Alternative Theatrical Spaces CHAPT'.It • 3 ihe elimination of the stage-auditorium dichotomy I\ not the '"""'=--"""*' Important thing. The essential concern b finding the proper spectator-actor relatiot'lship {or each type of perform2.nc:e 1nd embodying the detlsicn In physlc.a! arrangements:.' Jerzy Grctowskl. Towards cr Poor Thta!rt '! Modern efforts t() find new ll theatre people ~ho have performed singly or in groups wher· kinds of theatrical S{ J..C( ever an audience could be gathered around them are.-back· have created different ways . Agrountl to the nodem avant·garde creation of allernative per· o' e)(perienc.ing thutre. folmance !PJ;~$L.Tbese i'Jtemati ve fofmTm~Ccla!e""d·Urp.MtlfiU!nvith In recent decades Je~y the P~litical protests of the Vietnam War eta fiithe United States~although GrotowsJcl In Poland, Ariana they-are-iiliernatrOnii mi•tacace.---:- · Mnouchklne In Paris, Peter · · ·trucii-Ofihe-WOrk a! JufiaJi Beck and Judtth Malina (tlle Uvio.g The­ Sehum:mn ln Vermont, and atre). Jett:'f Grotowski (the Polish Laboratory Theatre), ~ter Brook (the Peter Breck in France have International Centre for Theatre Research), Artatie Mcoucbklne (ThUtre rearranged theatrical lpace du SoleU), Peter·Schumilllil (the Bread and Puppet Theatre), and .Jobn to brina aud!ences and O'Neal and ~ilbert Moses (Fr~ Southern Theater) within tbe last four _actors closer together, decades has bee..E.,labeled alternative and/or ~vironmental ~atre. This type of theat:ical pe:rformance rejects conventiolial seating and arranges L- ~e aUdience as part of tbe playing space. ENVIRONMENTAL THEATRE Writing about environmental production as a particular way of creating .and experiencing theatre, American director and theorbt JUcbard Stbech~ ner says, "The thing about environmental theatre space ls not Just a ~at· ter of bow you end up using space. It 1s ~attitude. _Start with aU tm rpaa! there t: and then decide what to use, what not to use, llJU!how to use what you use. -l Polish director Jerzy Crotowski describes the essentlal con.~--<1 as "finding ~e proper spectator-actor relatlonslrlP for each type ~f pq~~ formance and embodying the decision in physical !Ul"angi!:D;~.ents.•• "t -- -- • As noted, environmental theatre by definition rejects conventional seating and ln· udes audiences as part of the performance space. Like the actors, the spectators be­ . orne part of what is seen and done. They are both seeing and seen. fORERUNNERS OF P,LTERNATIVE APPROACHES e ' ,. In modern Russia and Germany, such leaders as the inventive VSevolod Meyer-hold -··· (1874-c. l94ciJ and Max Reinhardt (1873-1943) developed..._unorthodox production [.~~theatr_i_cal sp~£::· They are the chief forerunners of today's many r~xw::rJfH..:!!_t!> in nontraditlonaJ performan~les and alternative spaces. In the 1930s i in Moscow, the Russian director Meyerhold, rejecting tJ,le proscenium arch as too con­ I fining for his actors, removed the front curtain, footlights, and proscenium. Stage- ' hands changed properties and scenery in full view of audiences, and actors performed i f: on trapezes, slides, and ramps to arouse exhilarating feelings in both performers and i \,: audiences. ' p-ax Reinhardt explored vast acting areas, such as circus arenas to stage Oedipus /the Ki'}8 in 1910 in Berlin's Circus Schumann, which he thought of as a people's the· / atre-his "theatre of the five thousand." He dreamed of a theatre on the scale of clas· sica! Greek and Roman theatres to be used for spectacles and mass audiences. In 1920, he created his most famous spectacle (Everyman) in the square before the Salzburg ! :. I Cathedral. During the last fifty years, especially in the United States, many theatre directors and designers looked for new theatrical spaces in warehouses, garages, lofts, and ' abandoned churches. They reshaped all of the space available to .liudience and actor, bringing the actors into direct contact with the audiences, thereby making the audi­ ence a more essential part of the theatrical event. rJ This chapter discussesJour alternative approach~se of theatrical space in l ~.@_ern time~ the ~olish Laboratory Theatre, the TheAtre du Solei!, the Bread and Puppet Theatre, and the Free Southern Theater. · I,. i' . THE POLISH LABORATORY THEATRE . ;_' 1.',, :!-. Grotowski's uPoor" Theatre JL.: __ ; When Jerzy Grotowskl founded the Polish Laboratory Theatre in F:'~:':;: r,( • ' ' • • Opole in 1959, be set out to answer this question: What is the· : -' "{Gr,oto'!"fski] was, with _S~an/slovsky, Meyerhold, atre? Grotowskl first evolved a concept that he ca11ed "poor the· and 'sr~c:h.t, o~e of the Wert's _fo~r greot 20th atre. ~ For him, theatre's essentials were the actor and the aud.i· century the;atre theorl.st-practit/anen." ence in a bare space. He found that theatre could happen without costumes, scenery, makeup, stage lighting, and sound effects; all it needed was the actor and audience in communion in a special ,''; .. _.- place. Grotowski wrote: 60 PART ONE E. THEATRE'S SEEING PLACES DIRECTOR Jerzy Grotowski Jerzy Grotowski ( 1933 -1999) was founder and director of the Polish laboratory I ' J Theatre, an experimental company located in Opole and then in Wroclaw (Breslau). ~ t;,:·Not a theatre in the usual sense, the co~p:ny became an inst!tute for researc~ into 9 the e-are-in- general. a.r~d the actor's art in particular, In addition, the laboratory also '"------'-·-- --- - --~ .. ------ ·- -- --- ----- '. undertook performances for audiences as well as 'instruction of actors, producers, stu- l dents (many of them foreigners), and people frorri other fields. The plays performed I were based on Polish and international classics. In the 1960s and 1970s, Grotowski's I ' productions of Stanislaw Wyspianski's AKropogs, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, and Calder6n's The Constant Prince attracted worldwide attention. His des­ est collaborators were actor Ryszard Cieslak and literary adviser Ludwik Flaszen. He wrote about his methods in Towards a Poor Theatre ( 1968)-a theatre that eliminates everything not truly required by the actor and the audience. 1 After 1970, Grotowski reorganized his company to explore human creativity out­ side the theatre and called this period Holiday. He intended to .lead participants back to elemental connections between themselves and the natural world by exposing them to basic myths, and the elements of fire, earth, air, and water. In 1975, the event called Holiday took place in a forest, where participants were encouraged to rediscover the roots of theatre and their true being. In 1982, at the University of California-Irvine, Grotowski began a third phase called ·"objective drama" to combi~( ;~;;;:C"em~~~(i~"&]with precise tools of actur training that i he had developed in e~r\ler y~:l~... i986, he established. a W_orkcenter (Centro di La­ voro) in Pontedera, Italy, where he began the last phase of his work; called "art as ve­ hicle," to" explore how theatre differentiates perfol-mance "truths" in many cultures. The (999-2000. season was declared th~ ·:Y~~; of Jer'z.y"Grotowski" In Wroclaw, Poland, where his Theatre Laboratory began-in 1965. Year-long festivities, exhibits, and . symposia took place; i'. I propose poverty in theatre. We have resigned from the stage-and-auditorium) Plant: for each production, a new space is designed for the actors and specta­ tors .... The essential concern is finding the proper spectator-actor relationship. 4 Within the whole space, Grotowski cleated what he called "holy theatre": perfor· ] t s · · ~hiGh !Jl.e actor, pr~ed by years of training I · experien~. GrotowSkfset abOut to engage I in · act, thus to engage both actor and audience in a deeper un- derst an d'tng of personal and social truths. CHAPTER THREE r; ALTERNATIVE THEATRICAl. SPACES 61 Al<ropolis (1962) In Alcropolis, Grotowski adapted a text written by Polish playwright Stanislaw Wyspianski in 1904. In the original, statues and paintings in Cracow Cathedral come to life on the eve of Easter Sunday. The statues reenact scenes from the Old Testament /and antiquity. But Grotowski shifted the action to a modern extennination camp, Auschwitz, in war­ i time Poland. In the new setting he contrasted the Western ideal of human dignity with the degrada-. I tion of a death camp. Akropolis takes place in a large room. Spectators Grotowskl's use of space for Akropolis The lines with arrows are seated on platfonns; passageways for the actors indicate the actors' movements and areas of action; the straight are created between the platfonns. Wrre struts are lines show audience areas. The central playing space is a box- strung across the ceiling. In the middle of the room like "mansion" where pipes are assembled and into which the is a large, boxlike platform for the actors. Rusty actors disappear at the end of the performance. pieces of metal are heaped on top of the box: stove­ pipes, a wheelbarrow, a bathtub, nails, hammers. With these objects the actors build a civilization of gas chambers, They wear a version of a camp uniform-ragged shirts and trousers, heavy wooden shoes, and anonymous berets. Grotowski juxtaposes Biblical and Homeric scenes and heroes against the gro­ tesque reality of the modern death camp. The love of Patis and Helen, for instance, is played out between two men to the accompaniment of the laughter of the assembled I '' The theatrical space at the be­ ginning (top) and end of the performance of Akropolis (1962) Note that at the begin­ ning of the performance, the wire struts above the audience are empty. At the end, the actors have disappeared, leaving the stovepipes hanging from the wire struts as gruesome reminders of the events in the concentration camps. 62 PART ONE ~} THEATRE'S SEEING PLACES "Dialogue betweeu two monuments," The metal >Y stovepipe and·hurnan legs with boots make a state­ 4.