A Very Short Lesson, Charleville – Mézieres 1988

A Very Short Lesson

Merciful Wedding Design for a performance, a private collection, Cracow, photo Cricoteka

Merciful Wedding Design for a performance, a private collection, Cracow, photo Cricoteka

 

Une tres courte lecon                                                                      
Institut  International de la Marionette, 16 August – 10 September

                                     
 Tadeusz Kantor met with young actors who already had some artistic experience.
The first meeting took place in a lecture room, which soon bored the artist. After several days he moved to the theatre hall owned by the Institute. The artist’s intention was to focus on the house as the topic of a performance. He brought with him a sketch for his painting “My Home” depicting… a chimney – the only element of the house which had not been destroyed. The work on the performance was preceded by a discussion about the topic. The participants agreed that the play would be set in a room, and the setting was improvised on the stage. Second-hand clothes served as costumes after being additionally torn by the artist. To begin with, he wanted to get  acquainted with the inhabitants of the house – with the actors. They met in the theatre but the meetings would very often end in the nearby café. After many cups of coffee, in the clouds of cigarette smoke, the main idea of the play was gradually clarified. What the actors presented was interesting enough to become the initial part of the performance. The Author of the play – a theatrical figure – intends to present his study “The Death of a Poet in the room”. The characters he has created appear. They exist independently and decide what to say. They do not comply with the rules of the drama created by the Author, who is still uncertain of what may happen and justifies his actions in front of the audience. The characters bring their own objects and obsessions onto the stage. The actors’ proposals, synthesized and condensed by the artist, constitute the first part of the play, which is performed to the sounds of tango. The character named “She” creates confusion by appearing too early. Her appearance is accompanied by sad music and, after being repeated several times, it causes anxiety and foreshadows the second part of the performance. The Author patiently explains to her that, although she is playing her part well, she has made a mistake and is to appear in the part to follow. He seeks confirmation that “She” will  not forget her role. Finally, the poet, who has been sitting at the table all the time with his back turned at the audience, agrees to perform his part. He lets the Author down as well by saying Artur Rimbaud’s poem Le dormeur du val instead . The Author strives to control the chaos which has dominated the stage. It seems impossible to continue the performance, but he wants to try. The actor playing this part had a predisposition to improvise comical elements and Kantor did not attempt to change this.

 

from: Halczak, Anna. Ostatnie cricotages Tadeusza Kantora [The last cricotages of Tadeusz Kantor]; Didaskalia. December 2000.

 

A Very Short Lesson

 

The scenery was prepared simultaneously with the script. The technicians constructed a wall with a window, then the furniture appeared: tables, chairs and a bed. The music was carefully selected. The actors recorded laughter, rain and various additional sounds used in the production. The actors’ behaviour was carefully observed by Tadeusz Kantor, the dialogues were improved, the characters’ features clarified. The idea of the house and of human instinctive reactions was becoming more and more remote. The author, the fate of the work of art created by him and the figure of “the local poet” – Artur Rimbaud began to dominate on the stage. “She” –  the reappearing figure of a bride, this time wearing a veil, had to marry somebody at last. The wedding “forever” evokes the idea of death in Cricot 2 Theatre (“Where Are Last Year’s Snows”, “Wielopole, Wielopole”, “I Shall Never Return”). “He” – the poet – becomes the bridegroom. The bride loops a piece of rope around his neck. The wedding ceremony is completed by a grotesque funeral. A procession of the inhabitants of the room appears on the stage dancing with a coffin to the sounds of tango. After going round the table on which the pitiable wedding took place the  inhabitants of the room take the rope away, then they undress the Bridegroom, leaving the clothes with the Bride, and carry him in the coffin to the back of the stage. “She” continues dancing for a while, then she joins the others. The majority of the actors come back to the stage no longer performing their parts. They turn the wall in order to show the reverse side of it. The room is changed into a theatre. The actors become spectators. The light changes: it becomes dim now and only the view outside the window is lit brightly. What can be seen there is a somnambulistic dance of the bide with the bridegroom’s clothes, then he leaves the coffin and joins her. The spectators (the actors) comment on the rhythmical performance, on the dance of love and death visible on the other side. The Author still cannot recognize his drama. He is still unable to control his own production. The wedding becomes a funeral, the bride offers death instead of love. “He” –  the character who was to die (over the table that he was sitting at there was a loop) is forever rising from the coffin. The characters arrest the development of the action by introducing chaos into it. The fact that their lives are reduced to a while filled with one gesture, and frequently with one word only, causes their speech to be repetitive.

 

from: Halczak, Anna. Ostatnie cricotages Tadeusza Kantora [The last cricotages of Tadeusz Kantor]; Didaskalia. December 2000.

 

A Very Short Lesson

 

A scene from the play "She": Marie Vayssiere "He": Jean-Marc Novis photo Patrick Argirakis

A scene from the play “She”: Marie Vayssiere “He”: Jean-Marc Novis photo Patrick Argirakis

 

Not only was the performance a complete failure, but it also had no ending. Although freedom has replaced Censorship (the censors criticized the entire first part of the performance), nothing ends  there – on the other side. The gestures repeated in one’s life never end. Loneliness still dominates there. What remains is art, works of art. It is imagination that is the most important and, what is more, it is everlasting. “A Very Short Lesson” was a good opportunity for the artists to see how creativity works at the theatre. It was also a crafty lesson – a message from the experienced artist to the young ones,  concerning the artist’s condition and the essence of art.
Tadeusz Kantor deals with a similar  topic  in Cricot 2 Theatre in the play “I Shall Never Return”, the premiere of which took place several months earlier. Some of the scenes were changed by the artist after his return from Charleville-Mézieres .

 

 from: Halczak, Anna. Ostatnie cricotages Tadeusza Kantora [The last cricotages of Tadeusz Kantor]; Didaskalia. December 2000.

 

Translated by: Monika Markiewicz

 

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