Innovation out of Necessity: Why it's important to reread Grotowski and embrace poverty in theater

Jerzy Grotowski, and experimental theater guru from Poland, wrote Towards a Poor Theater in 1965. At that point in the world of theater, Broadway was at the height of its Golden Age, and big-budget hit musicals and straight plays were being produced en masse. Regional theaters had already been formed as a reaction to that, and by this time, many of those theaters were becoming “full grown” (Berkowitz 76) The excitement and experimental potential of Off-Broadway was fading fast as it became more mainstream (Berkowitz 33). Off-Off Broadway was beginning as a more “alternative” alternative to Broadway, Off-Broadway, and the regional theaters that had become more legitimate—this is the world to which Grotowski was welcomed into in America. His presence here is part of what popularized his essay then book, Towards a Poor Theater.

The essay preaches a theater method based only on the actors and the audience—theater as an encounter. Grotowski, in his theater laboratory in Poland, found that without costumes, props, lights, scenery, music, or even a text, theater still existed in the essence of the encounter between audience and actor. These discoveries came from his rejecting what he calls the “Rich” theater. At the time, it is easy to infer that the “rich” theater was referring to the world of Broadway, which was nearing the end of its golden age. He said that “The rich theater depends on artistic kleptomania, drawing from other disciplines, constructing hybrid-spectacles, conglomerates without backbone or integrity, yet presented as an organic artwork” (Grotowski 19).

This comes largely from a reaction to television, as well: the Rich Theater, he says, is basically trying to compensate for the lack of technology that can be used on a stage: “No matter how much theater expands and exploits its mechanical resources, it will remain technologically inferior to film and television. Consequently, I propose poverty in theater” (19).

This devotion to poverty in theater took the form of rejecting conventional proscenium stages, scenery, lighting, and costumes, which Grotowski called “plastic” elements. These experiments with “poor theater” led to a number of discoveries, both about the design elements of theater and the nature of the art form: “The acceptance of poverty in theater, stripped of all that is not essential to it, revealed to us not only the backbone of the medium, but also the deep riches which lie in the very nature of the art-form” (Grotowski 21).

Taking away the stage forced the group to create a new spatial relationship between the actor and audience for each production, therefore trying to match the nature of the encounter between them to the tone of the productions individually. Taking away complicated lighting allowed actors to play with stationary lights, essentially giving them control of the tone of what they were saying by putting themselves into more or less shadow. It also affected the relationship with the audience: “It is particularly significant that once a spectator is placed in an illuminated zone, or in other words becomes visible, he too begins to play a part in the performance.”  Taking away make up, costumes, and personal special effects such as prosthetics, forced actors to use the full extent of their physicality to distinguish characters and make statements (20).

Grotowski’s theater lab was not the first place where the challenge of taking away the traditional aspects of theater led to innovation. In fact, that was the pattern of innovation in theater for much of the twentieth century. There are a myriad of stories from the birth of Regional theater about companies performing in alleys, old fairgrounds, or abandoned movie houses. Early Off- and Off-Off Broadway houses also often found themselves needing to reinvent the wheel in order to make theater happen, performing in cafes, basements, and storefronts.

            Needless to say, a lot has changed since Margot Jones directed in an old fairground and since Grotowski wrote his famous essay. Grotowski’s ideas have been widely adopted, particularly in devised theater circles, which are currently gaining popularity Off-Off Broadway. The “poor” theaters that Grotowski imagined have, in many ways, been found in devised theater and other off-off Broadway work, where production value is not as high. (This includes, of course, La Mama, the experimental theater company where Grotowski was first welcomed into the US.)

But even now those theaters are not so poor anymore. Companies that had their starts in storefronts and cabarets now have budgets of tens of thousands of dollars—as of 2008, the average budget for one Off-Off Broadway production was $18,000.00 (New York Innovative Theater Foundation).

Regional theaters, which often were used as a safe space to do cheaper “Trial runs” of Broadway shows before bringing them to the city have enormous budgets too, thereby certainly destroying, in some sense, the precedent set by their founding mothers. Their budgets, however, are also becoming massive: the Alley theater, one of the earlier regional theaters, has a yearly budget of around $14,800,000.00; the Goodman, another early regional theater in Chicago, spent $18,500,000.00. With that kind of money, there certainly isn’t anyone using found spaces in alleys or old fairgrounds.

The technology that Grotowski seemed to predict and react so strongly to is also here in full force. Broadway shows (particularly musicals) depend on special effects that have expanded perhaps far beyond what he could have imagined in 1965—hydraulics and complicated flying effects are staples of many musicals. The fact that a significant number of shows currently on Broadway or that are soon to be on Broadway, (Spiderman: Turn off the Dark, Legally Blonde the Musical, Shrek the Musical, Kinky Boots, Big Fish, American Psycho the Musical, Rocky, Aladin, Dirty Dancing, Father of the Bride, The Nutty Professor, to name a few), that are based off films, seems to be a fairly clear fulfillment of Grotowski’s nightmare that theater would try to emulate film and television.

In light of all of this, Grotowski’s emphasis on poverty in theater can be used far beyond the purpose that he perhaps originally imagined. Innovation comes from need, and that doesn’t have to be restricted to the art. It is important of course not to destroy the sanctity of Grotowski’s original devotion to the simplicity of the actor/audience encounter. However, it can certainly be used to a less extreme degree (a degree that does not exclude designers and traditional directors, who are important to the world of theater). With his experiments he proved that theater can exist in a powerful way without any “plastic” elements, so even for an audience accustomed to highly realistic sets or high-tech special effects, it is likely that shows with simpler costumes and set would still read and be accessible. High-budget shows in enormous, expensive theaters even run the risk of harming the actor/audience encounter.  There is almost no situation in which the appropriate spatial relationship between and actor and audience is a football field of distance. It is tempting to use the extent of technology available to us to forge ahead in innovating theater—and certainly some well-respected directors are doing this (Andrei Serbon is one example). However, while technology can be used to innovate, and adds a new and exciting dimension to theater, it is equal in its hindrance of creative problem solving. High budgets and nearly infinite technology have the potential to destroy the part of theater design that is puzzle-solving—the part that can potentially set the atmosphere for a creative, problem-solving rehearsal process. Each challenge that is overcome by mechanics or acting is a point for innovation at the core of theater; each that is solved with hydraulics is a point against. For these reasons, a revival of Grotowski’s artistic ideas, while present in some theaters should be revitalized in a more mainstream way.  

We also cannot ignore the fact that currently in the theater, one of the main conversations is about funding and policy. This may be counter to the original intention of Towards a Poor Theater; in fact, the essay specifically leaves out questions of funding or management. Regardless, the ideas that Grotowski discusses, and the core idea of abandoning a “rich” theater, can be applied perhaps quite effectively to the actual business of theater management. There does need to be some money in theater, and we aren’t in Europe—that money isn’t going to come from the government simply to support the art. Currently, theaters make money largely from philanthropy but also largely through their subscriber base. An intentional poverty, created by lowering ticket prices and focusing less on philanthropy, as well as incorporating programs with goals of funding other theater projects, can encourage a number of innovations not only artistically but in terms of running theatrical business. This too is not without precedent: the current standard method of running regional and Off-Off- theaters is by incorporating them as not-for-profit businesses, a practice started by Margot Jones with her Alley theater in the 1940’s.

First of all—the less money a theater has, the less people they can hire. This creates the necessity to collaborate. In regional theaters all over the country, actors keep office jobs maintaining the budget and filling out grant applications for the theater. At the Old Castle Theater Company, in Bennington, Vermont, some actors have been able to work and sustain themselves economically by working both in the office and on the stage (Thorp).

Second of all, having to find other ways to make money besides ticket sales or significant amounts of philanthropy could potentially encourage some very useful practices. Money can be made, though it must also be spent, on other programs. Education specifically is something that theater companies can provide that is much needed in the country—and running classes or providing unpaid or low-pay internships can be extremely valuable to rising theater people.

Another way for theaters to make money is to encourage the use of governmental grants, which come in many forms. Already there are grants that encourage work by American playwrights, work about pressing social issues, or work by new playwrights. More dependency on these grants could have positive and negative effects—while it is important to encourage this type of theater, it also puts companies in the potentially awkward position of producing a play that is not necessarily relevant to them or their audience for the sake of grant money. It does, helpfully, put the focus on one production, leaving the theater company open to the healthy challenges presented by a tight budget. Other types of grants—those that encourage charity and community—seem often to be ignored in the world of theater. These not only can have the same positive affect as a theater-specific government grant, but they can encourage the theater to integrate itself more into the community. Theaters can potentially qualify for grants that could be non-restrictive to their content by donating proceeds to charities—and, though this would take away from the profit of the company, that again would allow them to continue to innovate and problem solve, while helping other people. This leads into the potential for massive reform, in which theaters who receive grant money do so with the promise of donating to other not-for-profit theater groups, perhaps those that are younger or struggling. Instead of the current trickle-down of increasingly experimental reactions to Broadway rippling somewhat violently through the tiers of theater, this could create an actual economic trickle-down which could lead to theater being almost self-sustaining financially. 

            Thus, I too propose poverty in theater. Grotowski’s model of an “avante-garde theater whose poverty is not a drawback” (Brooke 11), can be looked to now as an alternative to the high-budget, high-technology shows that so many theaters seem to strive for. While it may seem that more technology or more funding may be the answer to our search for a new movement in theater, the opportunity in fact lies in the challenges that would come from embracing and even encouraging poverty in the running and production of theater.

Works Cited

Berkowitz, Gerald M. New Broadways. New York, NY: Applause Books, 1997. Print.

Brooke, Peter. "Preface." Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theater. New York, NY: Routelage, 2002. 11-15. Print.

Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a Poor Theater. New York, NY: Routledge, 1968. Print.

New York Innovative Theater Foundation. Statistical Analysis of Off-Off Broadway Budgets. Statistical Analysis. New York, New York: New York Innovative Theater Awards Group, 2008. Web.

Thorp, Krista. "Oldcastle Theater Company opens new location on Main Street." The Bennington Free Press (2012). Print.