European Review, Vol. 28, No.

1, 76–89 © 2019 Academia Europaea

doi:10.1017/S1062798719000280

Theatre as ‘An Encounter’: Grotowski’s

Cosmopolitanism in the Cold War Era

CHENGZHOU HE

School of Arts and School of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou

Road, Nanjing 210093, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]

Throughout his career as a theatre director, Jerzy Grotowski encountered many dif-
ferent theatre cultures, which both collided with and were synthesized in his own
practices. Confronted with Cold War mindsets and ideological constraints,
Grotowski’s theatrical art reflects a kind of cosmopolitan spirit by embracing a com-
mon humanity. Analysing Grotowski’s biography alongside his theatrical innova-
tions and theoretical thinking, this article aims to investigate the following three
aspects of his theatrical cosmopolitanism: his encounters with different performance
cultures in his theatrical concept of ‘poor theatre’, his advocacy of universal ethics in
his representative theatrical production Akropolis, and his belief in world citizenship
reflected in his concept of ‘art as vehicle’ from the later years of his career. As a pio-
neer in the contemporary experimental theatre and performance, Grotowski trav-
elled, lived and worked all over the world, transcending the geographical and
ideological divide between the Socialist and the Capitalist blocs during the Cold
War. The adverse social conditions of the time did not hinder his creativity, but
rather instigated his unmatched artistic talent and his cosmopolitan spirit, both of
which are deeply interconnected and integrated.

1. Introduction
In an interview in June 1967, the Polish theatre director and theoretician Jerzy
Grotowski (1933–1999) said that ‘The core of the theatre is an encounter’
(Grotowski 2002, 56). It is a creative encounter between the producer (or director)
and the actor, between the producer and the author of the text, between the perform-
ers and the audience, as well as between the text/performance and the historical
context. It is also an encounter between different performance cultures. As one of
the greatest theatre directors of the latter half of the twentieth century, Grotowski
sought to transcend the geographical and ideological boundaries of the Cold War
(1947–1991), revealing his cosmopolitan sensibilities and ideals.

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 Theatre as ‘An Encounter’ 77

Grotowski’s secondary and post-secondary education took place after World

War II. He worked as a theatre director mostly in the Cold War era during a time
when Europe was divided into two antagonistic blocs: Capitalist Western Europe
and Communist Central and Eastern Europe. Former British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill once described post-war Europe as ‘a rubble heap, a charnel
house, a breeding ground of pestilence and hate’ (McMahon 2003, 2). During the
Cold War, art was used to serve political purposes, but also strove to go beyond
ideological differences. Artists played an important role in bridging the gaps and
spreading cosmopolitan ideas among people from different political and cultural
backgrounds.
Throughout his career as a theatre director, Grotowski encountered many different
theatre cultures, which both collided with and were synthesized in his own practices.
Confronted with Cold War mindsets and ideological constraints, Grotowski’s theatrical
art reflects a kind of cosmopolitan spirit by embracing a common humanity. Analysing
Grotowski’s biography alongside his theatrical innovations and theoretical thinking,
I aim to investigate the following three aspects of his theatrical cosmopolitanism: his
encounters with different performance cultures in his concept of ‘poor theatre’, his
advocacy of universal ethics in his representative production Akropolis, and his belief
in world citizenship reflected in his concept of ‘art as vehicle’ from the later years of
his career. First, however, it is necessary to briefly introduce the idea of cosmopolitanism
and how it relates to both theatre and performance in the Cold War context.

2. Negotiating Cosmopolitanism in the Theatrical Cold War

Contemporary cosmopolitanism has many different interpretations, and no single
definition is sufficient on its own. Nevertheless, some core concepts are consistent.
First, in terms of culture, cosmopolitanism is often used to ‘address certain social
processes and/or individual behaviors and dispositions that demonstrate a capacity
to embrace cultural difference’ (Gilbert and Lo 2009, 5). According to Stuart Hall
(2002, 25–31), cultural cosmopolitanism
means the ability to stand outside of having one’s life written and scripted by any one
community, whether that is a faith or tradition or religion or culture – whatever it
might be, and to draw selectively on a variety of discursive meanings.

However, there are many potential risks and pitfalls in cultural exchanges, which
are often overridden by power relationships in terms of political, ideological and mil-
itary forces. In postcolonial studies, Western-centrism has been subjected to strong
criticism. For Homi K. Bhabha and Kwame A. Appiah, cultural cosmopolitanism
does not support the idea of a single centre radiating in all directions. Instead, it
advocates the idea that centres are everywhere, but circumferences are nowhere.
Bhabha’s vernacular cosmopolitanism looks at the world from local perspectives,
basing itself on native experiences. ‘The term “vernacular” combines respect for
the local and the desire for a post-universal dimension’ (Taraborrelli 2015, 112).

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 78 Chengzhou He

Appiah’s ‘rooted’ cosmopolitanism is focused on global responsibility for the less

developed regions of the world and the independence of individuals. Accepting
human differences as legitimate, he nevertheless perceives a respect for individuality
as fundamental to all cultures. ‘[A]s he advocates a kind of cosmopolitanism in which
the individual and personal autonomy are placed in the centre, he deems cultures
important only because and to the extent to which they are such for individuals’
(Taraborrelli 2015, 108). In addition, one is not cosmopolitan simply because one
lives in a multicultural or transnational context or environment, but because
one consciously identifies with the cosmopolitan vision and is willing to act
accordingly.
Second, the various forms of cosmopolitanism share a common ethical orientation.
‘Cosmopolitanism is a belief that all human beings, regardless of their differences, are
members of a single community and all worthy of equal moral regard’ (Balme et al.
2017, 60). In Toward Perpetual Peace, Kant (2006: 84) points out the fundamental ethi-
cal principle that ‘a violation of right on one place of the earth is felt in all’. In general,
ethical cosmopolitanism holds the view that all human beings are members of the world
community and that they should be treated equally regardless of their nationality,
language, religion, customs and so on. Moreover, according to Kant and Hannah
Arendt (1906–1975), ethical cosmopolitanism should be defended by legal and political
institutions. ‘Advocates of political-legal cosmopolitanism are quite convinced however
that profound institutional transformations are essential if the global system is to satis-
factorily achieve the cosmopolitan ideal’ (Taraborrelli 2015, 47). Although this proved
to be very difficult during the Cold War, such institutions as the United Nations played
an important role in promoting certain principles of cosmopolitan ethics.
Third, cosmopolitanism advocates for world citizens and their consciousness to
meet the challenges of nation-states. Kant promoted a notion of world citizenship
committed to the universal codes of rights and justice. This kind of cosmopolitanism
was dependent on the ancient rights of hospitality that demanded that all persons
(regardless of colour, creed or politics) be allowed free access to any part of the
world. Instead of setting up a world government, Arendt called on each individual
to develop a ‘community sense’ by joining the world community through the simple
fact of being a human being. In spite of existing ideological differences, even during
the Cold War and then especially since the 1970s, globalization has gathered increas-
ing speed. As consumer goods, capital and information circulate quickly around the
world, mobility has been greatly enhanced. At the same time, the unequal develop-
ment of globalization has provoked regional and national mistrust and conflicts,
which have even resulted in wars such as those in the Middle East. Therefore, the
sense of world citizenship needs to be communicated and promoted through litera-
ture and arts, including the theatre.
Theatre played an important role in the ideological Cold War and was heavily
invested across the divide. ‘Culture, and theatrical culture in particular with its high
degree of representational power, was recognized as an important medium in the
ideological struggles that characterize this epoch [the Cold War – the author]’
(Balme et al. 2017, 3). However, culture, including theatre, does not always become

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 Theatre as ‘An Encounter’ 79

servile to the authorities, but rather possesses its own autonomy. ‘We can observe a
curious counter-tendency on the part of culture generally and theatre in particular to
counteract the stasis and impenetrability of the various blocs’ (Balme et al. 2017, 6).
For dramatists and theatre directors, theatre could become an efficient means of
challenging ideological constraints and promoting the relevance of cosmopolitanism.
Theatre ‘provides an exemplary site through which to examine the limits as well
as the potential of cosmopolitan thinking’ (Gilbert and Lo 2009, 12). How then is
cosmopolitanism antithetical to the ideologies of the Cold War? And how does
theatre negotiate the ideologies of the divided blocs and the ideal of cosmopolitanism
that binds human beings together? Grotowski provides an answer.
Like Richard Schechner, Peter Brook and many other contemporary theatre direc-
tors, Grotowski is a prominent example of border-crossing. His book Towards a Poor
Theatre (1968), edited by Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret, which circulated in several
translations around the world, became something of a ‘sacred’ text for the alternative
theatre movement. The world in which Grotowski started his career in the 1950s was
plagued by hatred and mistrust among nations and peoples, but he learned to transcend
ideological constraints. Grotowski became part of a cosmopolitan elite: since he was a
well-known director, he could choose to travel wherever he wanted to go, and mix with
people as he liked. However, he also occupied a marginal position as he sought political
asylum in the US in the 1980s. His ideas of cosmopolitanism are complicated: they are
both local and global, both elite and founded in grass-roots, both mainstream and
peripheral, both cosmopolitan from above and cosmopolitan from below. It is perhaps
within the liminal transitions that the most radical changes take place and transform the
status quo.
How might one analyse cosmopolitanism in the theatre? ‘Within theatre’s com-
plex materiality, the cosmopolitics of cross-cultural exchange may be located at the
levels of representation, training/rehearsal process and reception practices,’ say
Gilbert and Lo (2009, 13). In a similar manner, we will examine the following three
aspects of Grotowski’s theatre in relation to cosmopolitanism: his new concept of
theatre, especially the ‘poor theatre’, revealing his openness to different performance
cultures; the universal ethical themes represented in his stage production of
Akropolis; and the transmission and reception of his theatre after his emigration
to the US and later to Italy, where he became more and more a world citizen.
These three intersecting levels of Grotowski’s theatre are grounded in the historical
context of the Cold War, but they also contributed to the gradual erosion of the
compartmentalization between the socialist and capitalist blocs in Europe and
beyond.

3. The Making of ‘Poor Theatre’ and Grotowski’s Encounter

with Different Performance Cultures
After the Second World War, the Polish theatre was dominated by socialist propa-
ganda art, and national romantic and bourgeois theatres were largely banned. When

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 80 Chengzhou He

Stalinism was criticized in 1955, Poland’s theatre culture began to recover its sense of
diversification. However, government censorship remained tight and the conflicts
between artists and the authorities fluctuated along with changes in the political
atmosphere. According to Kyrill Kunakhovich,
the ideological struggles of the cultural Cold War were conducted not only between
two opposing fronts but also within the system itself: the most intense struggles took
place on the home front, as local institutions manoeuvred within the structures of
those policies which both fostered and critiqued the ‘bourgeois’ art form of theatre.
(Quoted in Balme et al. 2017, 10)

As a member of the Communist Party himself,1 Grotowski gradually learned how

to deal with the government and to get some degree of support for his theatre. He
became a pioneering figure in directing experimental theatre in Poland in the 1950s
and 1960s, even formulating his own theatre theory named ‘poor theatre’.
In Towards A Poor Theatre, Grotowski (2002, 19) asks some basic questions:
‘What is the theatre? What is unique about it? What can it do that film and television
cannot?’ To answer these queries, he proposes the concept of poor theatre. In terms of
theatricality, poor theatre transcends the traditional notion of theatre as comprehen-
sive art. ‘It challenges the notion of theatre as a synthesis of disparate creative
disciplines – literature, sculpture, painting, architecture, lighting, acting’ (Grotowski
2002, 19). He calls this synthetic theatre ‘rich theatre’, which he thinks is full of flaws.
Instead, Grotowski emphasizes the actors and their bodies. ‘By his controlled use of
gesture the actor transforms the floor into a sea, a table into a confessional, a piece of
iron into an animate partner, etc.’ (Grotowski 2002, 21). This, I think, is reminiscent
of the acting patterns of conventionalization in the Oriental theatre, for example,
Peking Opera.
Grotowski’s theatre career is divided into five stages. The first two stages are char-
acterized by a new approach to the actor–spectator relationship as interactive and
reciprocal. In Grotowski’s Objective Drama Research, Lisa Wolford refers to his idea
of the ‘holy actor’ in the first period (1959–1969) as provoking spectators to ‘under-
take a similar process of self-penetration’ (Wolford 1996, 5). Concerning his idea of
‘paratheatre’ (or theatre of participation) during the second period (1969–1978),
Wolford explains that the division between actors and spectators is erased and
the concept of meeting becomes crucial. Grotowski says,
To cross the frontiers between you and me: to come forward to meet you : : : For a
start, if we work with each other : : : to look at you, to get rid of fear and shame into
which your eyes drive me when I am accessible to them, whole. Not to hide, to be as
I am. (Quoted in Wolford 1996, 5)

During the Cold War, the direct connection between actors and spectators,
according to Grotowski, would ‘allow us once again to experience a universal human
truth’ (Slowiak and Cuesta 2007, 45). Instead of struggling within the boundaries of

1. It is usually underlined that Grotowski joined the Communist Party for strategic rather than ideo-
logical reasons.

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 Theatre as ‘An Encounter’ 81

conventional theatre, he headed toward experimental theatre to search for an alter-

native form of art that would match his ideas of universality despite cultural
differences.
In his theatre laboratory, Grotowski took in many actors from outside of Poland.
For example, during his third stage, the Theatre of Sources (1976–1982), his actors
came from many different performance cultures, and could then learn and benefit
from each other.
This is true even though several members of the Theatre of Sources team were mas-
ters of a particular technique and everyone maintained strong links to their cultural
heritage. The initial doings or propositions were then tested by other members of the
group who approached them with different mind structures, different conditionings.
(Slowiak and Cuesta 2007, 32)

The purpose of the Theatre of Sources was to test certain doctrines of perfor-
mance by relating them to different cultures and traditions. In addition,
Grotowski led his theatre to many different places, mainly in Poland, and exchanged
performance practices with actors of other theatres, including ritualistic performers
in the remote countryside.
On each expedition, Grotowski’s Theatre of Sources diligently avoided exploiting
these traditional cultures or appropriating elements of their rituals. Instead, the
group simply made contact, kept a natural distance, and worked ‘next to’ or in some
relation with the traditional practitioners or their natural environment. (Slowiak and
Cuesta 2007, 32)

It is said that some performers from those local troupes then chose to join
Grotowski’s team, which again added new varieties of performance to its repertoire.
Grotowski’s concept of ‘poor theatre’ is to some extent indebted to forms of
Asian theatre such as the traditional Chinese opera. ‘When I speak of the actor’s
expression of signs, I am asked about oriental theatre, particularly classic Chinese
theatre, especially when it is known that I studied there’ (Grotowski 2002, 24). In
August 1962, Grotowski travelled to China, visited Shanghai, Nanjing and
Beijing, and met with various important people from theatrical circles. For exam-
ple, he recalled that he met a voice expert, Dr Ling, who taught him how to check
if an actor’s larynx is open or closed during voice production. He watched Peking
Opera and discovered that the actors of the Peking Opera begin each action with a
distinct movement in the opposite direction from where they want to go. He then
practiced this movement together with his actors in Poland, something that later
was called ‘the Chinese principle’ (Slowiak and Cuesta 2007, 14). He also made
some trips to India between 1968 and 1970, where he visited great masters of
acting (Slowiak and Cuesta 2007, 23). In 1973, Grotowski travelled to Japan
and met Tadashi Suzuki, with whom he attended a Nô Theatre rehearsal.
These frequent encounters with other performance cultures proved to be illumi-
nating and productive for both himself and his actors.
Although Grotowski was inclined to acknowledge the differences between indi-
viduals and between cultures, he firmly believed that we can find even more

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 82 Chengzhou He

commonalities, and then use negotiation to try to understand and bridge the differ-
ences. Sometimes, others can help us understand things within us that are
incomprehensible to ourselves. Grotowski says,
We are all (to greater or lesser degree) products of our respective cultures, and
difference among us can reassert itself in the most unexpected moments. Yet the trav-
elers of speed recognize an affinity or perhaps a common thirst that gives them the
impetus and patience to negotiate difference. I need this Other, I say of my
(Armenian, Australian, Iranian) colleague, because there is something within me
which s/he understands, something incomprehensible to most of ‘my own’.
(Wolford 1996, 28)

Such an open attitude to other performance cultures in Grotowski and his actors is
certainly beneficial to the kind of theatre they have endeavoured to bring into being.
Their knowledge of the other theatre traditions can disrupt their old habits of
performance and yield new perceptions of theatre. Through his encounters with dif-
ferent performance cultures, an actor learns new performing skills so that his or her
potentials to work with the body may be activated.
Grotowski’s encounters with different performance traditions from the West and
the East greatly enriched his perceptions of the nature of theatre and performance.
As a European, his art is deeply rooted in the great European tradition, particularly
the Stanislavsky system of acting. ‘In the construction of the Action, the majority of
the source-elements come from (in one way or another) the Occidental tradition’
(Grotowski 1995, 130). In the meantime, he also acknowledged his indebtedness
to Oriental artistic tradition. ‘Because precisely the sources of the Oriental cradle
had a direct impact on me when I was a child and adolescent, long before I did the-
atre’ (Grotowski 1995, 130). Thus, his concept of ‘poor theatre’ is a consequence of
his encounters with Occidental and Oriental theatres, which produced unexpected
results. Nevertheless, he also warned others not to develop a simplistic view of inter-
culturalism as blending or intermingling different cultures together. ‘It seems to me
that the Oriental and Occidental approaches are complementary. But we must not
try to create a synthesis of a “performative” syncretism; rather we must try to tran-
scend the limitations of the two approaches’ (Grotowski 1989, 1–11). Grotowski’s
theatrical concepts are anti-traditional, open and transformational; in the meantime,
his early theatre productions are also critical reflections on the history of Poland, the
Holocaust in particular, revealing his cosmopolitan ethics. Akropolis is one such
example.

4. The Ethics of Performance and Grotowski’s Encounter with the

Holocaust
In 1959, Grotowski took over the artistic directorship of Teatr 13 Rzędów (Theatre
of 13 Rows), situated in a small Polish city called Opole, and started his cooperation with
the then literary director of the theatre, Ludwik Flaszen. Their cooperation soon bore fruit
in the creation of an avant-garde theatre. Together, they staged productions that began to

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 Theatre as ‘An Encounter’ 83

challenge theatrical conventions. In 1962, Grotowski renamed the theatre, Teatr

Laboratorium 13 Rzędów (Laboratory Theatre of 13 Rows), and produced the first
and second variations of Akropolis, which made his reputation. Grotowski was not a pro-
ductive theatre director, even refraining from premiering complete works of art later in his
career. Instead, he focused on actor training and methods of exploring the expressivity of
the body. Apart from Akropolis (1962), some of his early well-known professional
productions include: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1964), The Constant
Prince (1967), and Apocalypsis cum figures (1969).
Poland adopted socialist realism as its official cultural policy in 1949.
The main thrust of cultural policy as directed by the cultural commissar Włodzimierz
Sokorski was socialist realism, defined many years later by Andrzej Wajda, one of
Poland’s most distinguished film directors, as the ‘representation of reality not as it
is, but as it ought to be’. (Lukowski and Zawadzki 2006, 279)

However, in the aftermath of the fall of Stalinism, there was a temporary liberal-
ization of the cultural policy within the Polish government. In this respect, theatre
played a role in the government propaganda about artistic freedom. Taking advan-
tage of the government’s new cultural policy, Grotowski took active measures to
experiment with theatre. In the Theatre of 13 Rows in Opole, he gradually trans-
formed the existing forms of performance adopted from the theatre he found
there, establishing new relationships between literature and performance, stage and
audience, actors and spectators.2
Akropolis was his breakthrough as a theatre director. Based on the namesake play
by Stanisław Wyspiański (1869–1907), a Polish national neo-romantic playwright,
Grotowski appropriated the dramatic text to fit his own needs. It should be men-
tioned that the performance was highly influenced by another theatre director
and painter of that time, Józef Szajna, a prisoner of Auschwitz himself, who designed
the stage and costumes. The play offers a critical re-evaluation of human civilization
by focusing on the ethnic cleansing that took place at the Nazi concentration camp of
Auschwitz. Revealing the horror of mass murder, it evoked a kind of collective
experience of the destructiveness of human nature, especially when the audience
directly participated by singing and acting. The performance was later brought to
many places outside of Poland, such as Brussels, Edinburgh, Paris and New York.
The success of Akropolis should first be attributed to its unusual scenic language:
acting becomes the focus of performance. The actors in Akropolis do not wear normal
costumes but sacks. The objects they use are pipes from plumbing. The sounds of the
words they utter are not conversational but nonsensical babbling. The performance
does not attempt in the slightest to construct psychologically realistic characters,
making it an ideal representation of ‘poor theatre’. The formal innovation is, however,
used to convey Grotwoski’s cosmopolitan concern about humanity as a whole.
‘Theatre needs to be universal to be national’ (Romanska 2012, 10), says Tadeusz

2. As a matter of fact, he had already started experimenting with theatre in Cracow (1957–1958)
while putting on the stage Bogowie deszczu (Gods of Rain) in 1958 although it was rather
‘a rich theatre’.

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 84 Chengzhou He

Kantor, another well-known Polish theatre director and Grotowski’s contemporary.

Grotowski challenges cultural bigotry and reveals the hypocrisy of the human condi-
tion. The constant repetition of the phrases, ‘our Acropolis’ and ‘cemetery of the
tribes’, is a comment on the evil and intolerance inherent in each individual as well
as in biased ideologies. The ethics of performance in Akropolis will be further discussed
as follows.
First, it deals with the taboo subject of Polish–Jewish relations. For many years
following the Second World War, the role of anti-Semitism in the near-extermination
of the Jewish community that once made up a significant part of Poland’s population
was not given adequate discussion or reflection in Poland. Instead, the Holocaust
was used by the Polish government to rebuild national identity. Akropolis won wide
applause for its representation of Jewish suffering and the fate of Poles in Auschwitz.
It ‘engage[s] the issue of the Holocaust in a way that addresses the Polish past and
present; they respond to history, while both speaking and not speaking of the taboo
subject’ (Romanska 2012, 39).
Second, under pressure from the Soviet Union, there was a government-organized
Jewish exodus from Poland to Israel from the mid-1950s on, though there had been
strong protests against this across different social and political groups. Even when
Akropolis was staged in the 1960s, the organized Jewish exodus continued. It is,
therefore, extremely ironic that ‘[a]s Ida Kaminska, the distinguished artistic director
of Warsaw’s Jewish Theater, was packing her bags to emigrate to the U.S., the Polish
Laboratory was riding the wave of the international success of Akropolis and The
Constant Prince’ (Romanska 2012, 226). According to records, 40,000 Jews still lived
in Poland in the beginning of 1968, but by the end of that year only 5000 remained. It
was against this political background that the significance of Akropolis should be
discussed.
Third, Akropolis is political, in spite of the claims that the author made against
such an interpretation. In his article ‘You are Someone’s Son’, Grotowski (1985,
quoted in Slowiak and Cuesta 2007) speaks clearly of his politics:
I work, not to make some discourse, but to enlarge the island of freedom which I
bear; my obligation is not to make political declarations, but to make holes in
the wall. The things which were forbidden before me should be permitted after
me; the doors which were closed and double locked should be opened. (Quoted in
Slowiak and Cuesta 2007, 7)

In Poland, critical reflection on the Second World War, Stalinism, and Auschwitz
brought about a general disillusionment with the existing ideological blockage,
which to a certain extent paved the way for the 1989 transformations.
Fundamental to Grotowski’s theatrical ethics is the respect for humanity and free-
dom. When he studied in Moscow between 1955 and 1956, his Russian supervisor
Yuri Zavadsky (1894–1977) confided to him that he regretted cooperating with the
authorities in return for material comforts, warning Grotowski against such a
mistake. ‘Forty years later in Holstebro Grotowski refers to that incident as a turning
point in his life’ (Michalak 2017, 189–205). He also shared this desire for artistic

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 Theatre as ‘An Encounter’ 85

freedom with Tadeusz Kantor, who defended an artist’s individuality in the 1950s by
saying that ‘a real artist observes with dislike and disgust how freedom and indepen-
dence of art is being stifled by the yoke of “state prestige”’ (Michalak 2017, 190).
Grotowski carried out this spiritual search to the end of his life and across vast
geographical distances.

5. ‘Art as Vehicle’ and Grotowski’s Encounter with the World

After the introduction of martial law in December 1981 in Poland, theatre practi-
tioners were confronted with risks and dangers as the government strengthened
its censorship policy. Some actors were arrested, and experimental theatre experi-
enced great difficulties. When it became impossible to maintain his artistic integrity
under the conditions of martial law, Grotowski decided to leave Poland. By the end
of 1982, he officially requested political asylum in the United States.
By the time of his emigration to the US, Grotowski had already been acknowl-
edged as a leading director in international theatre and performance circles and was
warmly supported by such distinguished theatre directors as Richard Schechner and
Peter Brook. As far as his theatre career is concerned, Grotowski entered a new
phase: the objective drama (1983–1992), which was ‘a short interim period’ of his
career. Later, when he gradually moved the centre of his theatre practice from
the US to Italy, he started yet another important, and final, period of his career,
known as the ‘art as vehicle’ (1986–1999). What is art as vehicle? How does it relate
to cosmopolitanism?
First, Grotowski’s notion of actors changes from performers to doers. Art as
vehicle is explained by Grotowski as the opposite of ‘art as presentation’.
If all of the elements of the performance are elaborated and correctly assembled (the
montage), an effect appears in the perception of the spectator, a vision, a certain
story; to some degree the performance appears not on the stage but in the perception
of the spectator. This is the nature of Art as presentation. At the other extremity of
the long chain of the performing arts is Art as vehicle, which looks to create the mon-
tage not in the perception of the spectators, but in the artists who do. (Grotowski
1995, 120)
For Grotowski, performing is an instrument to work on the body, the heart and the
mind of those who do it. In the usual sense, performing has a double meaning, that is
playing a role and doing for real. In performance studies, the two are usually
explained as inseparable from each other, with more emphasis on the aspect of play-
ing. In Grotowski’s concept of art as vehicle, doing becomes the focus of perfor-
mance training.
Second, art as vehicle is built on the trust between the director and his actors.
Grotowski thinks that he is not teaching his actors but rather transmitting to them
what he has acquired about theatre and performance. In the Italian workshop,
Richards was his closest apprentice and artistic successor. The following is illustra-
tive of his relationship with his actors and hence his concept of art as vehicle.

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 86 Chengzhou He

There is something incomparably intimate and productive in the work with the actor
entrusted to me. He must be attentive and confident and free, for our labor is to
explore his possibilities to the utmost. His growth is attended by observation, aston-
ishment, and desire to help; my growth is projected onto him, or, rather, is found in him
– and our common growth becomes revelation. This is not instruction of a pupil but
utter opening to another person, in which the phenomenon of ‘shared or double birth’
becomes possible. The actor is reborn – not only as an actor but as a man – and with
him, I am reborn. It is a clumsy way of expressing it, but what is achieved is a total
acceptance of one human being by another. (Grotowski 2002, 25; emphasis in original)

In his theatre world, Grotowski did not pursue anything material or objective but
rather sought a kind of sublimation of the human self. With art as vehicle,
Grotowski tried to lead his actors to do the impossible through their performance
and eventually lead theatre beyond the traditional boundaries.
Third, Grotowski renewed his emphasis on the body. Compared with his early
training of actors’ bodies, he was later contemplating how to overcome new types
of obstacles associated with our dependency on technology in the late 1980s and
1990s.
Grotowski even admitted in the late 1990s that it was impossible to use the same exer-
cises with the young actors at his Work center in Italy that he used with his actors in
Poland : : : The individual’s relationship with the body has changed; the predominance
of machines, computers, and an image-saturated media in twenty-first-century lives
creates its own plethora of psychophysical blocks. (Slowiak and Cuesta 2007, 94)

In order to liberate the body, he thought it important to unlearn the learned, or to

untame the tamed, which is a difficult thing to do. ‘Untaming demands greater effort
and self-discipline than training’ (Slowiak and Cuesta 2007, 99). To enhance the
actors’ control of their bodies, he sought to obtain experiences and knowledge from
different performing cultures as he had done earlier in his life.
The elements of work that make up the performative structures of Art as Vehicle are
drawn mostly from traditional songs of African and Caribbean culture, sometimes
joined with ancient narrative motifs. Participants in Art as Vehicle represent a wide
array of cultural backgrounds, and have included artists from Singapore, India,
Turkey, Israel, Europe and the United States. The primary work leader, Thomas
Richards, is of Afro-Caribbean heritage. (Wolford 1996, 17)

Grotowski’s insistence on opening himself to different cultures throughout his

career led to his acute awareness of the value of all cultures, which empowered
his consciousness of world citizenship.
Grotowski’s sense of world citizenship developed with his artistic experimenta-
tions in different locations across national boundaries. After the early 1980s,
Grotowski mostly lived outside of Poland. He travelled to many places, interacted
with different performance cultures and worked closely with people from different
ethnic backgrounds. As a director and teacher, he strove to transcend the boundaries
of nations and cultures, and to reach the depth of humanity. In ‘Grotowski, art as a
vehicle’, Peter Brook (1991, 90–94) says, ‘The vehicle which is the strongest in all the
forms of theatre existing in the world always was man or, to avoid feminist reactions,

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 Theatre as ‘An Encounter’ 87

the human being, the individual.’ Grotowski became more and more a world citizen
through embracing the notion of humanity. According to Arendt (1982, 75–76),
We are members of a world community through the simple fact of being human
beings and this ‘cosmopolitan existence’ must be translated into a capacity to judge
and act politically that is guided by the notion (not by the effective actuality) of being
world citizens and consequently also world spectators.

Born in a Polish city, Grotowski wandered around the world and finally settled
down in an Italian town. After he died, Grotowski’s ashes were strewn on Mount
Arunachala in India. As he wrote (Grotowski 1989: 1), the East and the West are
never clearly separable from each other. ‘The confusion starts the moment we speak
of East and West. Where does the East begin? Don’t certain people considered
Oriental by others see themselves as Occidental and vice versa?’ Grotowski truly
worked and lived in the faith of cosmopolitanism.

6. Conclusion
Grotowski’s concept of theatre as an encounter has proven to be singular and inno-
vative in the following ways. First, the audience participates in the performance and
interacts with the actors; theatre is a means of communication and sharing between
these groups. Second, the actor’s body becomes the focus of the performance; in
order to enhance the training of the body, it is necessary for the practitioners to open
themselves to different performance traditions, including indigenous performance
rituals from remote areas. Third, theatre is ethical in that it offers possibilities to crit-
ically reflect on certain issues in history or in reality, such as the Holocaust and the
Cold War; certain universal values can be interrogated and observed, such as respect
and freedom irrespective of ethnic or national identities. Fourth, theatre ultimately
serves the purpose of pursuing the meaning of humanity, binding humans together.
Transcending the social and political limitations of Poland as well as the ideological
divide between the Socialist and the Capitalist blocs of the time, Grotowski was a
fearless pioneer in experimental theatre. The adverse social conditions in Poland
and beyond did not hinder his creativity, but rather instigated his unmatched artistic
talent and his cosmopolitan spirit, the two of which are deeply interconnected and
integrated.
Taking the different dimensions of Grotowski’s theatre into consideration, we
find that he transgressed the boundaries in theatre, art and culture of his time.
His pursuit of artistic innovation and cosmopolitanism in the Cold War era makes
us aware of the fact that ideological constraints have had an impact on the theatre in
Central and Eastern European countries, and that theatrical and performance events
could make significant contributions to the remapping or reshaping of historical
imaginaries and processes. During the Cold War, theatre in general was negatively
affected and people tended to be narrow-minded under the influence of ideological
conflicts. Thus, Grotowski’s insistence on theatrical cosmopolitanism became all the

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 88 Chengzhou He

more difficult and meaningful. His various encounters in the theatre and with theatre
made him a great director across geographical and ideological boundaries in the lat-
ter half of the twentieth century. As Grotowski himself said, ‘It is the trial that
counts, not the sentence’ (Grotowski 1989, 11).

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Professor Erika Fischer-Lichte and the International Research
Centre for Interweaving Performance Cultures at Freie Universität Berlin for invit-
ing me as a resident fellow in 2012 and 2018. Thanks to Professor Małgorzata
Sugiera, Head of the Department for Performativity Studies, Jagiellonian
University in Cracow, Poland, who read my manuscript and provided me with very
useful comments.

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About the Author

Chengzhou He, PhD of the University of Oslo, is Yangtze River Distinguished
Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Nanjing University. He has
published more than ten books in Chinese and English with publishing houses both
in China and Europe. His articles have appeared in such international journals as
European Review, Orbis Litterarum, Modern Fiction Studies, Comparative
Literature Studies, Gender, Place and Culture, Differences: A Journal of Feminist
Studies, Modern language Quarterly, Neohelicon, Comparative Drama, Ibsen
Studies, Perspectives: Studies on Translatology, as well as many other international
and Chinese academic journals. A Foreign Member of Academia Europaea, he was
awarded the Ibsen Medal in 2002.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798719000280 Published online by Cambridge University Press