Towards a Poor Theatre by Jerzy Grotowski (review)

106 MODERN DRAMA May TOWARDS A POOR THEATRE, by Jerzy Grotowski, with a preface by Peter Brook. Simon and Schuster: New York, 1968. 262 pp. $6.50. In spite of Jerzy Grotowski's objections to being lionized, he has been hailed as the new savior of the theater by his disciples, designated the greatest force in the theater since Stanislavsky by his press agents and friends, and has been proclaimed as something of a Messiah-corne-lately by critics who had almost despaired of ever seeing a revival of interest in the theater, at least not in our lifetime . The intensity which accompanies "being discovered" often does irreparable harm to an original talent which is intent on going forward. Fortunately, Jerzy Grotowski, who has been undergoing this process of "discovery" for the past ten years, has combatted admirers and enemies alike by being almost vulgarly uncommunicative, or rather simply adhering to his theory of via negativa, that is, communicating in spite of one's reticence. The basis of Grotowski's theater is confrontation, and not only in relationship to actor and audience, "poor" and "rich" theater, entertainment and ritual, but also in relation to selection of texts, which has led to a rediscovery of unknown "great works" (that is in languages other than the perenially "acceptable" onesEnglish , French, and German). He has managed to shake up the establishment, and for the first time since Stanislavsky, has challenged old concepts concerning theater as an art form. For Grotowski the theater is not simply a place where plays are performed or where another facet of our culture can be safely viewed: theater for this Pole is a Pandora's box which must be opened because the ritual of discovery is the only meaningful one for man. Perhaps the most valuable contribution of Grotowski's Theater is not his concept of organic staging, nor his insistence on banishing theatrical effects (COStuming , make-up, and lighting), nor his seeming contempt of texts, but his creation of "human music": "Elimination of music (live or recorded) not produced by the actors enables the performance itself to become music through the orchestration of voices and clashing objects." (P. 21) (One becomes even more awed with Grotowski's success in this respect when listening to a tape of his production.) Grotowski's emphasis on "human music" goes hand in hand with his concern for vocal exercises. His theories should revolutionize traditional practices in drama departments and drama schools, especially concerning resonators and theater space. In his "Poor Theatre" the actor-spectator relation is all important. As he himself has said, "all the other things are supplementary." (p. 32) It is a theater of total commitment that starts and ends with the body: "First and foremost , there must be a physical reaction to everything that affects us. Before reacting with the voice, you must first react with the body. If you think, you must think with your body." (p. 204) Grotowski, it is no secret, has no respect for theater-goers in general. For him the audience is composed of merely one type of spectator: "On the one hand he [the spectator] must show that he belongs to the best society where •Art' is a guarantee and, on the other, he wants to experience certain emotions which give him a sense of self-satisfaction." (p. 29) It is little wonder then that Grotowski manages to alienate everyone except those he himself excludes from that category and those that relish being spanked, scolded. and scoffed at. At times his theories and practices seem aimed more at reforming audiences rather than actor and theater traditions. But whatever one thinks of Grotowski and his methods, he is forced to ad- 1970 BOOK REVIEWS 107 mire the honesty which underlies the Polish producer's search for a new theater, which includes a non-commercial chamber theater, a non-religious "holy" relation between actor and spectator, and a non-stop striving for penetration into the inner-self. To his detractors who abhor his freedom of interpretation Grotowski explains his method in a sentence: "For me, a creator of theater, the important thing is not the words but what we do with these words, what...