Name: Jerzy Grotowski
Born: 11/08/1933. Rzeszow, Poland.
Died: 14/01/1999. Pontedera, Tuscany, Italy
Occupation: Theatre Director
Grotowski studied acting in Moscow and debuted as a director in 1959. During the 1960s, he and his company began touring and gained a lot of recognition. He left Poland in 1982 to accept an invite to work in America. Three years later, he moved to Italy to continue direct training and late died of leukaemia and a heart condition.
He was a key figure of avant-garde theatre. He pushed the idea of "poor theatre", which didn't involve lavish costumes and intricate sets. This type of theatre relies on the skill of the actors, and so only involved a handful of props. He would avoid typical performance spaces (like stages in theatres) and would instead use non-traditional spaces like buildings and rooms. He didn't tend to use proscenium arch, and would tend to use thrust or in-the-round and would break the fourth wall. Physical movement was a key feature of this type of theatre.
Grotowski would take classic works and change their settings to be more contemporary. He did not have actors with big egos in his company. He used Stanislavski's method of realism, but made it more physical.
Quotes: "Art is a ripening, an evolution, an uplifting which enables us to emerge from darkness into a blaze of light" // "Actors should arouse a sense of wonder because of their ability to exceed what the spectators can envision being ever able to do"
