grotowski was king

Jerzy Grotowski was king. He questioned theatre to its core. What is the one thing theatre cannot be without? The relationship between actor and audience. He challenged the fundamentals of theatre such as truth and authenticity. This video is of his disciple Ryszard Cieslak. The epitome of grotowski's poor theatre. He is teaching with impulse. The usual process of acting is to build an arsenal of tricks to be able to perform in front of the audience. Grotowski beleived this to be akin to prostitution. So he developed the acting of via negativa where it was not a collection of skills but an eradication of blocks. Where the actor would lose these tricks and just act on impulse. Amazingly the ideal state of mind was not to "want to do something" but rather "resign from not doing it." His theatre is still considered to be the most exciting to witness and be apart of for the audience became actual members in the play and the plays were so intimate with the maximum amount of audience members being 100.