The Stanislavsky-Grotowski lineage: part I

ABSTRACT

The connection between Konstantin Stanislavsky and Jerzy Grotowski is often overlooked or underplayed because there are substantial distinctions between them in terms of practices and approaches. In Part I of this essay, I examine Grotowski’s reflections on the significance of Stanislavsky’s final experiments for his own artistic research, I identify key points of connection between the Russian and Polish directors’ respective investigations of performance processes, and I foreground these convergences as particularly consequential in the context of the often-divergent genealogies of twentieth century theatre historiography. In Part II, I explore the implications of the Stanislavsky-Grotowski lineage for contemporary performance research in light of current explorations of embodied experience in neuroscience and phenomenology.

KEYWORDS:

• Yoga
• physical actions
• impulses
• organicity
• associations
• physical score
• work on oneself

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, 3.

2. Ibid., 170.

3. Ibid., 169.

4. Ibid., 170.

5. Ibid., 170.

6. I draw from, revisit, and expand upon my previous publications addressing the Stanislavsky-Grotowski lineage: the first two chapters of my monograph Grotowski, Women, and Contemporary Performance; La filiación Stanislavski-Grotowski;” and “Cette vie n’est pas suffisante.” Full details in the Bibliography.

7. As reported to me by Robert Ornellas, who was in the first group of UC Irvine students selected by Grotowski to take part in his “Objective Drama Project” and who attended Grotowski’s Master Class. In his eighth Collège de France lectures, Grotowski referred to Toporkov’s book as the most important source about Stanislavsky.

8. Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, 22.

9. Ibid., 172.

10. Ibid., 175.

11. Ibid., 176–7.

12. Ibid, 179.

13. Ibid., 180.

14. Ibid., 172.

15. Osinski, Grotowski, and His Laboratory, 14.

16. Over a period of seven months, Grotowski discussed the philosophical systems of Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoga, the Siankara and Ramanudja systems in the philosophy of Upanishad, the philosophy of Advaita-Vedanta, Confucianism, the Taoist philosophies of Lao-Tse, Chuang-se, and Liet-se, Zen-Buddhism, and European analogues. Ibid., 23.

17. Flaszen, Grotowski & Company, 268.

18. Ibid., 270.

19. Ibid., 284.

20. The Collège de France lecture series was interrupted due to Grotowski’s deteriorating health, and he died on 14 January 1999.

21. Cited in Osborne, The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, 244.

22. Ibid., 257.

23. Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, 171.

24. See Carnicke, “Stanislavsky and Politics.”

25. See Findlay, “Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre.”

26. Turner, From Ritual to Theatre, 93.

27. Schechner, Between Theatre and Anthropology, 36, 96.

28. Wiles, The Theatre Event, 14.

29. Ibid., 14.

30. Carnicke, Stanislavsky in Focus, 147.

31. Ibid., 202.

32. Toporkov, Stanislavski in Rehearsal, 114.

33. Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre, 123.

34. Stanislavski, Creating a Role, 226–7.

35. Grotowski, “From the Theatre Company to Art as Vehicle,” 94–5.

36. Stanislavski, Creating a Role, 227.

37. Richards, At Work with Grotowski, 95.

38. Grotowski cited in ibid., 96.

39. Barba, The Paper Canoe, 33. As Barba explains, “Jo” means to retain, “Ha” means to break, and “Kyu” means speed or culmination.

40. Grotowski cited in Richards, At Work with Grotowski, 97.

41. Also see my discussion of Jo-Ha-Kyu in Magnat, Grotowski, Women, and Contemporary Performance, 11, 59, and 136 and Magnat, The Performative Power of Vocality, 40.

42. Richards, At Work with Grotowski, 98, 104.

43. Ibid., 95.

44. Grotowski, “C’était une sorte de volcan,” 102.

45. Stanislavski, Building a Character, 299.

46. Stanislavsky in Toporkov, Stanislavski in Rehearsal, 108, 143.

47. Ibid., 123.

48. Richards, At Work with Grotowski, 36–7.

49. Stanislavski, “The Actor: Work on Oneself,” 41.

50. Toporkov, Stanislavski in Rehearsal, 124.

51. Ibid., 125.

52. Chekhov, On the Technique of Acting, 89.

53. Stanislavsky cited in Toporkov, Stanislavski in Rehearsal, 109.

54. Jim Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta propose the following periodization: the Theatre of Productions (1959–69), the Theatre of Participation/Paratheatre (1969–78), the Theatre of Sources (1976–82), Objective Drama (1983–86), and Ritual Arts or Art as Vehicle (1986–99). (Slowiak and Cuesta, Jerzy Grotowski, ix.).

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Virginie Magnat

Virginie Magnat is a performance scholar-practitioner from Occitania, in southern France. She is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus located in the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Syilx people. She works at the intersection of performance studies, cultural anthropology, qualitative research, arts-based inquiry, and Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies. Her two monographs The Performative Power of Vocality (Routledge 2020) and Grotowski, Women, and Contemporary Performance: Meetings with Remarkable Women (Routledge 2014) are both based on research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. https://virginiemagnat.space/