Jerzy Grotowski's "Divination Consultation": Objective Drama Seminar at U. C. Irvine

Abstract

Jerzy Grotowski's Objective Drama Project is the next-to-latest phase in his personal search for meaning and philosophy in life through performance techniques. The project, which had its headquarters at the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski in Pontedera, Italy, was jointly sponsored by University of California-Irvine (UCI), Peter Brook's International Center for Theatrical Research in Paris, and the Center of Theatrical Research and Experimentation in Pontedera. On the evening of Tuesday, 17 May I988, prominent theatre scholars and practitioners-mostly drawn from the California southland-were invited by Robert Cohen, chair of UCI's Drama Department, to what he called very special seminar on the progress of investigations at the Objective Drama Project at Irvine and at Pontedera, Italy. This special seminar was to take place at the UCI Objective Drama Workspace, also called the UCI barn. The prospective location for the seminar had some connotations that raised expectations for me. The traditional symbol of the barn as a space where farm harvests are gathered made it an unlikely place for a traditional theatrical performance to take place. But knowing Grotowski's penchant for ritual and his serious explorations of performance spaces, I was hoping that perhaps he would actually give some demonstrations or performances in the course of the seminar, even though he had stopped staging performances long ago. More people showed up at the barn than the space could accommodate and the seminar had to be relocated to a physics auditorium with a formal proscenium configuration. It was now doubly unlikely that Grotowski would present a performance. However, the seminar itself was a performative event, a unique as well as interesting experience, not just for the information given by Grotowski but also because of his method and manner of communicating his information.