Texts, Essays, and Intimate Commentaries

TEXTS, ESSAYS, AND INTIMATE COMMENTARIES Tadeusz Kantor Translator'sNote: In putting together this selection of Tadeusz Kantor's writingsI wanted toprovidethe readerwith acollection that wove together Kantor'stheoreticalessays with the notesfrom hispersonaldiaries.I would like to express my gratitudeto Anna Halczakforprovidingme with excerpts from Kantor's diaries and to Maria Stangret-Kantorand the Cricoteka Archivesfor theirpermission to translateKantor'sessays. CHARLEVILLE 1988 [...] I return to Chateau Bleu HotelOn the doors, Michel Ange is writtenWhere am I? I knock on the doors, nothing happensnobody answerssilence , a tomb-like silence. I light a cigarette! I reveal my thoughts to a cigarette, we are close to each other, I can trust it. But, finally, I have to admit to myself that a cigarette, like many other people, listens in one moment and lets go in another in smokenothing happens, nothing happens... -This piece of paper E 19 is more faithful... so I am writing... -but every piece of paper is like a "door" that will soon be closed forever-and again nothing. [...] [ This text by Tadeusz Kantorwasfound in his notes from 1990.1 In the past, I never thought about documenting or chroniclingsomewhere in the drawers, somewhere on the wardrobe's shelves, odd pieces of paper, of notes, drawings, and letters were left in disarray to gather dust. There was a lot of charm and nonchalance in this carelessness of mine. All seemed to be without a shape, constantly transforming. But there came a time when I noticed that everything that I had done started to come together and to form discernible contoursa concrete construction that emerges while a house is being built. To continue the process of building, I needed to discover the blueprints, to trace down the architect... The house began to be represented by its shape and by its style. And this was the beginning. I started to document, to follow carefully the lines of the blueprintstoday , I am just about to complete the house. The maps, the blueprints, the archives have amplified in volumethe house has a complex construction. The house has got a name. Cricot 2 20 U PERFORMING ARTS JOURNAL 47 Theatre. The Archives are called CRICOTEKA. When the house is in ruins, the archives have to surviveI speak these words to YOU My Friends, remember about the Archives. You, Friends of the HOUSE, who are many all over the world. This is my plea and desirethe Archives have to stay intact. They will be a living testimony to the condition of the actors, to that unrequited love towards the house, to our difficulties, perseverance, our victories, our journeys, and the battles fought. Maybe one day, the archives will be of use to those who wish to continue the house, or to rebuild it using even different blueprints. No matter which, the initial blueprints will always remain its foundationRemember this. Notes, 1989 I have to have some strength left in me to explain and fortify the position of the Cricotekato make sure that my last work of art survives -tournies, the production, Leqons d'Avignon, casa Cricot in Milano, Charleville, Bablet's book, proceedings from the Symposium. I lost all life's happinessKANTOR / Texts, Essays, andIntimate Commentaries U 21 that something (a body mechanism, maybe) that causes our happiness in the morning... ... that we have so much to do... If one could only walk as in the past, breathe in fresh airand see as sharply as in the past... a still-lifeI have never painted a still-lifea still-life equals death, a painting without life, bereft of life's symptoms, nature morte. I should paint the whole series of nature morte"vraiment morte. Memory (1986) This is the first information bulletin of the Cricot 2 Theatre. 1986. There should have been many more volumes publishedwe could have started, for example, at the time of the first tournee in 1968. But, initially, a tournde was a "journey" into the world. A conquest. There was no time to chronicle it. We conquered the world not in the name of success on our lips, but in the name of "True Faith." This "faith" was of course the decalogue of the AVANT - GARD E. Our faith was the belief that the...