Laboratory Theatre Research Articles

«Приключения Ходжи Насреддина в Татарстане»: история и современность на театральных подмостках

The folkloric character Khoja Nasreddin is widely known in different countries. A cheerful and resourceful hero for many centuries has become an expression of feelings and sentiments of the eastern peoples, their wit, freedom and rebellion. Currently, numerous examples of not only folk, but also professional art are dedicated to him. The image of Khoja is presented in them in different aspects and sometimes transforms under the influence of the creative individuality of its authors. This article is devoted to various interpretations of the classical history of Khoja Nasreddin on the stage. The article examines dramatic performances of G. Kamal Theatre, a puppet show of the National Theater, which became a continuation of the sketch created at the theatre laboratory in Sviyazhsk, a musical production of the Opera Studio in cooperation with the Tatarica Orchestra of the Kazan Conservatory.

From schema to rhuthmos: the idiorrhythmic encounters of the bridge of winds

The Bridge of Winds is an international research group founded in 1989 by Odin Teatret actress Iben Nagel Rasmussen. For thirty-three years, a core group of artists from 12 countries has met together annually, carrying out in-depth research into the actor’s craft. During these encounters, highly detailed psychophysical training is recovered and developed by the group, which feeds into performances, concerts and barters. The aim of this critical article is to reflect on the role of agency in the Bridge of Wind’s practice, drawing on field research carried out by the author in December 2021. It is argued that Rasmussen and her partners in the Bridge of Winds have re-envisioned laboratory theatre practice, allowing for an idiorrhythmic culture of practice to emerge that balances schema (fixed, fully developed form) and rhuthmos, (improvised, changeable form). Whilst the members of the Bridge of Winds are rigorous and disciplined, having inherited a laboratory ethos and schematic leaning grounded in the practice of Odin Teatret, there is a tenacious trace in their work of an idiorrhythmity that also allows for subversion, transformation and revolt. The group’s training, in particular, accommodates the reality of the older actor’s body, just as it enables younger arrivals to excavate a sense of bios. Thus, the essay will chart out the contours of a particular nomadic laboratory practice that advocates both individual agency and collective solidarity, serving as a creative touchstone and wellspring for its members.

Framing Polish-Jewish Relations Through Shakespeare in Post-war and Contemporary Polish Theatre

The paper aims to analyse how the staging of Shakespeare’s texts in post-war and contemporary Poland reflected the indifferent and hostile attitudes of Poles towards Jews, particularly during the Holocaust, and the distortions and gaps in the collective memory regarding the events. In the first part, the author focuses on Hamlet Study (dir. Jerzy Grotowski) performed in 1964 by Laboratory Theatre of 13 Rows in Opole, which is symptomatic of silencing the matter during the communist period. The second part draws from the statement of Jan Ciechowicz, a Polish theatre historian, who claimed that “the Holocaust killed Shylock for Polish stage.” While verifying it, the author analyses selected aspects of three productions directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski (The Tempest (2003), The Merchant of Venice (1994) and The African Tales by Shakespeare (2011)) and juxtaposes them against the background of the changes in collective memory. He argues that the most cogent productions concerning Polish attitudes towards Jews are those that position the audience as witnesses of the acts of re-enacted violence and thus provoke an affective response.

Buddah Still Works— the Work on Oneself Never Ends: Essay on Grotowski

This essay uses the personal recollections of Italian director Gioacchino Palumbo, including the experience of viewing of Apocalypsis cum figuris as well as some personal encounters with Jerzy Grotowski, to present a subjective account of selected aspects of Grotowski’s theatrical and non-theatrical practices, with an emphasis on understanding theatre as a lifelong work on oneself. Palumbo highlights those aspects of Grotowski’s work and quotations from his statements and writings that have contributed to his own development as a theatre artist. Particularly interested in Grotowski’s attitude to diverse sources of inspiration, Palumbo extensively discusses Grotowski’s interview on Gurdjieff, considering it as a representative example of artist’s approach to cultural phenomena that influenced him. The essay is preceded by an introduction in which Giuseppe G. Condorelli presents the original theatrical work of Palumbo, who has been running his own theatre laboratory in Catania since 1981.

The Stanislavsky–Grotowski lineage: Part II

ABSTRACT The connection between Konstantin Stanislavsky and Jerzy Grotowski is often overlooked or underplayed because there are substantial distinctions between them in terms of practices and approaches. In Part I of this essay, I examine Grotowski’s reflections on Stanislavsky’s final experiments, which the Polish director considered to constitute the culmination of the System, as well as the starting point for his own work at the Laboratory Theatre. In Part II, I explore the implications of the Stanislavsky-Grotowski lineage and its legacy for contemporary performance research by relating Stanislavsky’s idiosyncratic usage of the term perezhivanie, translated by Martin Kurten as “conscious experience,” to the neuroscientific investigation of embodied experience, discussed by Rhonda Blair, and to Grotowski’s own conception of consciousness as a form of embodied awareness. I then focus on a crucial point of convergence between the Russian and Polish directors’ respective approaches lying beyond the purview of neuroscience, namely, the correlation between the physical and the spiritual, prompting Sharon Carnicke to invent the neologism “physiospiritual.” I infer that the legacy of the Stanislavsky-Grotowski lineage consists in an expanded notion of perezhivanie that I relate to philosopher Alva Noë’s phenomenological understanding of the interrelation of consciousness and experience.

“Grand little lady of the stage and screen”1: The role of Maria Ouspenskaya in the dissemination of the Stanislavsky system in the US

ABSTRACT Maria Ouspenskaya’s (1876-1949) classwork on acting development and Richard Boleslavsky’s lectures and class demonstrations formed the pedagogical core of the American Laboratory Theatre. The training they provided paralleled very closely to their experience at the Moscow Art Theatre and laid the foundations for the systematic study of Stanislavsky’s approach in the United States. Although Boleslavsky was the main inspirational force for the young students, Ouspenskaya provided with her pedagogical work stable regularity necessary at the Lab and guided her students through rigorous training techniques and exercises. After the Lab closed, she opened her own acting studios (initially in New York, later in Los Angeles). All this time, she accepted acting engagements and soon became a Hollywood celebrity, recognized as “the living theatrical legend” and one of the finest and most respected American acting teachers that played a vital role in disseminating Stanislavsky’s ideas. The study analyzes Ouspenskaya’s teaching techniques, using the descriptions of her work abstracted from her students’ interviews or the notes they took during her class. It also investigates her on-screen appearances, providing lasting visual evidence of her performing skills and giving us a direct sense of the potential quality of early System inspired acting.

The Translation of Protest: The Worldwide Readings Project of Andrei Kureichyk’s Insulted. Belarus

On 9 August 2020, Belarus erupted in protest over the falsified election results promoted and endorsed by existing president Aliaksandar Lukashenka. Playwright, director, and member of the Coordination Council for the peaceful transfer of power in Belarus, Andrei Kureichyk was one of the thousands on the streets that month. In early September he finished a new play depicting the events leading up to and surrounding the largest anti-government demonstrations in Belarus’s history. Before going into hiding, Kureichyk sent the play, Insulted. Belarus, to former Russian theatre critic John Freedman for translation. Together, the two men hoped to have a few theatres in various European and North American countries give a reading of the play in solidarity with the people of Belarus. Neither of them expected that, within two months, the play would be translated into eighteen languages and receive over seventy-seven readings on digital platforms. While many companies were eager to add their name to the global ledger of solidarity, the rise of authoritarianism, as well as the renewed reckoning with systemic racism and sexism in many cultures and countries around the world, additionally meant that many theatres found in the play a vehicle to reflect and comment on their own situations. This article, written by one of the initial participants of the project, attempts to chart how the Worldwide Readings of Insulted. Belarus navigated the translation of protest from Belarus to the world. Bryan Brown is Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter and co-director of visual theatre company ARTEL (American Russian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory) and author of A History of the Theatre Laboratory (Routledge, 2019). He is a member of the editorial board of Theatre Dance and Performance Training, co-editing the special issue ‘Training Places: Dartington College of Arts’ (2018).

Transgression of the Self – the Total Act in Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Theater and Jungian archetype experience

Niniejszy artykuł jest poświęcony z najważniejszych odkryć Jerzego Grotowskiego, aktowi całkowitemu, specyficznemu rodzajowi działania i doświadczenia zarazem. Powstało ono w ramach praktyki teatralnej, lecz poza funkcją związaną z dramaturgią przedstawień miało wyższy cel, związany z poszukiwaniem istoty człowieczeństwa i źródeł doświadczenia rzeczywistości. Jerzy Grotowski dążył do transformacji aktorów oraz obserwatorów, otwarcia ich na to, co autentyczne, żywe i obecne. To osiągnięcie stanowiło rodzaj doświadczenia, w którym przezwyciężone zostaje sacrum i profanum. Akt całkowity pozwalał „stać się patrzonym” i, paradoksalnie, pozwalał uczestniczyć w dwoistości biernego działania, w którym człowiek staje się obserwatorem i działającym zarazem. Moim celem jest sproblematyzowanie roli zasady współistnienia przeciwieństw w pracy J. Grotowskiego i opis aktu całkowitego jako możliwości doświadczenia psychofizycznej jedni. Człowiek w tym archetypowym doświadczeniu poprzedza wszelkie różnice, jest w stanie dotrzeć do samego centrum własnego Ja, tego, co Carl Gustav Jung określał mianem Selbst.

The Clinch and the Crack: Rupture and Resolution in Third Theatre’s Laboratory Practices

This article maps out our critical engagement with the Third Theatre community pre- and post-COVID-19, with a focus on both performer training and the concrete material ways in which group theatres connected to this small tradition have responded to the challenges of the global pandemic. To illustrate our arguments, we draw on the Japanese craft of kintsugi—the transformative repair of ceramics—as a dispositif, employed to investigate the ways in which theatrical practice can comprise ‘an art of precious scars’, to paraphrase Stephano Carnazzi. This model allows for breaking with form and, importantly, re-modelling energy, which conversely becomes the most important aspect of the theatre laboratory, encompassing the relationships between body and form, individual and group, and artist and the wider society, importantly allowing for the creation of something that is more unique and authentic. Theatrical practice can thus be a clinch (bound like in a mother’s embrace) or jolted through disruption (like the cracks of kintsugi). Importantly, this disruption and its resolution takes place on both a level of form (as in the theatrical exercise) and on a broader, socio-political and economic plain. The article importantly focuses on both phenomena, and in so doing reflects on both the legacy and futurity of the transnational Third Theatre community.

Emerging Theatre Practices – The Golden Myth of European Theatrical Thought

The purpose of this study is to reveal the major gap that exists between the national or global literature about theatre and the current theatrical practice. The gap is due, first of all, to the publishing trend of editors that tend to print books written by absolutely exceptional creators. We start from the premise that emerging theatre must not only distance itself from a theatrical phenomenon perceived as traditional, but must also become an artistic current that expands and becomes in turn, in time, a "norm" in itself. Thus, at a time when performances by Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowksi, Eugenio Barba and Tadeusz Kantor were seen by theatre critics as emerging performances, theatrical practice in the next decades in European theatres shows us that these directors were creating a rather unique, experimental kind of productions. Laboratory theatre, based on long research, remains a marginal component in Western theatrical practice, where repertoire theatre, with its increasingly shorter production times, remains an absolute norm. However, the paradox remains that these show creators are homaged by the specialty literature, and rightly so, although the same does not happen with "normal" theatre directors. Theatrical theory loves exceptions too much, and the story that we are told about theatre in the late twentieth century, full of great theatrical experiments, is a false one, detached from 90% of the artistic practice. In contrast, Robert Wilson and the shows he directs constitute a completely different story. Many contemporary theatre practitioners claim to be influenced by his aesthetics, including Pippo Delbono, Romeo Castellucci or Thomas Ostermeyer. He practiced a once marginal theatrical style, but which gave birth to a strong aesthetic heritage. Therefore, this article aims to make the historical differentiation between emerging theatre and exceptional theatre, but also to identify in the contemporary Romanian performative arts the real features of the emerging theatre.

Kaddish

Ludwik Flaszen was the cofounder and literary adviser of the Polish Laboratory Theatre, and a collaborator of Jerzy Grotowski. This Jewish kaddish and Dionysian dithyramb offers a glimpse of his life and work.

Echolocation and Reverberation: Praxical Dispositifs in Laboratory Theatre

Echolocation and Reverberation: Praxical Dispositifs in Laboratory Theatre

Introduction to Peripeti and Serendipity

Peripeti 2 is about theatre laboratory tradition under the title of Why a Theatre Laboratory? It is in English and includes the programme of a three days’ international symposium from October 4th through 6th 2004. This is the first initiative taken by the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies (CTLS), a newly inaugurated centre under Aarhus University in cooperation with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium. Peripeti include articles on Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Decroux, Grotowski, Peter Brook, Théâtre du Soleil, and Odin Teatret and the theatre laboratory praxis of these masters and inventors, including, of course, reflections on their function and effect. In the last article, Eugenio Barba reflects on the creative process of Odin Teatret over the last 40 years. In addition, we also include the curriculum vitae on those participating in the symposium. The occasion of the symposium is to celebrate the 40th anniversary in October 2004 of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret. Congratulations.

Methodological Note Concerning the Symposium "Why a Theatre Laboratory?"

Eugenio Barba Why a Theatre Laboratory? It includes the programme of a three days’ international symposium from October 4th through 6th 2004. This is the first initiative taken by the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies (CTLS), a newly inaugurated centre under Aarhus University in cooperation with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium. Peripeti include articles on Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Decroux, Grotowski, Peter Brook, Théâtre du Soleil, and Odin Teatret and the theatre laboratory praxis of these masters and inventors, including, of course, reflections on their function and effect. In the last article, Eugenio Barba reflects on the creative process of Odin Teatret over the last 40 years. In addition, we also include the curriculum vitae on those participating in the symposium. The occasion of the symposium is to celebrate the 40th anniversary in October 2004 of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret. Congratulations.

What is a Theatre Laboratory?

Why a Theatre Laboratory? It includes the programme of a three days’ international symposium from October 4th through 6th 2004. This is the first initiative taken by the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies (CTLS), a newly inaugurated centre under Aarhus University in cooperation with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium. Peripeti include articles on Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Decroux, Grotowski, Peter Brook, Théâtre du Soleil, and Odin Teatret and the theatre laboratory praxis of these masters and inventors, including, of course, reflections on their function and effect. In the last article, Eugenio Barba reflects on the creative process of Odin Teatret over the last 40 years. In addition, we also include the curriculum vitae on those participating in the symposium. The occasion of the symposium is to celebrate the 40th anniversary in October 2004 of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret. Congratulations.

Jacques Copeau

Why a Theatre Laboratory? It includes the programme of a three days’ international symposium from October 4th through 6th 2004. This is the first initiative taken by the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies (CTLS), a newly inaugurated centre under Aarhus University in cooperation with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium. Peripeti include articles on Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Decroux, Grotowski, Peter Brook, Théâtre du Soleil, and Odin Teatret and the theatre laboratory praxis of these masters and inventors, including, of course, reflections on their function and effect. In the last article, Eugenio Barba reflects on the creative process of Odin Teatret over the last 40 years. In addition, we also include the curriculum vitae on those participating in the symposium. The occasion of the symposium is to celebrate the 40th anniversary in October 2004 of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret. Congratulations.

Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski

Why a Theatre Laboratory? It includes the programme of a three days’ international symposium from October 4th through 6th 2004. This is the first initiative taken by the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies (CTLS), a newly inaugurated centre under Aarhus University in cooperation with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium. Peripeti include articles on Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Decroux, Grotowski, Peter Brook, Théâtre du Soleil, and Odin Teatret and the theatre laboratory praxis of these masters and inventors, including, of course, reflections on their function and effect. In the last article, Eugenio Barba reflects on the creative process of Odin Teatret over the last 40 years. In addition, we also include the curriculum vitae on those participating in the symposium. The occasion of the symposium is to celebrate the 40th anniversary in October 2004 of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret. Congratulations.

Odin Teatret: Phases of a Theatrical Enclave

Why a Theatre Laboratory? It includes the programme of a three days’ international symposium from October 4th through 6th 2004. This is the first initiative taken by the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies (CTLS), a newly inaugurated centre under Aarhus University in cooperation with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium. Peripeti include articles on Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Decroux, Grotowski, Peter Brook, Théâtre du Soleil, and Odin Teatret and the theatre laboratory praxis of these masters and inventors, including, of course, reflections on their function and effect. In the last article, Eugenio Barba reflects on the creative process of Odin Teatret over the last 40 years. In addition, we also include the curriculum vitae on those participating in the symposium. The occasion of the symposium is to celebrate the 40th anniversary in October 2004 of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret. Congratulations.

Vsevolod Meyerhold

Why a Theatre Laboratory? It includes the programme of a three days’ international symposium from October 4th through 6th 2004. This is the first initiative taken by the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies (CTLS), a newly inaugurated centre under Aarhus University in cooperation with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium. Peripeti include articles on Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Decroux, Grotowski, Peter Brook, Théâtre du Soleil, and Odin Teatret and the theatre laboratory praxis of these masters and inventors, including, of course, reflections on their function and effect. In the last article, Eugenio Barba reflects on the creative process of Odin Teatret over the last 40 years. In addition, we also include the curriculum vitae on those participating in the symposium. The occasion of the symposium is to celebrate the 40th anniversary in October 2004 of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret. Congratulations.

Peter Brook

Peter Brook Why a Theatre Laboratory? It includes the programme of a three days’ international symposium from October 4th through 6th 2004. This is the first initiative taken by the Centre for Theatre Laboratory Studies (CTLS), a newly inaugurated centre under Aarhus University in cooperation with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium. Peripeti include articles on Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Decroux, Grotowski, Peter Brook, Théâtre du Soleil, and Odin Teatret and the theatre laboratory praxis of these masters and inventors, including, of course, reflections on their function and effect. In the last article, Eugenio Barba reflects on the creative process of Odin Teatret over the last 40 years. In addition, we also include the curriculum vitae on those participating in the symposium. The occasion of the symposium is to celebrate the 40th anniversary in October 2004 of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium/Odin Teatret. Congratulations.