My Cinderella Blog and Majority Polish Readers? Why? Blog 29

Tadeuz Kantor directs

Good morning.

Now there's something I really don't get! I deliberately finished blogging daily on my Cinderella blog on January 3rd which was the day after the last performance.  http://broadwaypantocarolepluckrose.blogspot.co.uk/

Much to my delight that blog continues to get between 100-200 hits a day but here's the thing - the highest readership is in Poland! I am keen to know why? Why does an obscure blog about a regional pantomime in East London get attention from so many Poles now? They're not on this one in any numbers. I wonder if they read it in English or press the translation button? My guess is they probably speak English!           

The thing is that there is very little about Poland in there and that's why it provokes my curiosity. Having spent a good bit of time doing theatre in Poland in the eighties I might have put it down to that maybe? - The plot thins

I also know that the Poles are some of the best theatre makers out there. They had to be. Times of severe state bullying and oppression through the communist years and then the military take-over time meant that the imaginations of artists were given an ever bigger invitation to expand. If you can't say something directly for fear of imprisonment you are forced to find unique and new ways to express the human condition, both its universality and its personal manifestation in the drama of your own life. That's what artists do, but in a state of fear their work is even more edgy and urgent as an expression of  soul, self, politics, love, war, loss, liberty, intellect and much more. 

Tadeuz Kantor

This oppression and limits on the freedom of speech led to some of the most amazing work by artists across all the art forms. In a strange way the restrictions are of course a gift.  I will never forget being at a performance of Dead Class by Tadeuz Kantor at the Riverside Studios in London in about 1985. I was mesmorised by this then ancient man with a walking stick directing about 20 actors in their late 60s,70s and 80s on the stage. He was a performance in himself, marching around the stage as the actors performed this soul baring show about age and death. If he thought they weren't serving the play,or simply didn't like a particular moment, he would bang his walking stick on the floor or tap them on the back of the legs, stopping the action to make them do it again the way he wanted it! I'd never get away with that with my actors....... maybe I could give it a go sometime? 

A bit about the man:

Born in Wielopole Skrzyńskie, Galicia (then in Austria-Hungary), Kantor graduated from the Cracow Academy in 1939. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, he founded the Independent Theatre, and served as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków as well as a director of experimental theatre inKraków from 1942 to 1944. After the war, he became known for his avant-garde work in stage design including designs for Saint Joan (1956) and Measure for Measure (1956). Specific examples of such changes to standard theatre were stages that extended out into the audience, and the use of mannequins as real-life actors.

Disenchanted with the growing institutionalisation of avant-garde, in 1955 he with a group of visual artists formed a new theatre ensemble called Cricot 2. In the 1960s, Cricot 2 gave performances in many theatres in Poland and abroad, gaining recognition for their stage happenings. His interest was mainly with the absurdists and Polish writer and playwright Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (also known as "Witkacy"). Stage productions of Witkacy's plays The Cuttlefish(1956) and The Water Hen (1969) were regarded as his best achievements during this time. A 1972 performance of The Water Hen was described as "the least-publicised, most talked-about event at the Edinburgh festival".

Dead Class (1975) was the most famous of his theatre pieces of the 1970s. In the play, Kantor himself played the role of a teacher who presided over a class of apparently dead characters who are confronted by mannequins which represented their younger selves. He had begun experimenting with the juxtaposition of mannequins and live actors in the 1950s.

His later works of the 1980s were very personal reflections. As in Dead Class, he would sometimes represent himself on stage. In the 1990s, his works became well known in the United States due to presentations at Ellen Stewart's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club which inspired Lower East Side cultural leaders such as theNuyorican poet Giannina Braschi.[1]

Throughout his life, Kantor had an interesting and unique relationship with Jewish culture, despite being a nominal Catholic and having a father with anti-Semitic tendencies, Kantor incorporated many elements of what was known as "Jewish theatre" into his works. Kantor died in Kraków in 1990.

I have spoken often on this and my other blog about the influence of Peter Brook on my practice. Well here's another! I feel very privileged to have seen this show. It was deeply affecting and in fact very shocking. It was authentic and shot through with a real quality and sense of Polish culture and history. The ensemble of actors had worked together for many years and it showed. They had gone from being young to old, and with that all the physical and emotional toil. They were inspiring. Young actors could do worse to look up Kantor's work. If it were to be performed today it would be as fresh, intriguing and disturbing as it was 25 years ago! 

I'd love to see those Poles visiting this site, but maybe its just that the Cinderella blog is more interesting to them for reasons I fail to fathom! I hope to be enlighted! I have published a version of this post on there today too in the spirit of collaboration! 

Miłego dnia!