New Testament of the Theatre

The second chapter of Grotowski’s “Towards a Poor Theatre” discusses a process of paring the form down to an absolute, defined, essential craft. The rigorous subtraction ideally strips away all cultural and personal/psychological information in search of a gestural form that transcends language and enters the “space” of mythic expression. It is a form of the Holy Theatre as described by Brook. Both Grotowski and Brook oppose “dangerous” eclecticism in the theatre, but Grotowski is more zealous in this conviction. He uses the term “Rich Theatre” to describe performance aesthetics that have been diluted by other forms of plastic and performed arts.

This purist view contrasts directly with a widely held concept derived from Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk (”total work of art” or “complete artwork”). Wagner’s total theatre sought to encompass music, performance, and the visual arts (Wikipedia: Wagner) and unify them under the vision of a single director. Growtowski pushes against every facet of this status quo, placing all components of training, preparation, production, performance – even performance space – under consideration.

Grotowski proposes a deep redefinition of theatre, one which severs its dependency upon literature. In his proposed 8-year training process he emphasizes that the first four years (preferably started at an early age of 14) should not include education in literature and the history of the theatre. Instead, he proposes years of practical and technical exercises and humanistic study of the most stimulating phenomena of world culture. Secondary Training of an additional four years would include apprenticeship and study of literature, painting, philosophy and so forth, but only to a degree necessary in the profession, and “not to shine in snobbish society” (Grotowski p.61).

The role of literature in this theatre is placed on a lower step than in others. It is meant to provide the common ground for a confrontation between the individual spectator and concepts that are deeply rooted in his or her culture/psyche/nationality/religion/philosophy. It covers ground that is, as Grotowski puts it, so deeply rooted that we feel it our blood. He is speaking of myths that we carry with us and maybe even beleieve wthout knowing we do — spiritual myths of rebirth and resurrection; biological myths of birth, gender and death; nationalistic myths of progress, power and “the other”. He proposes a Holy Theatre which provokes a spectator’s self analysis by entering myth and simultaneously profaning it. It is profaned by intersecting it with experience and made sacred by the performer’s sacrifice to it; his/her abandonment to it.

In Grotowski’s words, “If we really wish to delve deeply into the logic of our mind and behaviour and reach their hidden layer, their secret motor, then the whole system of signs built into the performance must appeal to our experience, to the reality which has surprised and shaped us, to this language of gestures, mumblings, sounds and intonations picked up in the streets, at work, in cafés – in short, all human behaviour which has made an impression on us.” (p. 52)

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