4 from ritual to theater and back: the efficacy ... - AAAARG.ORG

toward a poetics of performance 201
our sense – smoothness, efficiency – but of making sure that all the
prescribed steps are taken in proper order. Propriety is more important
than artistry in the Euro-American sense. If the material is new every
care is taken that it is learned exactly and passed on intact.
During his poor theater phase (1959–68) Grotowski followed a
procedure close to that of the Aborigines. But instead of seeking
material in the Dreamtime (archeology, history), Grotowski’s
performers sought it in their own experiences.
In our opinion, the conditions essential to the art of acting are the
following, and should be made the object of a methodical
investigation:
(a) To stimulate a process of self-revelation, going back as far as the
subconscious, yet canalizing this stimulus in order to obtain the
required reaction.
(b) To be able to articulate this process, discipline it, and convert it
into signs. In concrete terms, this means to construct a score whose
notes are tiny elements of contact, reactions to the stimuli of the
outside world: what we call “give and take.”
(c) To eliminate from the creative process the resistances and obstacles
caused by one’s own organism, both physical and psychical (the
two forming a whole).
(Grotowski 1968a: 128)
Using this method Grotowski composed “gesticulatory ideograms”
comparable to the signs of medieval European theater, Peking Opera,
ballet, and other highly codified forms. But Grotowski’s ideograms
were “immediate and spontaneous . . . a living from possessing its own
logic” (1968a: 142). This was because his actors were transparent: they
were able to let impulses pass through them so that their gestures were
at one and the same time intimate and impersonal. Grotowski, his
scenographers, and the performers of Dr Faustus, Akropolis, The Constant
Prince, and Apocalypsis cum Figuris (first version) achieved a total iconography
of body, voice, group composition, and scenic architecture.
The totality was so complete that western audiences felt uncomfortable:
even Oriental performances as tightly structured as noh or
kathakali allow open spaces for audience inattention. The productions