Tadeusz Kantor's Theater

Delivered my presentation on the Polish avant-garde theater director, theoretician, painter and scenic designer, TADEUSZ KANTOR yesterday. It went really well. I got really into researching this guy:

"FURTHER ON, NOTHING! This cry will be repeated many a time in my life. Moments of doubt. But the act of repeating this "nihilistic" cry gives me strength. Despair always changes for me into enormous strength. One must not give up." ~ Kantor, A Journey Through Other Spaces.

While doing my research, I became very fascinated by how he managed to bridge the gap between his paintings and theater. During the Nazi occupation of Poland he and a group of artist friends formed the underground experimental Independent Theater and began rehearsing and performing clandestinely in private homes and apartments in Krakow. The Germans prohibited all artistic life in Poland UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH. Out of simply the need to create, Kantor and his group began to revolutionize the purpose of art and theater.

The most notable of these Independent Theater productions was his staging of Stanislaw Wyspianski’s The Return of Odysseus (1944). Instead of in an apartment, Kantor decided to stage this piece in a room “ravaged” by war. The actors used found objects and carried them into the room at the top of the performance. A helmeted soldier wearing a faded overcoat sat with his back to the audience during this opening procession of objects, and when it was finished he turned to the audience and said his first line: “I am Odysseus; I have returned from Troy.”


Art for Kantor should be an answer to, rather than a representation of reality. Because World War II had destroyed his pre-1939 perception of it, Kantor argues that art needed to change and manifest itself in a way to deal with the new perception of reality. He created a new idea of what art could and could not be. He reflected on the reality of wartime suffering and devastation. He says: "In times of madness created by man, Death and its frightening troupes, which refused to be shackled by Reason and Human Senses, burst into and merged with the sphere of life."

During the late 60s, Kantor becomes extremely fascinated with the idea of memory. He begins traveling back within his own memories and begins to reflect on the nature of these pictures in our mind – are they dead or alive?

"MEMORY, memory of the past [has always been] held in contempt by the SOBER-MINDED… MEMORY [has always been] ruthlessly pushed aside by those troupes marching f o r w a r d, towards the f u t u r e… MEMORY … [is] worth thinking about! I was d i s c o v e r i n g it gradually, with enthusiasm, and often with despair. I felt THEATER was the right place for all it. I was not mistaken. The STAGE became it’s ALTAR!" ~ Kantor, Memory 1988

In 1975 Kantor writes and publishes his manifesto “Theater of Death.” In it he ponders how to create a space for memory on stage and argues that our memories are dead. Kantor’s first experiment with recreating memory on stage is seen through one of his most renowned productions, The Dead Class (1975). The action of this play takes place in what seems to be a ‘dead’ classroom. Senile, old characters enter the space and find mannequins of themselves from their childhood. Kantor has each actor wear their mannequin on his/her back, so as to represent the toting around of our own memories.

"The past exists in
Memory.
D E A D !
Its inhabitants are
D E A D , too.
They were dead but at the same time
alive,
that is, they can
move, and they can even
talk.
Pulled out of a three dimensional,
surprisingly flat
practice of life,
they fall into the hole of -
allow me to say this word -
E T E R N I T Y.”
-Kantor, Memory (1988)

One of the most interesting aspects of Kantor’s work is his presence on stage. In all of his CRICOT 2 productions, the audience has a full view of Kantor. At times during the performance he will get up and conduct his actors to make sure that their actions on stage remain spontaneous and new. Kantor’s presence gives the audience a portal into which they can properly view the production they are watching. His presence becomes a major attraction in his work, and when he died during the final dress rehearsal for Today is My Birthday in 1990, his company still performed the work, and kept the empty chair where Kantor sat present on stage during the performance. In the end, it was our memory of Kantor that was played up on the stage.

Here is some of his artwork that just blew me away:

"Self-Portrait," 1985

"Damn! I'm Falling," 1988

"Self Portrait - I have Something to Tell You," 1988

"A Soldier Carres the Picture, on which is Painted How he Carries the Picture," 1987.

"I'm Cleaning the Picture, on which there is Painted How I'm Cleaning the Picture," 1987

These last three paintings incude 3D portions where the legs and arms are "carrying" the paintings. This research makes me want to go and spend some time in Krakow. I heard it's a beautiful city - almost like Prague, in that it wasn't destroyed by war.