Grotowski

I have seen two of Jerzy Grotowski's most famous productions on videotape, "The Constant Prince" and "Akropolis." I have seen his most famous and acclaimed actor, Richard Cieslak on tape doing training exercises. I have heard Eugenio Barba and other proteges and colleagues of Grotowski talk and tell stories. I have read what has been written in the English language by or about Grotowski and his actors. I had brief occasion to meet the curator of the Grotowski Center in Poland (check out their website btw here http://www.grotowski-institute.art.pl/index.php). Grotowski is, to borrow Eugenio Barba's term, one of my theatrical ancestors. I claim him this way as I do so many others, past and present.

For those of you unfamiliar, Jerzy Grotowski was a Polish born theatre practitioner who lived from 1933 - 1999. His productions at the Theatre of Thirteen Rows in Opole, Poland (So named because it had a small proscenium and thirteen rows of seats. Later the name was changed to include the word Laboratory and eventually became known as the Polish Laboratory Theatre or sometimes just Grotowski's Lab, as slang. The official name was Laboratory Theatre Research Institute of Acting Method.) between 1959 and 1969, roughly, were groundbreaking works with world wide influence. Included in these productions during that time were the aforementioned Akropolis and The Constant Prince, as well as the work considered the absolute masterpiece, Apocalypsis cum figuris. Grotowski's theatrical career continued right up until his death, in various forms, in various places, with various intents. Those last thirty years of his life are more difficult to describe in a brief forum like this so I won't even try. (I would recommend the Routledge publication "Jerzy Grotowski" by James Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta if you want a great overview and understanding of Grotowski's life and work).

A couple of summers ago when I did that series of talks at Prescott College Tucson Center, for the one on Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret, the first hour of my presentation ended up being on Grotowski. I wasn't trying to rubberstamp Barba and Odin Teatret (http://www.odinteatret.dk/) with Grotowski. I just couldn't resist the richness and importance of Grotowski's overall work as a topic of conversation.

In 1955, as a young man, Grotowski went to study theatre and directing in Moscow, at GITIS, under Yuri Zavadsky. Zavadsky had been an actor in Vahktangov's Theatre and had learned under Stanislavsky as well. It was there, with that First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre influence, that Grotowski picked up his basic ideas of actor preparation and training and the idea of a theatre as a laboratory. In the Theatre of Thirteen Rows, the smell of the First Studio is strong. The exercises for actors there focused and functioned on two levels - basic work on elements of craft and spiritual work on oneself. Straight out of Moscow, circa 1912, with Sulerzhitsky leading the actors of the First Studio in this very same way. While folks like Richard Schechner tried distinguish Grotowski's work and ideas from the Stanislavsky tradition, Grotowski himself always claimed and paid homage to this tradition and this connection. At one of the last ITSA Conferences before he died, Grotowski spoke all night (yes, all night) about Stanislavsky's use of improvisation in rehearsal.

Richard Cieslak, in the title role of The Constant Prince, used the memory of his first orgasm in a sensory way so as to create the "pain" or experience of being beaten as the Prince. Here we have the epitome, the hallmark of Grotowski's work on stage, his finest actor in one of the defining moments, an actor with amazing physical attributes and skills, and how did he go about creating this scene, this reality on stage which so moved and excited the spectators performance after performance after performance? He did it by focusing on a past personal experience, using the sensory details of it to imaginatively bring himself active and alive, seemingly within the circumstances of the character. And yes, we call this Affective Memory, conscious use of past personal experiences associated imaginatively with the events of the play by the actor. It is Stanislavsky. It is Vahktangov. It is Lee Strasberg. And in this case it was Cieslak/Grotowski.

In the Actor's Gymnasium workshop, we have spent numerous sessions working with Grotowski inspired ideas and concepts - from Inspiration, to Physical Action, to Sequence of Actions, to Tasks and Logic, to Personal Meaning and Revelation.

If I have a pet peeve with our local theatre, and our local actors, it is the mundane and banal way in which productions and characters are physicalized in the body and the voice of the actor, and in the placement and recognition of the spectators. (Yes, there are a handful of exceptions here and there, but they are extremely rare). Do not imagine I am craving circus acts or gymnastic skills or Rock Opera. I am thinking of being surprised, something unexpected, crucially revealing perhaps, unusual or discomforting perhaps, (or unusually comforting perhaps). Something that is physically admirable, or vocally strikes a tone that seems impossible, rhythmically different. As a spectator this is what I hope for. Its what I "cheer" for if I notice an actor or director attempting something along these lines. I grow weary watching actors walk to center stage when its their turn to speak and gesture habitually with their hands, or at best calmly hold their hands down along their sides. I grow weary of hearing text recited in that actors way of general energy and importance - a kind of pleading or explaining. I grow even more weary of a single line of action and logic present at all times in every production I see, as if spectators really cannot grasp or appreciate multiple streams of action or logic at a given time.

And so I think of Grotowski - and hope and wish and work for the time that I go to the theatre and have my wits knocked about me somehow.

Please share those times for you this happened - more than likely I missed those shows.