Grotowski Research

Jerzy Grotowski 

- born in South Poland, Rzsow in 1933
- influenced by religious writings including The Bible and The Quran
- he set up The Polish Theatre Lab (a theatre company)

Theatre that portrayed real life was what inspired Grotowski to create his experimental work because he wanted to push more boundaries than what realistic/naturalistic theatre was pushing. Grotowski was often more interested in form than the story itself meaning he was able to strip theatre back into what its foundations were.

He believed in the importance of the actor-stage-audience relationship and wanted to get rid of everything superfluous as he felt that their value was not as great as this relationship.
One of his most infamous beliefs was that exhaustion allows an actor to have more of an ability to tap into their own visceral emotions that we as actors don't or can't normally tap into. He believed that the actor- audience relationship was key because it was the only way that the actor could truly connect with their character and then the audience resulting in altering or changing the audience.

His Experimental Style wasn't just an exercise; it was really a way of life. He would encourage his actors to eat together, run  together, live together and exercise together. He believed this would create the Holy Actor.

He invented the term Poor Theatre.

Poor Theatre: is theatre that gets rid of the superfluous factors that normally come with a play such as costume and lighting. It is essentially not investing money into it and staying well away from making a business out of it.

He believed in Poor Theatre being the best kind because it increased the actor- audience relationship which has a greater effect on the audience and their perception of the play.

One of his practises was called via negativa. This meant to rid yourself of anything that would stop you from becoming the best actor you can be.

I can see that this would be an important thing to do and pay attention to because there are quite a few things that can cause friction between actors causing them to not perform so well such as personal issues with other actors and self confidence issues abut their issues with them-self as an individual performer.

Grotowski really believed in being in the moment whilst acting because he felt that it was important
to genuinely feel as an actor what your character is feeling.

One exercise he often enforced was to force his actors to run around the woods naked for long periods of time so that they could access their emotions more readily