Jerzi Grotowski - Towards the Essential Theatre
by Jonathan Lowery • 3 May 2004 • 3 May 2004
Jerzy Grotowski (1933 – 1999) (Brockett1: p. 512) is one of the most influential figures
behind development of theatre in the late twentieth century. Although he did not
personally achieve widespread recognition as an artist, his work became integral to the
avante garde and eperimental theatre movements as well as more mainstream
developments through directors like Peter Brook. This influence is due in large part to his
career as a teacher and workshop artist after closing the doors on his Polish Laboratory
Theatre. The core of that legacy lies in his intellectual theories on the unique art of
theatre and his practical work in the field of actor training.
Gotowski focused his theoretical work on determining the defining qualities of the
specific art of theatre. His research led him to the conclusion that what separates theatre
as an art form are two essential elements: the actor and the spectator. Grotowski
considered theatre to be an opportunity for these participants to confront themselves
with truth, reaching under the surface persona that people hide behind in their daily lives.
In his book Towards a Poor Theatre, Grotowski writes about that confrontation in this
way: “We try to escape the truth about ourselves, whereas (in the theatre) we are invited
to stop and take a closer look.” (p. 37).
To serve his effort to confront truth in his research, Grotowski followed a method he
called the ‘via negativa’, or ‘negative road.’ Whenever he discovered a theatrical
ingredient that was not universally required, Grotowski attempted to eliminate it from his
definition of theatre. In Towards a Poor Theatre, Grotowski writes:
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. It
cannot exist without the actor-spectator relationship of perceptual, direct, “live”
communion. (p. 19)
This ‘actor-spectator’ relationship came to define what Grotowski called the ‘Poor
Theatre’. The Poor Theatre was a theatre that intentionally did not allow any extraneous
or unnecessary elements to creep into its productions, thus creating a more pure
theatrical form. It is ‘poor’ because it rejects these extra elements as luxuries that do not
form the core creative process of the theatre. Only the essential elements survived
Grotowski’s rigorous investigation:
This does not mean that we look down on literature, but that we do not find in it
the creative part of the theatre… (Grotowski: p. 33)
A significant traditional factor Grotowski defines as ‘unnecessary’ is the script. Literature,
according to Grotowski, is an addition to theatre:
For me, a creator of theatre, the important thing is not the words but what we do
with these words… the theatre is an act engendered by human reactions and
impulses, by contacts between people. (Grotowski: p. 58)
He also points out that; “In the evolution of the theatrical art the text was one of the last
elements to be added,” (Grotowski: p. 32). Grotowski’s uses text simply as a medium
that can be shaped to meet the requirements of a particular production. Much of
Grotowski’s work mentions finding ‘archetypes’ of human behavior within a text in order
to develop meaningful interactions in performance; a technique which has been used a
great deal in modern abstract theatre. The common ‘archetypes’ allow spectators to
identify themselves with the actor and encourages them to look inside themselves as
they see the actor do the same. Parts of a script that did not serve the production were
either removed outright or altered until they conformed to the production’s needs. Scripts
being somewhat sacred artifacts in the theatrical tradition, this was a bold idea.
Without a need to follow a specific story, Grotowki was free to pursue his actor-spectator
interaction in a more direct fashion. This resulted, among other things, in a controlled
use of environmental theatre in his work. Stanley Kauffman reports on this in Persons of
the Drama:
Grotowski has written of his theatre: ‘Here the producer always keeps in mind
that he has two ‘ensembles’ to direct; the actors and the spectators. The
performance results from an integration of these two ‘ensembles’” For each
production the seating capacity changes… This is not Grotowski’s trickery but his
method. (p. 63)
This use of space is intended to give the spectator an unself-conscious role in the
performance. “At first, he tried to involve the audience directly in the action, but he
concluded that this only made the spectators self-conscious. He then concentrated on
creating spatial relationships among spectators and actors that would permit them to
interact unself-consciously,” (Brockett2: p. 251). For example, Kauffman describes the
seating arrangement at a production of The Constant Prince put on by Grotowski’s
Laboratory Theatre.
There are 100 spectators, arranged in two concentric groups around a small
rectangular arena, looking down on the actors. (This is intended to suggest a
Roman circus or an operating theater.)
The spectators are unconsciously given their role as part of the production simply by the
arrangement of their seats. Another example of this use of space to create relationships
between actor and audience can be seen in the Laboratory Theatre’s production of
Doctor Faustus:
…the action supposedly occurs during a banquet on the night the Devil is to
claim Faustus’ soul. The audience, seated at long tables on or around which the
action occurs, was asked merely to respond as people might at such a function.
These examples clearly show Grotowski’s intention of directing and shaping his two
‘ensembles’. The first being his trained, rehearsed, and willing actors and the second the
random, but contained audience that could be nudged into the right frame of mind by
subtle or overt means of arrangement within the theatre. This is Grotowski’s first major
contribution toward defining the essence of theatre: the audience as co-participants in
theatrical event, not merely detached onlookers.
Although Grotowski managed to develop and control his audiences’ interactions, his
main focus remained on the element of his ‘poor’ theatre over which there is the most
control, the actor. “Grotowski had evolved a training method to liberate actors from
psychological blocks and penetrate their inner selves, ‘surpassing limits’ and creating
moments of spiritual transcendence or ‘translumination’ through self-revelation,” (Brown:
p.441-442). Grotowski explains in Towards a Poor Theatre that: “If the actor… through
excess, profanation and outrageous sacrilege reveals himself by casting off his everyday
mask, he makes it possible for the spectator to undertake a similar process of selfpenetration,” (p. 34). This is Grotowski’s vision for a ‘holy’ actor. This actor, through
extreme physical and mental training, has the ability to totally reveal his innermost being
and inspire the same sort of revelation and examination in his audience. A second
example from Towards a Poor Theatre examines this further:
This is an excess not only for the actor but also for the audience. The spectator
understands, consciously or unconsciously, that such an act is an invitation for
him to do the same thing, and this often arouses opposition or indignation,
because our daily efforts are intended to hide the truth about ourselves not only
from the world, but also from ourselves. We try to escape the truth about
ourselves, whereas here we are invited to stop and take a closer look. (p. 37)
In Grotowski’s opinion, the actor needs to avoid accumulating a ‘bag of tricks’ that he
can apply to any situation. ‘Tricks’ are set actions and therefore cannot completely
express specific impulses. The holy actor realizes these techniques and stock skills are
less than ideal for his goal and strives to penetrate his own personality at every moment
so that he can express his immediate, visceral reactions to stimuli. This action is coupled
with physical training that increases the actor’s control over his body. Grotowski explains
the system he uses like this:
“…the actor will never possess a permanently ‘closed’ technique, for at each
stage of his self-scrutiny, each challenge, each excess, each breaking down of
hidden barriers he will encounter new technical problems on a higher level. He
must then learn to overcome these too with the help of certain basic exercises,”
(Grotowski: p.36).
Training actors to engage in acts of self-revelation and subsequently express those
revelations in a performance setting became a life-long mission for Grotowski. He
gradually developed a method of training that allowed actors to realize their personal
limitations and then guided their efforts to erase those barriers. This concept is again
elaborated in Towards a Poor Theatre:
The performing of this act we are referring to – self-penetration, exposure –
demands a mobilization of all the physical and spiritual forces of the actor who is
in a state of idle readiness, a passive availability…
One must resort to a metaphorical language to say that the decisive factor in this
process is humility, a spiritual predisposition; not to do something, but to refrain
from doing something. (p. 37)
The same concept is espoused elsewhere in Grotowski’s book in this way:
The requisite state of mind is a passive readiness to realize an active role, a state in
which one does not “want to do that” but rather “resigns from not doing it.” (p. 17) This
method of training is necessarily an individual one. Which is another reason Grotowski
firmly opposes the accumulation of abilities as a means of creating an expressive role.
The outward abilities do not necessarily correspond with an inward truth that an actor
confronts within himself.
Grotowski’s research into training the ‘holy’ actor took on a distinctly physical approach
that has influenced much of the theatre since. In his book, there are two sections
devoted to the exposition and explanation of his training practices. However, Grotowski
specifically warns against making these exercises rigidly formal.
“The exercises have now become a pretext for working out a personal form of
training. The actor must discover those resistances and obstacles which hinder
him in his creative task. Thus the exercises become a means of overcoming
these personal impediments,” (Grotowski: p. 133).
Again, Grotowski sought out the intensely personal forms of training that would allow an
actor to personally identify blocks inhibiting his total expression and eliminate them in
order to grow closer to the ‘holiness’ of his craft.
Just as Jerzy Grotowski had begun to master his actor training methods in the Polish
Laboratory Theatre and gain acclaim for his research, he came to the conclusion that
theatre, as it was traditionally thought of, still left a barrier between the actors and
audience that had not been erased. Because of this division, he left the production of
theatre altogether and began devoting himself entirely toward continuing his acting
research (Hodge: p. 191-206). He also spent this time encouraging the elimination of the
traditional concept of theatre in favor of a more complete communion between the
audience and actor. (Brockett1: p.513)
Throughout his career, Grotowski never ended his search for the essence of theatre. His
search for the fundamental elements led to a theatre removed from the tyranny of the
script and closer to the basic interaction of human contact and expression. His unique
approaches to set and house design brought the audience and actors together in a ritual
of inner-penetration that drew every participant to a closer understanding of what it
means to be human. Most enduringly, we find that Grotowski’s definition of a ‘holy’ actor
has brought much of the late twentieth century theatre closer to a ‘poor theatre’ that
requires nothing outside itself.