POOR THEATRE AND GROTOWSKI Flashcards
1
Q
Given circumstances of Poor Theatre
A
When: 1950s/1960s
Where: Poland
Why: Return to essence of theatre - intimate relationship between actor and audience
Who: Jerzy Grotowski
What: Poor Theatre
How: Features and Characteristics
2
Q
WHAT: Poor Theatre
A
- Theatre stripped of artifice, with a focus on pure presence of the actor
- Actor is trained to remove all obstacles that would get in the way
- To perform at a highly demanding level: physically, emotionally, psychically
- Heart: intense encounter between audience and actor – reveal the essence of humanity (WE MUST DROP OUR MASKS)
- Poor theatre has been created in situations where economic constraints demand ingenuity (creativity), and also in periods of political turmoil
- Focuses on the actors’ ability to tell the story without aid of tech or design elements
- Very influential in development of South African Protest Theatre
3
Q
BEGINNINGS OF POOR THEATRE
ORIGINS
A
- 1959 : Grotowski created the Theatre Laboratory in Opole, Poland
- Investigated the nature of theatre, the art/pure presence of the actor
- Approach used in experimental theatre practitioners + political activists as a means of propagting ideas.
4
Q
GROTOWSKI’S EARLY LIFE
ORIGINS
A
- Grotowski studied acting, however his theoretical work far surpassed his practical work.
- Influences: Stanislavski (spiritual father), Asia (eastern philosophy, yoga, meditation, esoteric texts), Marceau, Artaud
5
Q
POLITICAL UNREST IN POLAND
ORIGINS
A
- ** WWII: After effects**, millions of Polish dead or deported to Nazi concetration or Soviet Union labour camps.
- 1956, Polish October: Riots between independance vs keep Soviet Union happy
- Grotowski politically active; secretary of a socialist youth movement.
6
Q
LABORATORY THEATRE
ORIGINS
A
- Ludwig Flaszen + Gotowski dissatisfied with the existing theatre.
- Created the Laboratory Theatre; experimental
- Explored archetypal myths from Western and Eatern philosophy/cultures
7
Q
HOW: CHARACTERISTICS OF POOR THEATRE
FEATURES AND CHARACTERISTICS
A
- Emphasis on ensemble work
- Complete dedication to the craft of acting
- Belief: theatre had borrowed too much from film, therefore violated it’s own essence
- Goal: to eliminate everything not required by theatre, remaining actor and audience
8
Q
HOW DOES GROTOWSKI ACHIEVE THESE CHARACTERISTICS?
FEATURES AND CHARACTERISTICS
A
- Actor is elevated; reduction of any artistic means of expression in addition to the actor
- ASCETICISM: self denial, austerity, self discipline, often for spiritual improvement
- No make-up, costume changes to indicate role
- All music/sound to be produced by the actor IDEOPHONES
- No traditional scenery, few functional props
- Abandoned the Proscenium Arch in favour of a large rearrangable room
9
Q
AIM
FEATURES AND CHARACTERISTICS
A
Make the audience and actors confront themselves in something
resembling a religious experience
Explore the relationship between ritual and play. He saw theatre as a ritual to which spectators were admitted.
10
Q
SCRIPT
FEATURES AND CHARACTERISTICS
A
- Found patterns to have universal meaning for audience
- Much of script abandoned; the remainder rearranged with focus on universal archytypes
11
Q
THEATRE PRACTIONERS ON GROTOWSKI
FEATURES AND CHARACTERISTICS
A
- As Grotowski came from an Eastern European tradition heavily seeped in Catholicism, this had a major impact and influence on his work.
- Christ-like figures often suffer in his plays.
- Athol Fugard influenced by Grotowski
12
Q
GROTOWSKI’S FIRST PRINCIPAL OF THEATRE
FEATURES AND CHARACTERISTICS
A
Theatre provides an opportunity for what could be called intergration, the discarding of masks, the revealing of real substance: a totality of physical and mental reactions. This opportunity must be treated in a disciplined manner, with a full awareness of the reponsibility it involves. Here we can see the theatre’s theraputic function for people in our present-day civilization.
13
Q
AUDIENCE-ACTOR RELATIONSHIP
A
- Essential concern to find perfect audience-actor relationship + embody this in the spacial arrangement of the theatre.
- Sets were entirely functional rather than decorative.
- Set designer = architect
- Intergration of actors and spectators, eliminate the division
- Initially, audience were assigned roles, but this was abandoned and they were seen as spectators or ‘witnesses’
14
Q
AKROPOLIS
A
- Actors = inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp
- Potato sacks with holes revealing torn flesh fabric; metaphore for degraded, tortued bodies
-
Auditorium = exterminating room and ; piled with pieces of metal
(stovepipes, tubs, wheelbarrows etc) - Audience represented the dead and sat on tiered bleachers (similar to the double cots from concentration camp)
- Actors enacted daydreams between performing their daily routine
- They attacked metal objects and used them to build a structure over the heads of the audience which became a crematorium
- Ritualistic procession ended the play: God (played by a headless corpse) led the inmates to ‘Paradise” – the gas chamber
15
Q
KORDIAN
A
- Setting = psychiatric ward and audience became patients with the protagonist
- Action took place on and around hospital beds, where some audience members were also seated
16
Q
DR FAUSTUS
A
- The audience members were guests invited to Faustus’ last supper
- He served up episodes from his life
- The audience sat around tables
17
Q
THE CONSTANT PRINCE
A
- Explores the hypocrisy and corruption of the world
- A Spanish prince undergoes humiliation, torture, anguish, death
- The audience watch the drama from above, like voyeurs/ like people looking down on an operating theatre watching the actor ‘spiritually dismember himself’
-
Persecutors wore cloaks, high boots, crowns – all
symbols of power ; Prince wore a white loincloth – purity, vulnerability, red cloak of martyrdom - became his death shroud - Elements/influence of catholicism
18
Q
APOCALYPSIS CUM FIGURIS
A
- No original dramatic text: actors responded to a network of myths, historical events, literary fables, and everyday occurrences
- Multi-level parable of the human race
- Action was improvised, multi-textual
- As an art form it was closer to poetry
- Audience was usually restricted to 100 people which made the intimate a/a relationship possible
19
Q
ACTOR TRAINING
A
- Extrodinary feats way beyond abilities of audience - to incite awe and wonder
- Actor to give him/herself completely in preformance to reach a state of secular holiness
- Preformance = intense ritualistic experience for audience ; actors + audience celebrate common humanity, share catharsis, reveal deepest selves
20
Q
SYSTEM OF ACTOR TRAINING
ACTOR TRAINING
A
- Drawn from: Stanislavski, yoga, Meyerhold, Eastern theatre training systems (Indian dance drama - kathakali ; Japanese song drama - Noh)
- The actor to gain absolute control over him/herself physically, vocally, phsychically
- Ability to completely transform oneself as demanded by the production.
- Excercise plastiques : mind-body harmony ; vocal-respiratory excercise; acrobatics (corporals)
21
Q
VIA NEGATIVA
ACTOR TRAINING
A
- Stripping down, removing all bocks so that the actors true impulses could be discovered when exploring a role.
- Aimed not at aquiring skills, but eliminating the muscular blockages that inhibit free, creative reactions BODY MEMORY
22
Q
BODY MEMORY
ACTOR TRAINING
A
- Organic response rooted in the body
- If body meory to be released, natural impulses (discovered in confrontation) would create a flow of action, gesture and sound
- Actor to confront the role, then confront the spectator on his/her discoveries
- Like Stanislavski, emphasised developing greater sponaneity, interaction and receptiveness in his actors.
23
Q
EXCERCISES
ACTOR TRAINING
A
- Walking exercises
- Warming the spine – the cat
- Stimulating the voice: resonance and the y-buzz
- Animals in the body
