STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

ANNEX 2 - SECTION J:
STREET ARTS IN EASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE:
THE EXAMPLE OF POLAND
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Street Artists in Europe
Contribution by Dr Joanna Ostrowska and Dr Hab. Juliusz Tyska – January 2007 – in the
framework of the study “Street Artists in Europe”
1. Introduction
The space in theatre is an essential element, a statement which at the beginning of the 19 th
century might seem to be a truism. This space constitutes not only the shape and the form of a
particular performance, but also, and maybe most importantly, it builds a kind of relation
between actors and audience. Most of experiments with the space in theatre in the 20 th century
concerned the change of this particular relationship. The negation of Italian baroque space, and
later of theatre building as an allotted area, “the temple of the arts” which could admit only the
chosen, was derived from this need to establish a new, more direct contact with spectators. This
contact, according to some artists, was supposed to be more easily accomplished in the space,
which was not burdened with the habits of responding to theatre works, meaning in the areas
which had previously been ‘non-theatrical’. Whereas such space could have turned out to be
anything: a magazine, a basement, a church, and also a street or a park 390 .
When, after the period of restriction to a building, theatre would again start to move on to the
open spaces, it seemed that it returned to its “natural environment”. For centuries it had been
linked to the city life and to the reversal of cultural order. Although it was transitory and
ephemeral, it seemed that in the 19 th century it was finally locked in a building. And it was not
any sort of building, since it was constructed in such a way to allow not merely for creation of
community, but rather for auto-celebration. The architecture of this building, formed in the
period of Italian baroque, reflected rigid social hierarchy. It was already in the twenties of the
20 th century that Erwin Piscator critically analyzed this space, pointing to the consequences of
its arrangement: “The architecture of theatre remains in the most inextricable relation with every
form of drama. (..) However, the roots of drama, as well as of architecture, originate in the
social forms of the epoch. The stage form, which reigns in our times, is the antiquated form
from the times of absolutism, the courtly theatre. With its division into stalls, boxes and
galleries, it reflects stratification of feudal society” 391 . The architect, Walter Gropius, working
together with Piscator on the project of a new theatre for the latter one, also added that the
Italian stage, owing to complete separation of the audience by the curtain and the orchestra pit,
creates “a world of deception detached from the real world; (…) [it] has this great disadvantage
that it doesn’t engage the spectator in action, it does not allow for his or her active participation
(…)” 392 .
Richard Schechner went even further in his analysis of the consequences of allotment of space
in the matchbox theatre. He noticed that “as theatre was developing along with its stage frame
from the 18 th till the 20 th century, the proscenium reaching the audience was gradually reduced,
until it finally disappeared, while the common space between the stage and the audience was
eliminated” 393 . He also draws attention to the fact, that the division inside the building, for
390
The work entirely devoted to the discussed problem is The Theatre in Non-theatrical spaces, ed. J.Tyszka,
Wydawnictwo Fundacji Humaniora, Poznan, 1998.
391
Erwin Piscador, Politcal Theatre, Warszawa, 1983, p. 143-144.
392
Ibid, p. 146.
393
Richard Schechner, From the Issues on the poetics of theatre work, “Dialog”, 1976, nr 5, p. 116.
PE 375.307