Grotowski piece

This is my Jerzey Grotowski homework from last week.

That is, I’m reading a book from the library on the guy.

Each member of the class is required to research and present on a major figure from theatrical history.

Been a while since I read a book.

A couple of year’s maybe?

Lost all heart for it.

This is a really old looking and smelling book. A few of the B&W photo plates have come loose from the bindings.

I used to own the Alexandria quartet. A friend cruised the second hand bookshops in Glebe and bought me old second hand copies of the series that look and smell just like the one I’m reading now.

(Copied from the web)

Grotowski was born in 1933 in the city of Rzeszow in southeastern Poland and died in 1999 in Pontedera, Italy.

study directing at the Lunacharsky Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow in 1955-1956. It was there that he learned about the acting techniques and artistic approaches of such greats of the Russian theatre as Stanislavsky, Vakhtangov, Meyerhold and Tairov.

Towards a ‘poor theater’

I feel that Grotowski is continuing Stanislavski’s exploration of theater. That is, the relationship between performers and the audience.

They both see the theater as something that is living and growing and capable of evolving.

I also feel that they are driving audiences to evolve in sympathy with the works.

I feel that one of Grotowski big insights is the realization of the extent that the audience participates with the piece they are experiencing.

The relationship between actor and audience is THE POINT.

Neither can exist without the other.

The two are the definition of theater.

What I have learned, is that while 'story' might well be king, the actors ‘connection with each other and the audience’ is queen.

I feel that he has highlighted exactly why I'm doing the foundation course.

That human relationships are what is most important in all art forms.

I feel that directors such as Lars von Trier have been directly influenced by Jerzey, but I also see elements of Grotowski work in Jim Jarmusch with 'stranger then paradise' and 'Down by law' where the focus on the actors almost negates any need for the environment they act within.

Also it is a testament to the strength of these ideas, that these days a bare set, or actors working within the audience, isn't an unnerving or novel experience for the theater audience. Grotowski ideas are almost ‘mainstream.’

I really liked that he would tailor productions to a location, or audit the audience.

It’s all about the experience.

I like presenting the audience with ambiguities.

It’s the immersive nature of what he is attempting.

Like building Virtual Reality before there were computers.

The holy actor
Training to reduce the time lag between impulse and action
Acting is action, immediate and truthful
Actor sacrifices themselves to the part, and becomes the character

Rough outline of the staging for my production.
I decided that rather then grind out a PowerPoint presentation full of facts and photos, that I would construct a physical representation of some of Jerzey’s concepts.

So I built a theater with chairs, and a cardboard barrier that spectators had to stand behind.
Also grabbed some video of actors doing exercises in training for Jerzeys productions, and overlaid phrases of important points.

Found an old carpet in the props room so the class got to sit on this or, a few chairs arranged in classic theater rows, and the cardboard ‘dock’ where I placed latecomers to the class.

Originally I thought we would be in one of the classrooms which had projectors which throw a proper sized image.

Instead I discovered that the class would be moving around a lot for the two weeks of ‘Character’ and I had to use a monitor that was in the studio. Not quite so impressive as it was off on the other side of the studio.

Had some atmospheric lighting, some music playing from a CD, and props that gave the vibe of a libratory.
Then I turned it all off, and turned on the house lights to demonstrate to the class what Jerzey’s theater wasn’t.

Grotowski felt that theater should be an art form in itself. Not an aggregate of other disciplines such as lighting or costume.
That once you strip away everything including the writer and director, there is only the relationship between the audience and actors at that moment of presentation.
I wanted the audience to be in the production, a part of it.
After I turned on the lights and got rid of the props, I sat within the class on the carpet, and related to them what I had learned while studying Jerzey.

I feel that Grotowski was rebelling against the dilution of the actor/audience experience by other art forms, or by individual egos of the participants.
I think that he feels that people have forgotten theaters strengths and what makes it a novel experience to other art forms.

That the performance is something that is happening here, and now in this moment. The experience of which can only be recalled though the audiences memories of the experience.
That it is the physical connection between actors and the audience.

This is an illustration of my original staging.

Grotofksy is the antithesis of everything I've thought that I enjoyed about cinema to this point.

Revelations about story, acting, and direction presented to me by people such as Grotowski who have thought deeply and pruned aggressively at the art form of theater have bought me to a much greater understanding of the bedrock that all the other cinematic arts rest upon.