Jerzy Grotowski was a Polish theatre director and theorist born in 1933 who developed theories of "poor theatre" that focused on stripping down theatrical productions to emphasize the skills and talents of the actors over elaborate sets and costumes. The document discusses Grotowski's influences, including Stanislavski, and his work developing productions in Poland that explored physical acting techniques. It outlines his transition in the late 1960s to developing "paratheatre" projects and traveling globally to study rituals and performance practices. Key writings by Grotowski discussing his theories and workshops are also summarized.

1. The Poor Theatre of Grotowski
Lecture 10 at CRAFT by Anirban Banik

2. Jerzy Grotowski
● Born in August 1933 in Rzeszow, Poland.
● His Family separated in world war two.
● His father went to fight in the war and was stationed in England.
● Jerzy with his mother and brother, escaped from the Nazis and went to live with his aunt and uncle on a
farm in Krakow where he learned spiritual awakenings from his uncle, a Bishop, which led to his ideas
towards the theatre.
● He then went on to study for a degree in drama at a theatrical school in Krakow and then on to
Lunacharsky Institute of Arts, in Moscow from 1955 for a year where he learnt more about the works of
various practitioners around the world.
● He was most influenced by the works of Konstantin Stanislavsky.

3. Jerzy Grotowski
● The works of Stanislavsky are well known; he was a spiritualist and passionate about the theatre ,
believing it was a serious place that required dedication and discipline. He also studied at the same
theatre school in Moscow as Grotowski and later formed his own arts theatre. He was socialist and
portrayed that in his works. He believed every actor should show real emotion, realism, and believed the
idea of going to the theatre the same as if watching real lifelike our modern day soaps.
● He also studied the works of Yevgeny Vakhtangov who was student of Stanislavski and continued
working in that form but was also influenced by Vsevolod Meyerhold whose work was hated by
Stanislavski because of its contemporary structure using circus style effects and toyed with the ideas
of theatrical academism and symbolism.

4. Jerzy Grotowski
● He then went on to teach drama as a director in Poland at the same theatre school he attended until
1960, teaching his students the art of realism and works of his favourite practitioners.
● Whilst teaching he put on many different shows, his debut in 1958 ‘Gods of Rain’
● He then took over a theatre company called the ‘Theatre of 13 rows’ where he taught his theories to a
group of young budding actors and performers.
● By 1964 Grotowski had put together many successful plays but one particular production ‘The Tragical
History of Doctor Faustus’ where he instructed the actors to use every part of their bodies to show all
emotions, using actors instead of props, taking a new approach on modern realism .
● In 1967 he produced ‘The Constant Prince’ Which is said to be the most successful and powerful
production of his works in the 20th century.

5. Jerzy Grotowski
● In 1968 Grotowski was introduced to the works of Eugenio Barba who was said to be the
father of contemporary theatre and introduced Grotowski to the modern world behind the iron
curtain where as Stanislavsky only believed in theatre being a natural art form rather than a
stage production.
● This then led Grotowski onto the works of ‘The Poor Theatre’.
● Jerzy Grotowski and his movements during 1968 – 1980
● In the 50’s and 60’s Grotowski abandoned theatre to study the Eastern culture. He travelled
also to countries such as Australia, Canada, and Japan and there he began to plan his
paratheatre tour. (Paratheatre in its literal sense is alongside theatre)

6. Jerzy Grotowski
● In 1968 Grotowski wrote a book titled ‘Towards A Poor Theatre’ this was able to show the
main theory of Grotowski’s work. It was that theatre should compete with tv and film and that
it should just be brought back to its original routes as being an actor in front of spectator.
This Grotowski saw as the most important factor and the rest of the experience in the theatre
was implied but not necessary. This was demonstrated through Grotowski’s rehearsals as a
black set was used and rehearsal clothes were all black too. In performance the plays were
allowed set and costume but it was made clear that the actor was not an image as that was
the act of the cinema.

7. Jerzy Grotowski
● During rehearsals of this time Grotowski made it clear that his actors needed complete
control over their bodies and their breathing and voice, strenuous and rigorous exercises
were used to achieve this. To achieve a Grotowskian aesthetic the actor needed to engage
both himself and the audience in a spiritual and almost psychic revelation, he wished them all
to find something from within.
● In 1970 Grotowski took his third trip to the East and visited countries such as Central Asia
and China.

8. Jerzy Grotowski
● As the 1970’s closed Grotowski was busy with his entourage studying the ritualistic dances
around the globe visiting countries such as Mexico, Haiti, Nigeria and India trying to find
common denominators while exploring theatrical form.
● From 1973 – 1977 Grotowski was organising and holding public projects around the world
including group séances of Psychotherapeutic and ethical dimensions and getting the
participants to discover themselves interpersonally. He tried to find a new way of
communicating to others through their own thoughts using gesture, movement, chant and
song. His projects were later attended by Peter Brooks and Jean-Louis Barrault.

9. Jerzy Grotowski
● Grotowski later invited viewers of previous productions to participate in and be part of a
project in live culture. The reasons for doing this was to get the maximum effect of unity
between actor and viewer. This was to be his last theatrical production: Apocalypsis cum
Figuris
● Jerzy Grotowski emigrated to America in 1982 and became a lecturer at California’s
University.

10. Jerzy Grotowski
● Jerzy Grotowski: 1980-1999
● Lectured in Rome in 1982 at the University of Rome La Sapienza
● Sought political asylum in the US in 1982
● Started “Objective Drama” work in 1983
● Moved to Manhattan in 1983
● Objective Drama 1983-1986
● Analysing the “psycho physiological impact” of songs and chants from traditional cultures.
● Simple techniques having a cross cultural effect on the human mind and body

11. Jerzy Grotowski
● Moved back to Italy in 1986 to the Centro per la Sperimentazione e la Ricerca Teatrale
● Less pressure for instant results than Manhattan
● Researched “Art as a Vehicle”
● “Art as a Vehicle” meant using performance to achieve a higher level of perception – theatre no longer
about the audience so much as the participants, which drew criticism.
● Interactive performances; getting audience to join in with actors, actors as tutors and participants
rather than performing for the audience to passively receive.
● Trained Thomas Richards to become protégé, named institute The Work Centre of Jerzy Grotowski and
Thomas Richards as acknowledgement and celebration of their partnership.
● Died in 1999, leaving all intellectual property to Richards and Mario Biagini

12. Jerzy Grotowski
● Jerzy Grotowski’s key writings:
○ ‘Towards A Poor Theatre’ (first published in Polish, 1965. Translated by T. K. Wiewiorowski, 1967)
presents the key concepts in Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre. In this book it shows that Grotowski defines
two fundamental concepts:
○ Poor Theatre and Performance as an act of Transgression. Grotowski also shows that his mastery of
○ psychology, history and anthropology map out his thoughts about contemporary theatre and the idea of
myth within it.
○ A definition of Poor Theatre: Poor Theatre is that the aesthetics of the performance are taken away.
○ Poor Theatre – stripped of spectacle and superfluous decoration – grounded in the belief that the
personal and scenic technique of the actor is the core of theatre art.

13. ‘Skara Speech’ (1966)
● This was presented to young persons in the Skara Drama School (Sweden 1966) by Grotowski and his
collaborators this is where they introduced the idea of vocal and physical exercises known best in the
Laboratory Theatre. Within this method of acting Grotowski lists several concepts that are key to acting:
○ Associations:
■ precise memories, thoughts and sensory, which are linked to the physical reaction of the
memory. So your body remembers a smell so lets say have to react in a disgusted way.
Then you connect with the smell and you perform a reaction which has been achieved by a
contact in the memory.

14. ‘Skara Speech’ (1966)
● Impulses
○ Score: Grotowski believes that a score is used and needed in any performance. This comes
in the form of a ‘clearly defined text and action’. The reasons for a score being so greatly
needed is that Grotowski believes that on stage an actor should not, on impulse, look for
spontaneity.
○ Contact: ‘Contact is to really see’. Contact results in harmony between you and your
partner.
● Sign
○ Cliché: Grotowski warns actors to never take the ‘easy road of association’.

15. ‘Skara Speech’ (1966)
● Sign
○ Authenticity: Grotowski declares that you cannot play death because you have not
experienced it. You should never try to act out something which you have not felt. So first
you should make connections with feelings that are linked to the, for example, act of death
and apply these to the action.
● Ethics

16. ‘Holiday’ (Sweito) ‘The day that is Holy’ (1970, 1971, 1972)
● In this article Grotowski announced his retreat from the arena of theatre production and set forth the
parameters of his paratheatre research.
● The language and form of ‘Holiday’ suggests euphoric optimism of cultural change.
● In my opinion it implies that ‘Holiday’ as a text is very enlightening and in a sense laid back and relaxed
as it embraces the changes from within culture and its response from Grotowski shows what effect it
had upon him.

17. ‘Theatre of Sources’ (1997)
● This is an article that gathers together some of his practical observations and reminisces
about this period of work. It gives an insight into what Grotowski’s observations were during
this period of time about his works.
● He then goes on to inform us of what stages he went through whilst remembering these
works.
● He starts out with his own roots and process. He then passes on the process to the young
people of ‘his kind’ then finally to his observations of practices of a whole community of
‘traditional religious’ practitioners. Then he ends with a personal story of awakening.
● This tells us what aspects he chose to recall upon to achieve his works.

18. ‘Tu Es Le Tils De Quelqu’an (You are someone's son)’ (1989)
● This writing by Grotowski explores the ideas of:
○ Harmonic improvisation: When the actor constantly re-adapts to a structure.
○ Enthodramas: These are always passing through phases of crisis then organicity. It is
the spontaneity of life followed by technical absorption.
‘Performer’ (1988)
● This text begins with two important definitions:
○ Performer: man of action
○ Ritual: is performance, plays, shows. When life becomes rhythm.

19. Themes, Practices and Key Ideas
● Holocaust – Akropolis
● Actors as central part of theatre
● Theatre as different and separate to film & TV –
not trying to imitate or achieve same effects
● “Encounter” between audience and actors
● Poor Theatre – Theatre can exist without makeup,
lighting, effects, costumes, props, or scenery. The
core is actors & audience; direct communion.
● Minimal use of props vital in Grotowski's theatre.
● Contrast is Rich Theatre ; this attempts to imitate
film techniques and effects.
● Holocaust – Akropolis
● Actors as central part of theatre
● Theatre as different and separate to film & TV –
not trying to imitate or achieve same effects
● “Encounter” between audience and actors
● Poor Theatre – Theatre can exist without makeup,
lighting, effects, costumes, props, or scenery. The
core is actors & audience; direct communion.
● Minimal use of props vital in Grotowski's theatre.
● Contrast is Rich Theatre ; this attempts to imitate
film techniques and effects.

20. Influences
● There are many different influences in Grotowski life that led him to his great works. Living with his uncle the
bishop made him a very catholic person and gave him the ideas of the theatre being a sacred place like a
church to a bishop it was a director or a performer’s sacred place.
● He also as greatly influenced by the early 20th century and all the politics and war that went on in his young life,
which affected most people especially in Poland and had a big impact on his life. Living in simplicity, hence the
idea of the poor theatre and the idea of getting rid of all props and costumes and sticking to the basics.
● Practitioners who has influence on his works were Stanislavski for the ideas of realism and expressing real
emotions from the actors to the audience, i.e. they would believe it to be real.
● Grotowski was also influenced by the ideas of tearing down the iron curtain and interacting to the audience
which is what Stanislavski hated.

21. The Impact
● He challenged what words such as ‘theatre’ and ‘acting’ actually meant and introduced the notion theatre could be reduced
to no less than one actor and one audience member, this was a radical idea at that time and has since influenced many
subsequent theatre artists.
● Ironically a wide ranging indirect impact is not what Grotowski wanted. For him such an outward movement of effects was
too haphazard, too risky, too fraught with misuse and misinterpretations and so designated his inferior [Richard Schechner
1999]
● Grotowski’s importance seemed to increase after his death, the ambiguity of some of his studies only serves to feed
curiosity and a research grant from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council has been made to the sum of £,203,000
to conduct the British Grotowski Project a re-evaluation, from October 2006 – October 2009, this will be ran by Professor
Paul Allain at the University of Kent in conjunction with overseas partners including the Work centre of Jerzy Grotowski and
Thomas Richards in Pontedera, Italy (where Grotowski’s work continues) and also The Grotowski Institute of Wroclaw in
Poland.

22. The Impact
● A large project such as this will be a powerful aid in continuing the impact of Jerzy Grotowski; they are running
workshops and events in conjunction with this all over the world right now.
● At the last count in 1995 Grotowski’s bibliography is said to stand at 20,000 pieces which was also thought to
be a rather conservative estimate.

23. Problems Raised by Grotowski
● A problem with Grotowski’s work is that it was somewhat ambiguous and confusing with Grotowski sometimes seemingly
talking in riddles: “His work is well known and obscure simultaneously” [Schechner 1997], and so because of this his work
was often misconceived which caused hostility, it provoked extremes in response, some considered it be anarchic and
anti-art, if you read any of his interviews or essays they feel incredibly esoteric…
● A response in an article published about Jerzy Grotowski: “The austere approach can be a beautiful thing, but as an artistic
matter it’s rather hermetic. At its worst it can be annoying and inspire a kind of zealotry” [Stephen Nunns 1999]
● Grotowski goes onto say “We are concerned with the spectator who has genuine spiritual needs and who really wishes
through confrontation with the performance to analyse himself…when confronted with the actor there must be some
common ground already existing in both of them something they can either dismiss in one gesture or jointly worship’
[Grotowski 1975]

24. Problems Raised by Grotowski
● One of the reasons for the research that is being carried out by the British Grotowski project is that for a practitioner whose
contribution to world theatre is so widely acknowledged there is a lack of precise knowledge and access to primary
sources, key texts, good translations and main treatises as well as clearly articulated and accessible documents and of
reflections of his practises. There’s is also no systematic analysis of his influence on British theatre making and university
drama studies since 1965. [P. Allain]
● Indeed it feels as though a background knowledge on all of Grotowski’s methods and theories is needed before you can
begin to understand the terminology that he used.
● It was noted that not just anyone could attend Grotowski’s theatre, this is an excerpt from an interview with him by Eugenio
Barba:
○ Grotowski: We do not cater for the man who goes to the theatre to satisfy a social need for contact with Culture
○ Barba: Does this infer a theatre for the elite?
○ Grotowski: Yes…We are not concerned with just any audience but a special one [Barba 1964]

25. Problems Raised by Grotowski
● Another problem with the work of Grotowski is that it created such an impact because it was revolutionary at
the time. In the age that we live in now this impact can be lost on us as we judge it by today’s standards, where
the boundaries are continually pushed further – experiments constantly occur with the result that the
experiment becomes less radical as the effects go into the mainstream theatre meaning it is always becoming
more adventurous and expanding to accommodate new innovations, so Grotowski’s work needs to be
appreciated in the context it was created in: ‘ His work always operated on this kind of theatrical and political
knife's edge’ [Allen Kuharski 1999]. At the time that Grotowski was carrying out his work Poland was under
communism and his search for the authentic self made sense [Miroslaw Kocur] but…

26. Problems Raised by Grotowski
● I feel that an audience member who would attend a Grotowski production without a full understanding of his
beliefs and techniques could have found themselves isolated and even bored, I think that this would also be
true of any actor in the present day wishing to study his technique, he created methods which he felt needed to
be followed to the letter, it was a ‘total act’, a complete way of life to be adhered to, a rigorous discipline with
intense physical work, eliminating elements of the actors natural behaviour to obscure pure impulse [Jerzy
Grotowski 1975] and it has been agreed doing just ‘some’ Grotowski work would be impossible and wouldn’t do
him justice, it is either all or nothing. [Natasha Oxley]
● I think a major problem in Grotowski’s work is this all or nothing approach, the removal of sets, costumes and
lighting in his work all though he felt it was valid to his cause it causes others to disconnect from him, audience
and designers.

27. The Impact
● Grotowski had certain ideas that I find interesting which provoke me to look at design in different ways…
● …I liked the idea of the actors building and transforming the set themselves as the play progresses in full view of the
audience, such as in his play Akropolis.
● I also liked his ideas and experiments with the actors using their own bodies to represent objects.
● I think his methods in looking into ways of exploiting the fact that theatre is live and what can it do that film and television
cannot makes great sense, as I think sometimes with all of the technology that is readily available it is sometimes a factor
that is not taken full advantage of.
● My opinion differs from Grotowski in that I feel theatre should be a total experience including, set, costumes and lighting in
whatever sense of balance is suitable for any given play, I feel that it gives room to endless possibilities of experimentations
and combinations and is a vital tool for visual communication to heighten the spectators level of understanding.

28. The Impact
● My opinion also differs from Grotowski’s in that I feel theatre should be readily available to anyone who wishes
to attend, regardless of their reason for attending or the level of understanding that they posses, whether it be
for a spiritual awakening, entertainment or education etc, theatre means different things for different people
and although I don’t condone what he was trying to do I think you need to be able to acknowledge that there is
a great variety of theatre genres and that is shouldn’t be exclusive to anyone group of people.
● From researching Jerzy Grotowski, I have experienced new ways of looking at and interpreting theatre. Through
interaction with the audience performers can draw them into the production with a far greater depth than with
the chasm between performer & audience that often exists. While I personally dislike his dismissal of most
aspects of theatre design as peripheral, I can see that through concentrating on the actors emotions he
brought about a new era of acting methodology.

29. The Impact
● I have learnt a lot from researching Jerzy Grotowski’s work. In my opinion as a theatre designer I do not really agree with his
views. I believe the experience of going to the theatre includes set and costume etc and although I liked the idea of using
physical forms to interpret props for some plays I believe you have a better experience viewing a performance which varies
in colour and variety.
● Throughout this list of Grotowski’s key writings I can see that he looks at theatre in a very matter of fact and simple fashion.
He sees that the action and plot are key most important aspects so they must not be smothered in aesthetics such as
costume, scenography, lights and set. I can connect with this application of belief but I can also see that the aspects that
Grotowski finds superficial can make another's theatre experience. Seeing these aspects such as set, props, costume and
lighting heightens the pleasure you get from watching a performance. The simplicity of actor and space is a great rehearsal
technique more than anything as it gives the actor/performer the ability to convey the mood/action that he/she wants to
show without depending on the props. I agree with the statement that if the superficials were to be taken away then the
actor should still be able to convey the same message.

30. References
● http://owendaly.com/jeff/grotowsn.html
● www.muse.jhu.edu/journals/theater/v029/29.2kuharski.html
● www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/research/Grotowski/GrotowskiESSAY.pdf
● www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/research/Grotowski/GrotowskiESSAY.pdf
● http:// www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A7614902
● http://owendaly.com/jeff/grotdir.htm
● http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_grotowski_jerzy

31. In terms of my attitude to the dramatic text, I think that the
director should treat it solely as a theme upon which he
builds new work or art that is the theatrical spectacle.

32. good luck!
&
thank you
For any query write to me at
banik.anirban94@gmail.com
+91 9862675124
+91 7005125605
Click to follow on Instagram