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CROYDEN'S CORNER
by Margaret Croyden
REMEMBERING JERZY GROTOWSKI
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| Jerzy Grotowski | |
The church with its stained glass windows, its simple altar and white washed walls and its quiet unobtrusive arrangement of the seats was the ideal place to think of Grotowski. It was not far from this church that Grotowski and his Polish Laboratory theater made its appearance in 1970. There, in the simplicity of the Washington Square Church in Greenwich Village, people fought to get a seat. Grotowski, his company, and his philosophy and acting methods took hold, and was destined to change traditional concepts of the theater. Who can forget the beauty and tempestuousness of his company as they performed "The Acropolis," or "The Constant Prince" with the magnificent Richard Cieslak, or "Apocalypsis Con Figuris," possibly Grotowski's most sophisticated piece? To have seen the Grotowski company that year was to be present at a truly significant and unforgettable event. And to have known Grotowski and Cieslak was to experience an unique relationship, one that is cherished and remembered forever.
What follows is a summary of some of the speaker's remarks so that those who could not attend this memorial will get a taste of the tone and quality of the occasion.
Precisely at 1:30 in the afternoon, the opening ceremony began. After a brief moment of silence, Grotowski's voice, as in a dream, was heard. A translation from the French follows.
JERZY GROTOWSKI (ON TAPE):
"Theater has been a great adventure in my life, it has
conditioned my way of thinking, my way of seeing people and
looking at life. But I didn't look for theater. In reality I
always have been looking for something else. But I would say
that my language has been formed by theater.
"When I was young I asked myself what would be a possible job
that would enable me to look for the other one and myself, to
look for a dimension of life that would be rooted in what is
normal, organic, even sensual, but that would go beyond all this,
that would have a sort of axis, another higher dimension that
would surpass us. At that time, I wanted to study either
Hinduism, to work on the different techniques of yoga, or
medicine, to become a psychiatrist, or dramatic art to become a
director. It was the Stalinist period, censorship was very heavy.
Performances were censored, but not rehearsals and the rehearsals
have been for me the most important thing. There something
happened between a human being and another human being, that is
the actor and myself that touched this axis beyond any control
from the outside. It means that the performance has always been
less important that the work in the rehearsals. The performance
had to be impeccable, but I always went back towards the
rehearsals even after the premiere because the rehearsals have
been the great adventure. In the end, it has been this search for
the human being in the others and in myself that lead me to
theater. But it could have lead me to psychiatry or to the study
of yoga.
"When I was young I had a professor who gave me private lessons
without being paid. He was a great wise man and a specialist in
Hinduism. When I began doing theater, I invited him to a
performance but he refused. Why, had he refused, I asked him?
He said, 'Because no matter what you do, it will transform itself
into a hermitage.' Now I find myself with my present work,
beyond performance and any public work, with the artists looking
for this interior axis, I find myself, as he was saying, in an
hermitage."
Harvey Lichtenstein, who first produced Grotowsky in a Greenwich Village church (and is well-known as artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music) was next. He read excerpts from a letter, dated June 4, 1969, that he had received from Grotowski's close friend and agent, Madame Ninon Karlweiss:
HARVEY LICHTENSTEIN:
"Grotowski has become quite disturbed," (she wrote) "with the
mushrooming of so called followers. In fact he has written an
important article in the French paper 'Le Monde' where he starts
a campaign against 'Grotowskites.' His idea is no longer to teach
actors in a couple of weeks the basis of his method because he
has found out that it's then misunderstood and used for
sensational purposes instead of being a preparation for long and
arduous work entailing not only physical effort but, more
important, a great deal of spiritual development and growth.
Therefore, what he proposed is a series of lectures on this theme
using the presence of his company to illustrate in their
performances what he means by his training because they are
trained and, in their acting, they demonstrate what he really
intends. Now the space in which he wants to perform: he refuses
now to appear on the stage of a big theater. He did it once in
France when he was still unknown, but now he wants to disengage
himself completely from the commercial theater and stick to his
premise.
"He wants a bare space--preferably a church--with the following
measurements: width--33 feet: length--44 feet; height--20 feet.
And a clean wooden floor. No lights. No nothing. He is bringing
in his own projectors (a couple at the most). He needs no
stagehands, no lighting men. His actors do all the work. I
mentioned the acoustics. His answer was 'There are no bad
acoustics. There are only actors who don't know how to use their
voice within a given space....It must be clean-bare-with nothing
to distract the spectator from the playing of the actors.
"But when I promised Grotowski that maybe he did not need to
transfer the wooden benches on which the spectators are seated in
'Apocalypsis,' he looked at me reprovingly, and said that I
should know that objects used artistically have a spirit of their
own, and that these benches were made by a peasant whose family
had made benches for churches for over two centuries. So these
benched had to go.
"I cannot describe 'Apocalypsis' for you. It is beyond all
description. Nothing on the stage, but five figures dressed in
white lying on the floor. Two old projectors (spots) in the
corner--and as I said before, a loaf of bread and a napkin.
Slowly from the shadows a dark figure emerges. It is the Innocent
of the Village. Then it happens. Are these people real peasants?
Or are they Lazars speaking the Book of Job--or Jesus speaking
words of T. S. Eliot, Jean Simon Weil, Judas, the Parables of the
Gospel, Simon Peter, or the words of Dostoevski's Great
Inquisitor? This is the spectator's guess. But when the lights
go out, and the end is played by candlelight located below the
faces of the actors, you know that you have seen innocence and
goodness rejected once again from the world, and therefore the
Apocalypsis is upon us. And this is done by two faces confronting
each other. Simon Peter and...Jesus??... So find the right space
and work on the lectures."
It was my turn to speak next. (It was easy for me to record my own remarks.)
MARGARET CROYDEN:
"To talk about Grotowski now that he is gone, is to remember and
relish all the glorious moments when our lives touched. It is to
remember when I first saw his company in Edinburgh in 1968 where
they stunned everyone with 'Acropolis', and 'The Constant Prince'
with the inimitable Richard Cieslak. There in his dingy hotel
room I first found Grot and interviewed him, and later introduced
his work to the "New York Times." It was then that my life long
friendship with Grotowski and Cieslak began. I remember Grot,
the man, smoking his pipe, drinking cognac, staying up all night
talking, laughing, gossiping, giving advice about all things
large or small, with an ironic adorable look in his eyes.
Whether at a New Year's gathering in Andre Gregory's house, or in
Sicily at a celebration for Peter Brook, or at the Crillon Bar in
Paris where Grot loved to eat caviar and drink vodka, or eating
hamburgers in my apartment at 2 a.m. in the morning, Grotowski
was supremely himself. And he would give himself up to you
regardless of how he felt, and in recent years, he was not
feeling well at all.
"Thinking about Grot's life and times, is to recall also the
amazing theater of the 60's, of which he was a part. The Becks
and the Living, Chaikin and the Open Theater, Richard Scheckner
and Dionysus, Andre Gregory and Alice, Richard Foremen and Bob
Wilson, Ellen Stewart's, La Mama, and Peter Brook's new
international experimental company.
"In the forefront there was always Jerzy Grotowski. His art and
philosophy influenced everyone. His "poor theater" become a
revolutionary force, challenging conventional concepts of
theater. His method was studied, written about and emulated.
People tried his body exercises, they went to Poland for his and
Cieslak's workshops, they published books about him and began to
worship him. Though his work was not actually adaptable, he
nevertheless represented an ideal, a way, a symbol of pure
theater. He was a magician who could influence many people,
especially the young. Eventually, even the establishment
recognized his genius. The MacArthur foundation awarded him their
prestigious grant, and in the last years of his life Paris showed
its appreciation and elected him to the College De France, one of
the few foreigners so honored.
"Despite his reputation and his spectacular success, Grot left
off performing altogether and what he called the social game to
continue his own personal search. He settled in Pontedera Italy
to work with a small group carefully and quietly experimenting
with ancient rituals, ancient sounds, and organic movements. This
group became well known all over Europe and still exists and is
still working. In the end, Grotowski, ill and dying, labored to
put his work in order, leaving his legacy to the leader of the
group, Thomas Richards.
"But the main thing about Jerzy Grotowski for me who knew him
for thirty years was his basic humanity, and his commitment to a
set of principles that he never wavered from. Yes, Grotowski the
artist was revered. And rightly so. But I revered him not only
because of his art, but because he was a rare being and a devoted
friend, and had remained faithful despite the distances between
us. Years ago, when I came out of the Polish woods after a
remarkable experience devised by Grotowski and led by my dear
Richard Cieslak Grotowski told me to search for another Way---to
follow my own flame. For me, Grot was the flame. He had the
uncanny ability to make a profound difference in one's life. We
who loved him know that in losing him, we lost something
essential and irreplaceable. But something very precious remains
within us forever."
Next was Judith Malina, co-founder with the late Julian Beck of The Living Theater.
JUDITH MALINA:
(Malina began by chanting softly.) "Hosanna, Hosanna...The hymn of praise with
which the "kohanim", the priests in the temple blessed the
congregation. Hosanna: that we have had such a teacher, such a
guide, such a friend among us. And what will we do now? How to
go on without him? How do we use what he has shown us? For we are
the happy few who knew him, gathered now to memorialize him.
Here, and everywhere in the world, where we gather to mark
Grotowski's passing, it is for us who have heard and understood
to fulfill that far-reaching vision. And after all, Grotowski
meant to teach us. He retreated from the theater so as to do this
vital research. And now the lesson has become ours.
"And who are we? I don't see the great stars of Broadway here,
though they too, have benefited from his revolutionary quest.
Their motives, however, are so far from ours, and so far from his
as to preclude any real understanding on their part.
"But I see here the adventurous and the great creative spirits of
that bolder theater which we have made. We are the continuity. We
are the people who will further the experiment.
"And what does he ask of us? That we go deeper into ourselves
before we speak. That the actor speak only her deepest truth.
That we labor mightily with our resistance to that truth. That we
learn to express it. Every time we make it prettier, make it
easier, more palatable, more charming, we betray Grotowski and
his legacy. To imagine that the voyage is limited to a particular
historical decade, is to miss its meaning.
"It is a difficult time for the arts. We need to draw inspiration
from Jerzy's dying breath and to go as far as we dare, as he did.
Then from the gloom comes the Hosanna. That's what he taught us.
That's what we still need to learn."
Next to speak was Bill Reichblum, currently the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Bennington College.
BILL REICHBLUM:
"Many artists are cursed in their old age, or at the time of
their passing to be remembered only by their own generation,
especially in the ephemeral world of theater. But the presence
of Jerzy Grotowski is still spirited and still flowing.
I am sure that for all of us Jerzy set a standard of rigor,
discipline, and responsibility that we might not be able to
attain, but we know that a standard has to be fought for; we know
we have to challenge ourselves before we attempt to challenge our
collaborators, and those to whom we offer ourselves.
"The significance of Jerzy's place in theater history will never
be forgotten. But more directly, this remarkable man will
continue to be present as only a master teacher can be from the
past, in the present, and towards the future. In my tradition,
there is a spiritual understanding that there are always thirty-
six just men in the world. These thirty-six do nothing less than
keep alive the searches and the world of God. I have no doubt
that Jerzy was one of the thirty-six. Although in passing, the
person is replaced, we acknowledge that he can never be
displaced, never forgotten by those to whom he gave so
intimately, so forcefully and so vitally.
"In the act of remembering Jerzy, there is also my memory of
someone who is both present and not present today. Where Jerzy
discovered the deep connections between our world and the world
carried within us, Chiquita Gregory
"Now, the life force of Jerzy continues within us and within our
actions. Each of us, I am sure, is extraordinarily grateful for
having been touched, having been sparked by Jerzy. We can also be
grateful that his work will directly continue though his
relationship with his intended heir, Thomas Richards. I know how
important Thomas has been to Jerzy in the last thirteen years,
and the absolute vigor of Thomas' understanding, intellect, and
imagination. In honoring Jerzy, we should honor his determination
to continue to transmit his work to new generations of artists,
explorers, and students through Thomas Richards and the Work
Center in Pontedera.
"One of the many stories Jerzy loved was the story of Bal Shem
Tov who went to a certain place in the forest, lit a fire in a
specific way and practiced a specific meditation of prayer. Over
a long period of time, after his passing, the specific words of
the prayer were lost. Then the specific way of lighting the fire
was lost. Then even the specific place in the forest was lost.
This could be perceived as a disaster, a complete break from the
past. However, the lesson is that this was not the case, because
at least, we still have the story.
"Now each of us has our individual stories of Jerzy. And the
stories and their meanings will continue to be brought forth from
within us."
Actor/director Andre Gregory was the last speaker. Gregory told amusing anecdotes about his long friendship with Grotowski; he told about their travels together and their wonderful talks in the desert, on beaches, and even while sitting on the rocks in an ocean. Although Gregory was humorous and captured the spirit of Grotowski in these amusing talks, everyone in the room knew how much Grotowski had meant to Andre Gregory and his late wife, Chiquita Gregory . Both were intimately involved with Grotowski from the beginning and before Chiquita Gregory died, she made an amazing film of Grotowski's work in Pontedera that illustrated what Grotowski and his protegee, Thomas Richards, were searching for. The film was shown in many places in America and especially in Europe, and is now part of the heritage of the amazing world of Jerzy Grotowski.
The memorial ended with a tape recording of a choral group, "Le Choeur Sirene" singing a liturgical work based on the great spiritual text, "The Lamentations of Jeremiah," composed by Vladimir Martynov. Orignally staged as a theater piece by the well known Russian director (and friend of Grotowski), Anatoly Vassiliev, the music filled the space with glorious sounds that expressed perfectly the grand and indomitable spirit of Grotowski. So splendid was the music that everyone sat transfixed and a rare quiet enveloped the room; no one moved, whispered, or coughed; each sat with his or her own thoughts listening carefully to the music reverberating through the church. When the music stopped there was an extraordinary silence again, the solemn and beautiful silence of a deep emotional meditation. Then, the ceremony ended--precisely at the moment the church bells rang out. A fitting tribute to my friend--the remarkable Jerzy Grotowski. [Croyden]
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| Margaret Croyden is a theater reviewer and essayist for the New York Theatre Wire. | |
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