Good morning Poland!
Well good morning to my many readers in Poland, and everywhere else of course.
I am writing this for you today. I am curious that this blog is still getting 100-200 hits a day - and the highest readership is in Poland! I am keen to know why! Why does an obscure blog about a regional pantomime in East London get attention from you guys out there? Also do you read it in english or press the translation button? My guess is you speak english!
What's intriguing is that I only update here about once a week, and usually only if it pertains to something panto related. And yet it is still being read, which of course is deeply gratifying!
The thing is that there is very little about Poland in this blog, and that's what provokes my curiosity. Now having spent a good bit of time doing theatre in Poland in the eighties, I could put it down to that maybe? I also know that the Poles are some of the best theatre makers out there. They had to be. Times of severe state bullying and oppression through the communist years and then the military take-over time meant that the imaginations of artists were given an ever bigger invitation to expand. If you can't say something directly for fear of imprisonment you are forced to find unique and new ways to express the human condition, both its universality and its personal manifestation in the drama of your own life. That's what artists do, but in a state of fear their work is even more vitally and expression of soul, self, politics, love, war, loss, liberty, intellect and much more. This oppression and limits on the freedom of speech led to some of the most amazing work by artists across all the art forms. I will never forget being at a performance of Dead Class by Tadeuz Kantor at the Riverside Studios in London in about 1985. I was mesmorised by this then ancient man with a walking stick directing about 20 actors in their late 60s,70s and 80s on the stage. He was a performance in himself, marching around the stage as the actors performed this soul baring show about age and death. If he thought they weren't serving the play,or simply didn't like a particular moment, he would bang his walking stick on the floor or tap them on the back of the legs, stopping the action to make them do it again the way he wanted it! I'd never get away with that with my actors....... maybe I could give it a go sometime? So a bit about the man:Disenchanted with the growing institutionalisation of avant-garde, in 1955 he with a group of visual artists formed a new theatre ensemble called Cricot 2. In the 1960s, Cricot 2 gave performances in many theatres in Poland and abroad, gaining recognition for their stage happenings. His interest was mainly with the absurdists and Polish writer and playwright Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (also known as "Witkacy"). Stage productions of Witkacy's plays The Cuttlefish(1956) and The Water Hen (1969) were regarded as his best achievements during this time. A 1972 performance of The Water Hen was described as "the least-publicised, most talked-about event at the Edinburgh festival".
Dead Class (1975) was the most famous of his theatre pieces of the 1970s. In the play, Kantor himself played the role of a teacher who presided over a class of apparently dead characters who are confronted by mannequins which represented their younger selves. He had begun experimenting with the juxtaposition of mannequins and live actors in the 1950s.
His later works of the 1980s were very personal reflections. As in Dead Class, he would sometimes represent himself on stage. In the 1990s, his works became well known in the United States due to presentations at Ellen Stewart's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club which inspired Lower East Side cultural leaders such as theNuyorican poet Giannina Braschi.[1]
Throughout his life, Kantor had an interesting and unique relationship with Jewish culture, despite being a nominalCatholic and having a father with anti-Semitic tendencies, Kantor incorporated many elements of what was known as "Jewish theatre" into his works. Kantor died in Kraków in 1990.
I have spoken often on this and my other blog about the influence of Peter Brook on my practice. Well here's another! I feel very privileged to have seen this show. It was deeply affecting and in fact very shocking. It was authentic and shot through with a real quality and sense of Polish culture and history. The ensemble of actors had worked together for many years and it showed. They had gone from being young to old, and with that all the physical and emotional toil. They were inspiring. Young actors could do worse to look up Kantor's work. If it were to be performed today it would be as fresh, intriguing and disturbing as it was 25 years ago!
And lastly - I would really like to hear from my Polish friends out there what attracts them to this blog - and also to signpost you to my newest blog: A Life in Theatre: Towards the Simple and the Sacred: A Daily blog about life, theatre and the arts of directing and acting. http://carolepluckrosealifeintheatre2013.blogspot.co.uk/ where there are accounts of my time in Poland with Triple Action Theatre in 1981 at the time of the military takeover. That's partly why I am curious - as that's the one with the Polish references. But maybe I just don't get it - I look forward to finding out! I will be publishing this post on there today too in the spirit of collaboration!
Miłego dnia!
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