Unit 1 - Principles of Performance Task 4 : Jerzy Grotowski

 Jerzy Grotowski

Jerzy Grotowski was a theorist who trained as an actor before moving onto studying production. His move to production allowed him to introduce his theory named "Poor Theatre". His concept is that by removing objects that encourage and influence an actor's journey into becoming a character, an actor is truly able to transform through the use of his own acting abilities leaving just himself, the audience and the theatre. By removing things like props, music, scenery, costumes, you are able to be more creative and imaginative without the pressure of the objects around you that you find to be unnecessary, controlling the character you become, making it even more surreal and powerful for a spectator as they watch the actor's transformation. It really, in my opinion, allows an actor to test their strengths and discover their weaknesses, as they can forget about the music and sound effects since their own voices are what will carry them through. They can get rid of costumes and props since their own emotions and reactions can tell clearly a story. Jerzy Grotowski himself said "In the actor, in his body, there is the entire theatre, you can say but against the dreams about total theatre, that is, the total theatre through the total actor." 

Our Ghost Light tour at Stockton Globe is much like Jerzy Grotowski's Poor Theatre theory. Aspects such as a shared actor-audience space are included in both our tour and Grotowski's theory, in which we brought our audience along, even talking to them when necessary. We also included different levels of staging in multiple sections of our tour, whether that was during the vaudeville piece, where some actors were on stage and others were sat watching, and even when the Stage Door Keepers were talking to the audience on the steps whilst other actors and the audience stood below them. Poor Theatre was evident in our tour at the Globe as most of our tour consisted of our actors speaking, controlling the emotions and storyline of the piece without any props or music and showed to be on their own a lot. 

When it came to our Actor-audience relationship, it showed to be evident in Jerzy Grotowski's theory. He believed in the concept of the "priesthood" of sacredness of the actor, and when the actor entered the sanctity of the performance space, a special event occurred. He also said that when this happened, this allowed an audience to be challenged and think of the actor and its theatre. That shows to relate to our piece, like in the scene in the dressing room with Ivy Stone and Olive Thomas, since the special event was the disagreement and Olive's unexpected death, which made the audience sympathize with Ivy and have plenty of feelings towards Olive, Ivy and even Jack, who poisons Olive in the end. 

Jerzy Grotowski was able to showcase his acting, production skills at the Polish Laboratory Theatre, in which he staged a handful of shows from its opening in 1959 to its closing in 1970 that highlighted his views of environmental theatre. Two of his main shows that showcased "Poor Theatre" were Kordian in 1962 where the set resembled a mental institution, where audience members were involved by sitting on beds alongside real actors a part of the piece. Hi second show was called Doctor Faustus made in 1963, where the space was set out with two large dining rooms, where again audience members could sit at the table and immersive themselves into the production much like our Halloween tour.

He passed away at the age of 65 but has proven to be one of the most influential theorists in modern theatre today and till the end of time.