Grotowski's Ideologies

Grotowski was a Polish theatre director and an innovator of experimental theatre, the ''theatre laboratory'' and ''poor theatre'' concepts. His work had major impacts on future experimental directors, including Peter Brook. 

Here are some of his ideologies and how we will include them in our piece:

Acting through focus and awareness

His actors were so vocally and physically skilled that they could communicate clearly through sounds and movement. The actors would create an inner harmony and peace of mind that would keep them healthy in both mind and body. Grotowski actors believe that acting is a search for self knowledge and awareness. Their style of training taught them to break free of limitations and realise their full potential. 

We will be using this level of focus and awareness in our piece, ensuring that optimum communication and focus is present. Through doing this we hope to be able to break free of our physical and mental limitations and push our bodies to new extremes. 

Working in silence

Grotowski stated that an actor must begin by doing nothing! He believed that if a group of actors could remain completely still for several minutes without disturbances, then they would be able to concentrate intensely and use it as a creative passage. 

We did multiple exercises in silence, honing in on the qualities which emerged. We used this level of focus and concentration when devising in order to keep us on task and not get distracted. Using this energy, we will hopefully be able to sustain the belief in our group performance. We are hoping to include a small portion of silence in our group performance to alienate the audience and make them feel uncomfortable. 

Physical Training 

His actors were extremely physically skilled. They developed a technique of movement which allowed them to control every move they made, even the smallest in every detail. It is our bodies that express everything about us. Everything we think and feel is expressed through our bodies and everything we experience is felt through our bodies. He gave actors physical skills for fully expressing their imaginations and their personalities. 

We have been doing physical warm ups every week before we start to devise. This helped to wake up our bodies and as Grotowski stated, it helped us familiarize ourselves with our own bodies and see what we could do with them. Our piece is very physical, especially during the ritual. Experimental theatre combines text with movement in order to captivate the audience and offer a new way of presenting drama. Our performance will include a lot of physical movements, so this particular Grotowski method is vital in helping and developing our performance. 

Voice

Vocal training was essential. They focussed their voices as though they were coming from different parts of their bodies. They used full registers of their voices from very high to very low. He emphasised clarity and used techniques such as singing, chanting and reciting poetry. All actors were so vocally strong that they were able to recite atmospheric sounds of the world such as mechanics, animals, thunder and so on. To Grotowski, the voice is an instrument. 

In every performance, the voice is key. We have done many warm ups focusing on different body parts and seeing what our voice would sound like if it came from our head, throat, chest, gut and feet. I noticed that the lower the body parts got, the lower my voice became. Grotowski noticed that one can push ones vocals by simply getting out of your head and simply testing your vocal range. Our piece includes poetry, chanting and different voices in order to captivate the audience and include this very essential Grotowski method. In my group performance, I definitely experiment with my voice, as I am putting on an old, Irish ladies voice. I found the accent hard to conquer as first, but when i started thinking about the words coming from my throat, the accent seemed to fall into place. In my solo piece, I also explore how breathe can affect the voice. My words are spoken in a breathy quality while still being clear. To ensure I could be heard, I did many breath exercises in my own time, stretching and developing my vocals. 

Human Contact

Grotowski believed in true contact between human beings. He believed that real harmony in human relationships only developed when people really learned to look at each other and listen to each other. He wanted actors to be more aware of the impact they had on other people. 

I completely agree with this method. To me, acting is two things; truth and connection. The only way to gain this kind of connection is to really look at someone and notice everything about them. I know this saying has been used to death, but the eyes really are the pathway to the soul. You can see everything through someones eyes and gain a deep connection which will translate fantastically on stage. To make sure that our group had full connection, we did an exercise when we had to look into each others eyes and say each others names. We could only say the names once we felt a bond between each other. This really helped to me understand the level of connection you can have between you and another human. I plan to use strong eye contact in our performance in order to draw the viewers in and make them feel completely immersed in our performance and its morals. 

Transformation

In his ''poor theatre'' he always aimed for the simplest possible use for staging, lighting, costumes and special effects. This forced actors to use all their skills to transform empty spaces and simple objects into a while range of imaginative worlds. Symbolism was essential in this form of theatre. In the theatre of poverty, the only important elements were the actors themselves and their relationships with the live audience. Often actors were in the audience's personal spaces, close enough to touch them. Grotowski arranged the space he was using so that the audience would be as involved in the theatre as possible. 

Our performance will push the typical boundaries of the audience performer relationship. As our piece is in promenade for the majority of it, it is very immersive and the connection between us and the viewers will be strong. Many of our individual pieces symbolise different things. For example, mine symbolises how one can get so trapped in ones mind and become completely distorted by it. My character has been corrupted by media and now sees reporters as spies and spiders crawling over them. 

Memory

Like Stanislavsky, Grotowski emphasised the use of emotion memory to recall an experience and recreate that feeling that went with that memory. He demanded total honesty and total commitment from his actors in their use of emotion memory. They had to make use of all their memories, no matter how painful or private. This made their performances genuine. Through this process, actors would come closer to knowing the truth about themselves. it is an important path to self-knowledge. Grotowski demanded total commitment and belief in every activity, even in the simplest exercise. 

In our performance, commitment is essential as the movements we do will only look effective if everyone is completely committed and focused. In every exercise we do, we always have to be totally in the moment and present, otherwise the exercise is worthless. Although in my particular performance I haven't included any emotional memory, I have recalled those key memories from others to help the truth in my performance. Even though our piece isn't naturalistic, I still believe that there needs to be an element of truth, otherwise the audience will get bored and lost. We have used this method in our piece by always being focused and present in everything we do. 

Truth

Grotowski warned his actors to avoid what he called ''the beautiful lie'', both on stage and on their everyday lives. By this he meant doing something just because it looked good or because it was what people expected them to do. 

When doing an experimental piece of theatre, there is a high risk of doing random movements and gesture just for the hell of it. we have to be careful in our devising process because we don't want the audience to be lost or confused by our performance. As we are doing an Artaud style piece, naturally it will pose more questions than answers, but that doesn't mean our pieces need to just be a series of odd images. The sequences we do must have a purpose and always link back to our theme of England.