Compare and Contrast: Artaud and Grotowski

 

Rewatch the Artaud and Grotowski videos from the Five Truths. Compare them and think about the ways that they are similar and different and how they create TEAM in each version.

After learning and hearing different perspectives in class, rewacthing both scenes openedup my eyes to some things I had not noticed previously. Artaud's form of theatre might be seen as therapeutic because it entails 'acting out' and might be cathartic for the actor or the audience, breaking free of restrictions that keep one from being fully alive. In the rendition of Ofilia from Hamlet the wonderful actress Michelle Terry, delivers a very emotional and contradicitve piece. I observed the rage when she throws the riing at the fish, and restricted confusion when she was looking into the fish bowl, then when the angle changed it seemed like she was going insane, and the loss of her father was overcoming her. The build up from being calm while looking through hus things, then throwing the ring, then yelling and singing loudly at the fishbowl, then finally enetering the water, showed a large range and change of emotions. Grotowski's version of this scene was alot more straight forwars, and filled with rage, insanity, defeat and weakness. In this scene Ofilia goes through all her inner emotions and does not hold anything in. She seems very weak as greif and sadness overcome her body.  "Artaud has incredible ideas about total theatre: people on revolving chairs, using all the mise-en-scène and including cinema, sound; but it is quite hard to enact. You see the same words, the ‘total’ theatre of Artaud and the ‘total’ act of Grotowski; but they are completely different. Grotowski is about paring away scenography, lighting, sound – of course, the actors are still lit but it’s never decorative, it is totally functional."

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