Another of the practitioners we are studying throughout the term is Jerzy Grotowski, a Polish dramatist born in 1933. Grotowski, like Artaud, was part of the surrealist movement, focusing more on the experimental, 'avant garde' side of theatre.
Grotowski had a very different upbringing to Artaud, being able to study theatre and become director of a theatre near to where he lived. He was also able to establish a theatre company which he named 'Laboratorium' which was where he formulated many of his thoughts about theatre: his 'laboratory'. He wrote a book called 'Towards a Poor Theatre' in 1968 where he stated that acting in the theatre and in film were two very different forms which should not be compared/put into competition. One of his key ideals was that theatre should be stripped down to it's lowest form which was concentrating on actors being in front of an audience in real time.
Grotowski completely opposed Artaud in the fact that Artaud was concentrated on shocking the audience using all the means available to them, whereas Grotowski thought acting should be raw; separated from special effects, as he thought these took away from the acting itself. He famously said:
"By gradually eliminating whatever proved superfluous, we found that theatre can exist without make-up, without autonomic costume and scenography, without a separate performance area (stage), without lighting and sound effects, etc."
This quote shows how Grotowski wanted to strip back theatre productions to their most raw form, with the acting being the most important part of the production and if any special effects were needed, they only complimented the acting, not enhanced or masked it in any way.
However, much like Artaud, Grotowski believed that actors should be pushed to their limits in order to get the best work out of them, and was renowned for holding arduous rehearsal sessions that put the actor's bodies in a suitable state to get the most out of. Grotowski was highly influential having developed on Stanislavsky's 'method acting' and using this as inspiration to formulate his own plans and sessions focusing on actors.
I had heard of Grotowski before, but have never had the privilege of studying his work, so am excited to be able to approach it. However, I am slightly confused about how Grotowski will be studied alongside Artaud as from doing this research they seem very different. I like the idea of focusing back to the actor as I think that in productions I have watched before, the special effects have taken away from the acting, so I am keen to know more about it.
Grotowski had a very different upbringing to Artaud, being able to study theatre and become director of a theatre near to where he lived. He was also able to establish a theatre company which he named 'Laboratorium' which was where he formulated many of his thoughts about theatre: his 'laboratory'. He wrote a book called 'Towards a Poor Theatre' in 1968 where he stated that acting in the theatre and in film were two very different forms which should not be compared/put into competition. One of his key ideals was that theatre should be stripped down to it's lowest form which was concentrating on actors being in front of an audience in real time.
Grotowski completely opposed Artaud in the fact that Artaud was concentrated on shocking the audience using all the means available to them, whereas Grotowski thought acting should be raw; separated from special effects, as he thought these took away from the acting itself. He famously said:
"By gradually eliminating whatever proved superfluous, we found that theatre can exist without make-up, without autonomic costume and scenography, without a separate performance area (stage), without lighting and sound effects, etc."
This quote shows how Grotowski wanted to strip back theatre productions to their most raw form, with the acting being the most important part of the production and if any special effects were needed, they only complimented the acting, not enhanced or masked it in any way.
However, much like Artaud, Grotowski believed that actors should be pushed to their limits in order to get the best work out of them, and was renowned for holding arduous rehearsal sessions that put the actor's bodies in a suitable state to get the most out of. Grotowski was highly influential having developed on Stanislavsky's 'method acting' and using this as inspiration to formulate his own plans and sessions focusing on actors.
I had heard of Grotowski before, but have never had the privilege of studying his work, so am excited to be able to approach it. However, I am slightly confused about how Grotowski will be studied alongside Artaud as from doing this research they seem very different. I like the idea of focusing back to the actor as I think that in productions I have watched before, the special effects have taken away from the acting, so I am keen to know more about it.
Sources:
- http://culture.pl/en/artist/jerzy-grotowski?gclid=Cj0KEQiAz7OlBRDErsTx47LKz-8BEiQAY0OlYn7UFwyZYD0zJLo0Y_2LANn09_RrqjR6SG0KSK7DpBMaAkbJ8P8HAQ
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Grotowski
- http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/67868.Jerzy_Grotowski
- http://www.jbactors.com/actingreading/actingteacherbiographies/jerzygrotowski.html
- Google Images
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