Jerzy Marian Grotowski ( 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish innovative theatre director and theorist whose approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today. He was born in Rzeszów, in South-eastern Poland in 1933 and studied acting and directing at the State Theatre School in Kraków and in Moscow. Grotowski worked in Europe and America before establishing the Grotowski Workcenter in 1985 in Pontedera, near Pisa, Italy. Suffering from leukemia and a heart condition, he died in 1999 at his home in Pontedera.
Summary
The subject matter
- Romantic texts from the past
- Rethinking of classic texts
- Improvisation combined with text
- Montage of literary source material
The political purpose or message or dramatic intention
- Drawing attention to past texts and their messages for the present
- The politics of self and roles in society
The actor/audience relationship
- Actors inhabiting the same space as the audience
- Proximity and distance
- The actor as holy, the actor as poor
- The audience as voyeur
The staging form adopted
- Closed, claustrophobic space
- The audience as an active part of the setting
- The audience on all levels
- A unique setting for each production
Directorial interpretation/production style
- Director-led
- Actors encouraged to contribute
- Montage as a way of creating new texts
Design elements
- Very stripped down
- Environments created for the whole play
- Costume to reflect types, not characters
Role of actors and performance style
- The actor as maker of a text
- The importance of training
- Use of the body and voice to shock the audience
- Expressionist means
Technical elements
- Minimal lighting resources
- Intimate playing areas not separate from the audience
- No illusion, the actor as self
Audience response
- To be moved and changed by the visceral experience
- To recognise archetypes
- To achieve catharsis
(p359-60, Mackey, Sally, and Simon Cooper. Drama and Theatre Studies: For Use with All Drama & Theatre Studies A & AS Specifications. Rev. ed. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes, 2000)
Owen Daly’s invaluable collection of source material
ibtheatre 