Postdramatic Theatre

Our intention at the very start of our devising process was to explore Grotowski’s work on the exhaustive state. ‘The actors in the Laboratory Theatre undergo exhaustive exercises designed to break down the layers of superficial technique and repressions’ (“Theatre: The Influence of Grotowski and The Polish Laboratory Theatre”, n.d.) that acting sometimes causes to actors. This form of rehearsal enables the actors to break away from conventional and traditional style of performance; the ‘clichés’ (Richards, 1995, p. 20), as Grotowski describes, of acting. It is the idea of being true to the action you are performing and letting the exhaustion take over your body and mind. Thomas Richards (1995, pp. 22-23) describes an exhaustion exercise he practiced with Grotowski:

 

‘well, we danced for a long time, it seemed we must have been going for some hours, nonstop. After a certain point, as my physical exhaustion grew, my mind became tired and quiet: it was less able to tell my body how to interpret the song. Then for some short moments I felt as if my body started to dance by itself. The body led the way to move, the mind became passive’.

 

We wanted to explore this along with the voice and how the exhaustion of our bodies affects our voice. However, in order to fully experience this, takes years of practice and with the time that we had, the performance would not be able reach this organic state to its full capabilities.

 

In spite of this, we took elements of Grotowski’s exploration of the exhausted state and incorporated it with portraying true actions and delivering the voice. Our aim was to not act when performing an action or line, but to present the movement and lines without portraying emotion or a form of narrative. ‘...Grotowski’s actor’s “must not illustrate but accomplish an act”...’ (Mitter, 1992, p. 79); this led to incorporating the rule of “box”. Whenever a performer felt that the other performer was not being true to the delivering of a line or action through putting emotion behind it, the word “box” was used towards that performer to recompose themselves, and then carry on from where they left off. This proved to be very challenging due to being outside, and with the use of instruments, made me aware of the need to project more which sometimes caused to inflicted emotion into the line being said. Shomit Mitter (1992, p. 89) emphasises that ‘the performance is not an illusionist copy of reality, its imitation; nor is it a set of conventions, accepted as a kind of deliberate game, playing at a separate theatrical reality...the actor does not play, does not imitate, or pretend. He is himself’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Within the physical movement, we explored the use of impulse within the body. Richards (1995, p. 95) states that ‘impulse, for Grotowski, is something that pushes from “inside” the body and extends itself out toward the periphery...’ Within the performance, we were able to experiment with different dynamics and tempo within the movements. An example being in movement piece two, when being offered the stick, we slowly offered our hand up, extending all fingers around the stick. This little impulse added more precision to the performance as well as adding performative dynamics. Also, this relates to the way Robert Wilson’s creates his movements by directing ‘...his performers’ movements down to the smallest minutiae (the way a wrist turns; the precise angle of the shoulders) and, very often, compels the performers to reduce their actions to a strikingly slow pace. The delivery of lines requires equal control; he instructs actors to speak in regulated monotones: not robotic, yet not dynamic’ (Fishaut, 2008, para. 8). This further exemplifies our intention of being true to the piece and yet, maintaining performative qualities. Focusing on these tiny details, especially, created an extra dimension to the physical movement.