Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Allain, Paul and Ziolkowski, Grzegorz, eds. (2014) Voices from Within. Grotowski's Polish Collaborators. Routledge Taylor and Francis, London, 170 pp. ISBN 978-1-910203-02-6. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/31888/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Voices from Within: Grotowski’s Polish Collaborators Voices from Within: Grotowski’s Polish Collaborators EDITED BY PAUL ALLAIN AND GRZEGORZ ZIÓŁKOWSKI First published 2015 by Polish Theatre Perspectives. Polish Theatre Perspectives is an imprint of TAPAC: Theatre and Performance Across Cultures 86-90 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NE, UK. Co-published in partnership with the Grotowski Institute, Wrocław, Poland. To purchase your copy of this or any other Polish Theatre Perspectives title please visit www.ptp.press. 2015 Paul Allain and Grzegorz Ziółkowski for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors for their contributions. The right of the editors to be identied as the authors of the e ditorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted, in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, or transmitted without permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN: 978-1-910203-02-6 (paperback) ISBN: 978-1-910203-00-2 (online) Designed and typeset by Barbara Kaczmarek, Wrocław, Poland. This book has received support from the following organisations: Contents 6 Series Editors’ Preface 8 Introduction: Voices from Within 17 A Word About Poor Theatre Ludwik Flaszen in conversation with Leszek Kolankiewicz 36 Grotowski Gave us a Chance Andrzej Bielski talks to Teresa Błajet-Wilniewczyc 46 In Jerzy Grotowski’s Theatre Maja Komorowska talks to Barbara Osterloff 61 Ryszard Cieślak The Madness of Benvolio 72 Zbigniew Cynkutis Notebook-Diary 79 Waldemar Krygier On the Bridge in Opole 85 Jerzy Gurawski An Architect at the Teatr Laboratorium 91 Apocalypsis cum Figuris Stanisław Scierski talks to Krystyna Starczak-Kozłowska 95 Curiosity and a Readiness to Search for the New Antoni Jahołkowski talks to Tadeusz Burzyński 100 On the Opposite Pole from the Mundane Jacek Zmysłowski talks to Tadeusz Burzyński 106 Irena Rycyk-Brill I Had Four Fathers 120 On Grotowski and the Secrets of the Voice Zygmunt Molik talks to Tadeusz Burzyński 123 It Is About Something Much More Important Rena Mirecka talks to Tadeusz Kornaś 133 Przemysław Wasilkowski A Recollection 141 He Smelted Gold Out of People Stefania Gardecka talks to Grzegorz Ziółkowski 150 On the Long and Winding Road Teo Spychalski talks to Grzegorz Ziółkowski 161 Selected Bibliography of Sources in English 164 Notes on Contributors 166 Index of Names Series Editors’ Preface ne of the most signiicant obstacles faced by those with an interest in Poland’s Ovibrant theatre and performance culture, but who are unfamiliar with its source languages, has often been limited access to the many core materials that have re- mained untranslated, unarchived, or unpublished outside Poland. his applies even in the case of materials about practitioners whose work and methods have been inluential around the world, such as Jerzy Grotowski and the Teatr Laboratorium (Laboratory heatre). We are therefore pleased to launch, alongside the Polish heatre Perspectives online re- source (www.ptp.press), a companion series of PTP books and ilms that will provide international readers with unprecedented access to developments across Polish thea- tre, drama, and performance. Covering essential and emerging topics in the ield, the series gathers a range of primary and scholarly content, from edited collections and research monographs to extended interviews, practitioner notes, documentaries, and mixed-mode accounts of performances and working processes. Each title seeks to make a focused intervention, opening up new viewpoints and potential areas of dialogue among Polish and international theatre communities. As with this inaugural edition, the books and ilms are developed by subject special- ists who select, edit, introduce, and, where appropriate, cooperate in translating the materials, setting them in their wider cultural context. While primary sources are often very diferent in nature and register from academic research writing, and thus do not undergo the same kind of peer evaluation as the scholarly texts, we nonetheless engage independent reviewers to assist in preparing all PTP content, with speciic emphasis on cultural translation and accessibility for an international audience. Contributions to the series are specially commissioned or otherwise appear in translation for the irst time. In the case of Voices from Within: Grotowski’s Polish Collaborators, this collection marks the irst occasion that the history and after- math of the Teatr Laboratorium – one of the most widely acclaimed ensembles of twentieth-century theatre – has been told in English through the distinctive voices of a broad selection of Grotowski’s Polish colleagues and long-time co-creators. It thus provides a rare insight, ofering readers the chance to encounter individual perspectives on training and the creative process; group dynamics and ethics; mak- ing work in diicult social and political conditions; the Laboratorium’s evolution, dissolution, and diaspora; and the inal stages of Grotowski’s research, following his emigration from Poland. As Allain and Ziółkowski indicate in their Introduction, it is hoped that this mul- tivocal history – as recalled throughout Voices from Within by the Laboratorium’s 6 PREFACE administrators, designers, ‘devil’s advocates’, performers, work leaders, and those later mentored by Grotowski – will go some way towards diversifying the study of the company’s practice and demythologising the creative methods and research out- comes that, as Grotowski himself commented in his programme notes to the Labo- ratorium’s US tour (see p. 16, below), are often mistakenly associated with ‘his name and his name alone’. hrough these narratives and relections, we see some of the collective and individual uncertainties, discoveries, and pathinding that accompa- nied what was conceived among the group as a genuinely collaborative research. We also hope that the volume will contribute to a broader trend that sees the growing internationalisation and global visibility of local perspectives on the various stages of Grotowski’s activity, many of which have remained relatively separate and indeed monolingual up to now. Across the series, PTP will continue to publish work that seeks to bridge performance cultures and ofers an invaluable resource for those wishing to engage with Polish theatre through diverse source materials, contexts, and media. Ongoing information, including details of current and future titles, can be found at www.ptp.press. DUNCAN JAMIESON AND ADELA KARSZNIA Introduction: Voices from Within PAUL ALLAIN AND GRZEGORZ ZIÓŁKOWSKI Dedicated to all our collaborators, past and present heatre can never be a solitary process. Yet so often what comes down to us as a Thistory of the theatre, however recent this history may be, is singular, the vision of one person, usually a man, most often a director. his also applies to the work of the Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski. Celebration of his achievements often overshadows the work of his many collaborators. his isolation is only entrenched further by the fact that much of this history has not made the leap from Polish into English-language publication. For non-Polish-speakers, materials that place his work in a broader nexus – personal and work-based as much as contextual – have simply not been readily available. his is something that is changing, a shift of which the present volume is a vital part.1 In this Polish heatre Perspectives collection, we hope to address this misalignment by pre- senting the voices of Polish collaborators of Grotowski from diferent phases of his work; to use the taxonomy he left us in he Grotowski Sourcebook (1997), these range from ‘he- atre of Productions’ to ‘Art as vehicle’. Some contributions are located in one phase alone: for example, Andrzej Bielski’s in heatre of Productions or Przemysław Wasilkowski’s in Art as vehicle, though in both cases we also learn the story of what they did before they met Grotowski, and afterwards. Other texts, such as those of Ludwik Flaszen and Rena Mirecka, range across the twenty-ive-year period of activity of the Teatr Laboratorium (Laboratory heatre, 1959-1984). With the exception of Teo Spychalski’s interview, pre- pared especially for this edition, all these texts have been published in some form in Pol- ish, and, as far as we know, none have previously been available outside Polish-language circles.2 Until now, such views have only been presented partially, for example in excerpts of interviews and talks cited briely in Jennifer Kumiega’s he heatre of Grotowski (1985). hese voices have never been heard before in such a systematic way.3 1 Ziółkowski, as programme director of the Grotowski Centre and then the Grotowski Institute (2004-2009), and Allain, as part of his Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded British Grotowski project (2006-2009), have made sustained attempts to address this situation.