Jerzy grotowski wikipedia pl

Polish theatre director, cultural practitioner and thinker, researcher of human behaviour under ‘extra-daily conditions’.

Along with Ludwik Flaszen, Grotowski took over the Theatre of the 13 Rows in Opole in 1959.

Together, they transformed it into the Laboratory Theatre, in with which they realised their conception of ‘poor theatre’, most extensively articulated in the classic volume Towards a Poor Theatre, edited by Eugenio Barba in 1968.

This idea emphasized the essential element of any theatre event: the intensified participation of actors and spectators in a shared space, which was shaped anew for each meeting between them. Peter Brook called Grotowski ‘unique’ – because ‘no-one else in the world, […], no-one since Stanislavski, has investigated the nature of acting, its phenomenon, its meaning, the nature and science of its mental-physical-emotional processes as deeply and completely as Grotowski’.