The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor Advance Reviews “A brilliant cross-disciplinary comparative analysis that joins a new path in theatre studies, revitalizing the artistic heritage of two great twentieth-century masters: Tadeusz Kantor and Jerzy Grotowski.” —Professor Antonio Attisani, Department of Humanities, University of Turin “Among the landmarks of postwar avant-garde theatre, two Polish works stand out: Grotowski’s Akropolis and Kantor’s Dead Class. Magda Romanska scrupulously corrects misconceptions about these crucial works, bringing to light linguistic elements ignored by Anglophone critics and an intense engagement with the Holocaust very often overlooked by their Polish counterparts. This is vital and magnificently researched theatre scholarship, at once alert to history and to formal experiment. Romanska makes two pieces readers may think they know newly and urgently legible.” —Martin Harries, author of “Forgetting Lot’s Wife: On Destructive Spectatorship,” University of California, Irvine “As someone who teaches and researches in the areas of Polish film and theatre – and European theatre/theatre practice/translation more broadly – I was riveted by the book. I couldn’t put it down. There is no such extensive comparative study of the work of the two practitioners that offers a sustained and convincing argument for this. The book is ‘leading edge.’ Romanska has the linguistic and critical skills to develop the arguments in question and the political contexts are in general traced at an extremely sophisticated level. This is what lends the writing its dynamism.” —Dr Teresa Murjas, Director of Postgraduate Research, Department of Film, Theatre and Television, University of Reading “This is a lucidly and even beautifully written book that convincingly argues for a historically and culturally contextualized understanding of Grotowski’s and Kantor’s performances. It should be required reading in any introduction to performance and theater studies course. I am convinced that this will not only be the book on each of the two directors but also and especially the only one that manages to develop a framework allowing a discussion of both men and their performances together. In other words, this will be the book on the subject the author set out to explore. It’s very rare that one can say that about any book!” —Dr Anne Rothe, Department of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Wayne State University “In this authoritative study of two masterworks of twentieth-century theatre, Magda Romanska does more than offer astute close readings. Prying open the suffocating embrace of universalism in which Grotowski and Kantor have long been held, she restores their literary, historical, national, and aesthetic contexts. Thanks to her, two of the world’s the most influential, important and celebrated theatre artists will no longer also be among the least understood.” —Professor Alisa Solomon, Director, Arts and Culture MA Program, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University “Every page speaks volumes to the breadth of Romanska’s readings and the number of sources she has used to bring both works into their multiple contexts. From the perspective of its potential use as course material, the in-depth exploration of some of the links that have been missing in Western criticism and scholarship is particularly valuable.” —Professor Tamara Trojanowska, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, University of Toronto The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor History and Holocaust in Akropolis and The Dead Class MAGDA ROMANSKA Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com This edition first published in UK and USA 2012 by ANTHEM PRESS 75-76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK and 244 Madison Ave. #116, New York, NY 10016, USA Copyright © Magda Romanska 2012 The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Romanska, Magda. The post-traumatic theatre of Grotowski and Kantor : history and Holocaust in Akropolis and The dead class / Magda Romanska. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-85728-516-4 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Grotowski, Jerzy, 1933-1999–Criticism and interpretation. 2. Kantor, Tadeusz, 1915-1990–Criticism and interpretation. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945), in art. 4. Theater–Poland–History–20th century. 5. Experimental theater. I. Title. PN2859.P66R66 2012 792’.0233’092–dc23 2012041201 ISBN-13: 978 0 85728 516 4 (Hbk) ISBN-10: 0 85728 516 5 (Hbk) This title is also available as an eBook. CONTENTS Foreword by Kathleen Cioffi vii Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii List of Illustrations xv Introduction 1 Part I Our Auschwitz: Grotowski’s Akropolis Chapter 1 Jerzy Grotowski: A Very Short Introduction 49 Chapter 2 Native Son: Grotowski in Poland 57 Chapter 3 Grotowski: The Polish Context 62 Chapter 4 Grotowski, the Messiah: Coming to America 73 Chapter 5 The Making of an Aura 82 Chapter 6 On Not Knowing Polish 86 Chapter 7 “In Poland: That is to Say, Nowhere” 90 Chapter 8 Akropolis/Necropolis 93 Chapter 9 The Vision and the Symbol 95 Chapter 10 “This Drama as Drama Cannot Be Staged” 104 Chapter 11 Two National Sacrums 107 Chapter 12 “Hollow Sneering Laughter”: Mourning the Columbuses 111 Chapter 13 Against Heroics 119 Chapter 14 Representing the Unrepresentable 122 Chapter 15 Trip to the Museum 126 Chapter 16 Bearing the Unbearable 129 Chapter 17 The Living and the Dead 136 Chapter 18 Jacob’s Burden 141 Chapter 19 The Final Descent 147 Chapter 20 Textual Transpositions 150 Chapter 21 Akropolis After Grotowski 152 Illustrations 157 vi THE POST-traumatic Theatre OF Grotowski AND Kantor Part II Our Memory: Kantor’s Dead Class Chapter 22 Tadeusz Kantor: A Very Short Introduction 185 Chapter 23 Dead Class: The Making of the Legend 193 Chapter 24 Dead Class in Poland 196 Chapter 25 The Polish History Lesson 199 Chapter 26 Dead Class Abroad 201 Chapter 27 On Not Knowing Polish, Again 204 Chapter 28 The Visual and the Puerile 209 Chapter 29 The National and the Transnational 212 Chapter 30 Witkiewicz’s Tumor 215 Chapter 31 An Age of Genius: Bruno Schulz and the Return to Childhood 229 Chapter 32 Conversing with Gombrowicz: The Dead, the Funny, the Sacred and the Profane 238 Chapter 33 Panirony: “A pain with a smile and a shrug” 244 Chapter 34 Raising the Dead 252 Chapter 35 Dead Class as Kaddish… 256 Chapter 36 Dead Class as Dybbuk, or the Absence 260 Chapter 37 The Dead and the Marionettes 262 Chapter 38 Men and Objects 267 Chapter 39 Dead Class as Forefathers’ Eve 274 Chapter 40 Dead Class: The Afterlife 280 Postscript 283 Appendix Table 1. Chronology of Events 286 Table 2. Comparison between Wyspiański’s Akropolis and Genesis 289 Table 3. Comparison between Grotowski and Kantor 291 Notes 293 Bibliography 363 Index 389 FOREWORD Kathleen Cioffi This book unpacks the multiple layers of meaning in two of the most acclaimed theatre productions of the twentieth century: Jerzy Grotowski’s Akropolis and Tadeusz Kantor’s Umarła klasa [The Dead Class]. We not only get an unusually informed close reading of Grotowski’s and Kantor’s masterworks, but also one that situates these productions and their creators firmly in their literary, historical and political contexts. Too often, non-Polish theatre historians and critics, as Romanska points out, ignore the Polish aspects of Grotowski’s and Kantor’s theatres and construct their own deracinated meanings, while declaring that their inability to understand Polish does not matter. Meanwhile, Polish theatre historians and critics have often ignored the Jewish aspects of these productions, in part because it was once politically dangerous not to do so. The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor reclaims both the Polishness and the Jewishness of Grotowski’s and Kantor’s chefs-d’œuvre. In the case of Grotowski, his own compatriots rejected his work early on, in part because his adaptations of the much-loved classics of Polish Romantic and neo- Romantic dramatic literature often conflicted with what the texts were meant to say. As early as 1958, Grotowski approvingly quoted Vsevelod Meyerhold in program notes for an early production: “To choose a play doesn’t necessarily mean that one needs to agree with its author.”1 This attitude when applied to Polish classics amounted to blasphemy – for Polish intellectuals a much worse blasphemy than the explicitly anti- Catholic mockery of Grotowski’s productions. Still, one of the primary sources of Grotowski’s artistry was what Romanska calls “the Polish national canon”: that is, the Polish Romantics and the neo-Romantic Stanisław Wyspiański. Only someone who was deeply steeped in knowledge of these Polish classics (not to mention in knowledge of Catholic dogma) could blaspheme against them as thoroughly as Grotowski did. However, this led to a situation where for many years Grotowski’s work was only esteemed by those who did not fully