theatre - into the transformational artists they eventually became. He married Daniela Orsi.
Among the many productions for which his theatre company became famous were "Orpheus" by Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, "Shakuntala
Shakuntala
In Hindu mythology Shakuntala is the wife of Dushyanta and the mother of Emperor Bharata. Her story is told in the Mahabharata and dramatized by Kalidasa in his play Abhijñānaśākuntalam .-Etymology:Rishi Kanva found her in forest as a baby surrounded by Shakunta birds...
" based on text by Kalidasa
Kalidasa
Kālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language...
, "Dziady (Forefathers' Eve)
Dziady (poem)
Dziady is a poetic drama by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. It is considered one of the great works of European Romanticism. To George Sand and George Brandes, Dziady was a supreme realization of Romantic drama theory, to be ranked with such works as Goethe's Faust and Byron's Manfred.The...
" by Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
and "Akropolis" by Stanisław Wyspiański. This last production was the first complete realization of Grotowski's notion of 'poor theatre.' In it the company of actors (representing concentration camp prisoners) build the structure of a crematorium around the audience while acting out stories from the Bible and Greek mythology. This conceptualization had particular resonance for the audiences in Opole, as the Auschwitz concentration camp was only sixty miles away. "Akropolis" received much attention, and could be said to have launched Grotowski's career internationally due to inventive and aggressive promotion by visiting foreign scholars and theatre professionals. A film of the production was made with an introduction by Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
, which constitutes one of the most accessible and concrete records of Grotowski's work.
In 1964 Grotowski followed success with success when his theatre premiered "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" based on the Elizabethan drama by Marlowe, featuring Zbigniew Cynkutis in the title role. Foregoing the use of props altogether, Grotowski let the actors' bodies represent different objects, establishing an intimate dynamic of relation between actors and spectators by seating audience members as the guests at Faust's last supper, with the action unfolding on and around the table where they were seated.
In 1965 Grotowski moved his company to Wrocław relabeling them a "Teatr Laboratorium", in part to avoid the heavy censorship to which professional 'theatres' were subject in Poland at that time. Work had already begun on one of their most famous productions, "The Constant Prince". Debuting in 1967, this production is thought by many to be one of the greatest theatrical works of the 20th century. Ryszard Cieslak's performance in the title role is considered the apogee of Grotowski's approach to acting. In one of his final essays, Grotowski detailed how he worked individually with Cieslak for more than a year to develop the details of the actor's physical score before combining this central element of the performance with the work of other actors and the context of torture and martyrdom intrinsic to the play.
The last professional production from Grotowski as a director was in 1969. Entitled "Apocalypsis Cum Figuris" it is widely admired. Again using text from the Bible, this time combined with contemporary writings from authors such as T.S. Eliot and Simone Weil, this production was cited by members of the company as an example of a group 'total act'. The development of Apocalypsis took more than three years, beginning as a staging of Slowacki's Samuel Zborowski and passing through a separate stage of development as a staging of the Gospels, Ewangelie (elaborated as a completed performance though never presented to audiences) before arriving to its final form. Throughout this process, Grotowski can already be seen abandoning the conventions of traditional theatre, straining at the boundaries of what he later termed Art as presentation.
Grotowski revolutionized theatre, and, along with his first apprentice Eugenio Barba
Eugenio Barba
Eugenio Barba is an Italian author and theatre director based in Denmark. He is the founder of the Odin Theatre and the International School of Theatre Anthropology, both located in Holstebro, Denmark.-Biography:...
, leader and founder of Odin Teatret
Odin Teatret
Odin Teatret is a theatre troop based in Holstebro, Denmark. It was founded by Italian theatre director Eugenio Barba in 1964. The Odin is also the base for ISTA, the International School of Theatre Anthropology, founded in 1979, also by Barba, and the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies ,...
, is considered a father of contemporary experimental theatre
Experimental theatre
Experimental theatre is a general term for various movements in Western theatre that began in the late 19th century as a retraction against the dominant vent governing the writing and production of dramatical menstrophy, and age in particular. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream...
. Barba
Eugenio Barba
Eugenio Barba is an Italian author and theatre director based in Denmark. He is the founder of the Odin Theatre and the International School of Theatre Anthropology, both located in Holstebro, Denmark.-Biography:...
was instrumental in revealing Grotowski to the world outside the iron curtain. He was the editor of the seminal book, Towards a Poor Theatre (1968) which Grotowski wrote together with Ludwik Flaszen, in which it is declared that theatre should not, because it could not, compete against the overwhelming spectacle of film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and should instead focus on the very root of the act of theatre: actors co-creating the event of theatre with its spectators.
Theatre - through the actor's technique, his art in which the living organism strives for higher motives - provides an opportunity for what could be called integration, the discarding of masks, the revealing of the real substance: a totality of physical and mental reactions. This opportunity must be treated in a disciplined manner, with a full awareness of the responsibilities it involves. Here we can see the theatre's therapeutic function for people in our present day civilization. It is true that the actor accomplishes this act, but he can only do so through an encounterEncounter (psychology)The term "encounter", in the context of existential-humanism , has the specific meaning of an authentic, congruent meeting between individuals.-Examples:Some uses of the concept of encountering:...
with the spectator - intimately, visibly, not hiding behind a cameraman, wardrobe mistress, stage designer or make-up girl - in direct confrontation with him, and somehow " instead of" him. The actor's act - discarding half measures, revealing, opening up, emerging from himself as opposed to closing up - is an invitation to the spectator. This act could be compared to an act of the most deeply rooted, genuine love between two human beings - this is just a comparison since we can only refer to this "emergence from oneself" through analogy. This act, paradoxical and borderline, we call a total act. In our opinion it epitomizes the actor's deepest calling.
Debut in the west
The year 1968 marked Grotowski's debut in the West. His company performed the Stanislaw Wyspianski play Akropolis/Acropolis (1964) at the Edinburgh FestivalEdinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
. This was a fitting vehicle for Grotowski and his Poor Theatre because his treatment of the play in Poland had already achieved wider recognition, and was published in Pamiętnik Teatralny (Warsaw, 1964), Alla Ricerca del Teatro Perduto (Padova, 1965), and Tulane Drama Review (New Orleans, 1965). It marked the first time many in Britain had been exposed to "Poor Theatre". The same year his great book called Towards A Poor Theatre appeared in Danish, published by Odin Teatrets Forlag. It appeared in English the following year, published by Methuen and Co. Ltd., with an Introduction by Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
, then Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. In it he writes feelingly about Grotowski's private consulting for the Company; he/they felt Grotowski's work was unique but equally understood that its value was diminished if talked about too much, if faith were broken with the consultant.
Grotowski's company made its debut in America under the auspices of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the fall of 1969. BAM built a theatre for Grotowski's company in the Washington Square Methodist Church in Greenwich Village. Three productions were presented: Akropolis, The Constant Prince and Apocalypsis Cum Figuris during a three week run.
Paratheatrical phase
In 1973 Grotowski published "Holiday," which outlined a new course of investigation. He would pursue this 'Paratheatrical' phase until 1978. This phase is known as the 'Paratheatrical' phase of his career because it was an attempt to transcend the separation between performer and spectator. Grotowski attempted this through the organization of communal rites and simple interactive exchanges that went on sometimes for extended periods, attempting to provoke in participants a deconditioning of impulse. The most widely circulated description of one of these post-theatrical events (a "beehive") is given by Andre GregoryAndre Gregory
Andre William Gregory is an American theatre director, writer and actor.Gregory studied at Harvard University.During the 1960s and 1970s, Gregory directed a number of avant-garde productions developed through ensemble collaboration, the most famous of which was Alice In Wonderland , based on Lewis...
, Grotowski's longtime friend and the American director whose work he most strongly endorsed, in My Dinner with Andre
My Dinner with Andre
My Dinner with Andre is a 1981 film starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, written by Gregory and Shawn, and directed by Louis Malle.-Plot:...
. Various collaborators who had been important to Grotowski's work in what he termed his "Theatre of Productions" phase had difficulty following him in these explorations beyond the boundary of conventional theatre. Other, younger members of the group came to the foreground, notably Jacek Zmysłowski, whom many would consider Grotowski's closest collaborator in this period. Theatre critics have often exoticized and mystified Grotowski's work on the basis of these paratheatrical experiments, suggesting that his work should be seen in the lineage of Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
, a suggestion Grotowski strongly resisted. Later in life, he clarified that he quickly found this direction of research limiting, having realized that unstructured work frequently elicits banalities and cultural cliché from participants.
Theatre of Sources
In this period of his work, Grotowski traveled intensively through India, Mexico, Haiti and elsewhere, seeking to identify elements of technique in the traditional practices of various cultures that could have a precise and discernible effect on participants. Key collaborators in this phase of work include Włodzimierz Staniewski, subsequently founder of Gardzienice Theatre Association, Jairo Cuesta and Magda Złotowska, who traveled with Grotowski on his international expeditions. His interest in ritual techniques linked to Haitian practice led Grotowski to a long-standing collaboration with Maud Robart and Jean-Claude Tiga of Saint Soleil. Always a master strategist, Grotowski made use of his international ties and the relative freedom of travel allowed him to pursue this program of cultural research in order to flee Poland following the imposition of martial law. He spent time in Haiti and in Rome, where he delivered a series of important lectures on the topic of theatre anthropology at the University of Rome La Sapienza in 1982 before seeking political asylum in the United States. His dear friends AndreAndre Gregory
Andre William Gregory is an American theatre director, writer and actor.Gregory studied at Harvard University.During the 1960s and 1970s, Gregory directed a number of avant-garde productions developed through ensemble collaboration, the most famous of which was Alice In Wonderland , based on Lewis...
and Mercedes Gregory helped Grotowski to settle in the US, where he taught at Columbia University for one year while attempting to find support for a new program of research.
Objective Drama
Unable (despite the best efforts of Richard SchechnerRichard Schechner
Richard Schechner is Professor of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University , editor of TDR: The Drama Review, and artistic director of East Coast Artists. His BA is from Cornell University , MA from the University of Iowa , and PhD from Tulane University...
) to secure resources for his projected research in Manhattan, in 1983 Grotowski was invited by Professor Robert Cohen to UC Irvine, where he began a course of work known as 'Objective Drama'. This phase of research was characterized by an investigation of the psychophysiological impact of selected songs and other performative tools derived from traditional cultures on participants, focusing specifically on relatively simple techniques that could exert a discernible and predictable impact on the doer regardless of her belief structures or culture of origin. Ritual songs and related performative elements linked to Haitian and other African diaspora traditions became an especially fruitful tool of research. During this time Grotowski continued several important collaborative relationships begun in earlier phases, with Maud Robart, Jairo Cuesta, and Pablo Jimenez taking on significant roles as performers and research leaders in the project. He also initiated a longstanding creative relationship with American director James Slowiak and discovered the individual to whom he would ultimately pass responsibility for his life-long research, Thomas Richards, son of legendary African-American director Lloyd Richards
Lloyd Richards
Lloyd George Richards was a Canadian-American theatre director, actor, and dean of the Yale School of Drama from 1979 to 1991, and Yale University professor emeritus.- Biography :...
.
Art as vehicle
In 1986, Grotowski was invited by Roberto Bacci of the Centro per la Sperimentazione e la Ricerca Teatrale to shift the base of his work to Pontedera, Italy, where he was offered an opportunity to conduct long-term research on performance without the pressure of having to show results until he was ready. Grotowski gladly accepted, taking with him three assistants from Objective Drama research (Richards, Jimenez and Slowiak) to help in founding his Italian Workcenter. Robart also led a work-team in Pontedera for several years, after which time funding cuts necessitated downscaling to a single research group, led by Richards. Grotowski took the term used to describe his final phase of research from a talk by Peter BrookPeter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
, who coined the phrase "art as vehicle" to characterize the focus of his attention. "It seems to me," Brook said, "that Grotowski is showing us something which existed in the past but has been forgotten over the centuries; that is that one of the vehicles which allows man to have access to another level of perception is to be found in the art of performance." Toward that end, he drove Richards to take on increasingly greater responsibility and leadership in the work, until he was not only the primary doer in the practice of Art as Vehicle, but also its leader and "director" (if such a term can be accurately used) of the performance structures created around these Afro-Caribbean vibratory songs, most significantly 'Downstairs Action' (filmed by Mercedes Gregory in 1989) and 'Action', on which work began in 1994 and continues to the present. Italian actor Mario Biagini, who joined the Workcenter shortly after its founding, also became a central contributor to this research. In 1995, Grotowski changed the name of the Italian center to the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards to signal the unique and central place Richards held in his work. Although Grotowski died in 1999 at the end of a prolonged illness, the research of Art as Vehicle continues at the Pontedera Workcenter, with Richards as Artistic Director and Biagini as Associate Director. Grotowski's Will declared the two his "universal heirs," holders of copyright on the entirety of his textual output and intellectual property.