Cricotages of Tadeusz Kantor

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Tadeusz Kantor called these performances cricotages. In the programme of “Where Are Last Year’s Snows” the artist explains: Cricotage is the kind of acting that stems from the experience of Cricot 2 Theatre and from the method of acting invented and practised in this theatre. The name Cricotage was used by him for the first time as the title of his happening organized in 1965 in Kawiarnia Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Sztuk Pięknych in Warsaw. “Machine of Love and Death” was created by the artist himself. It was shown in Kassel, Milan, Reggio Emila, Palermo, Helsinki, and Vaasa. The remaining productions mentioned in this article were prepared together with groups of young actors, and to some degree they were shaped by their proposals. They constructed the plot of “The Wedding”. In the remaining productions they invented some of the characters and scenes. The performances were repeated two or three times to conclude Tadeusz Kantor’s drama lessons, as they were the effect of the work done by him and his students.
 When teaching young actors, Tadeusz Kantor did not want to confine himself to the theory of acting. His intention  was to show them the creative process of writing and staging a play. He wanted his students to participate in all this, to involve them in the process of creation. The aim was a short performance. The theory was restricted to short lectures, which frequently took the form of storytelling. Such meetings were considered by the artist as the best method of teaching. When working with the actors, he would build their confidence and support their ideas. This resulted in mutual understanding and friendly relationships. He was able to motivate everyone. Still, he was careful not to stifle the other person’s individuality. He could easily read his students’ personality and would always respect it. His intention was to increase their sensibility. He enjoyed the company of young people. In The “Milan Lessons” he writes: Thousands of books and dissertations have been written on surrealism (. . .) They ought to be read in the same way as family letters hidden discreetly in family albums and  frequently discovered there by children . He would always sense the actors’ tiredness and impatience caused by his own tension and the intensity of creation which overwhelmed  them. He was a careful observer. He would present complex artistic phenomena in a simple way. He would show his students the world of his art. They were allowed to enter it, to touch it, and to feel at home there. He was their master. They would begin such an artistic journey with curiosity, full of trust and full of enthusiasm. Their work on the short productions resembled the creative processes underlying the activity of Cricot 2 Theatre.

 

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

 

To begin with, Tadeusz Kantor would precisely define the setting. In “The Wedding” it is the construction – the machine for acting, which is transformed into a cathedral in front of the audience, and – in the second part of the performance – into a cemetery, the literal illusion of which is weakened by the laundry belonging to the Bridegroom’s Mother. “Machine of Love and Death” is rooted in time and time is the setting. “A Very Short Lesson” is set in a room, through the window of which eternity can be seen. “Silent Night” is a house. The place was always defined by the objects. It was their function to create the place.  They were connected with the action of the play and had their own aesthetics. They belonged to the world of  the reality of the lowest rank .  The burden of destruction stigmatised them as plain and ordinary. They were all dark and grey in colour. The objects were frequently ready-made ones found in school props rooms. Tadeusz Kantor had to work on  their appearance, unless  they were made for a particular performance. Some of the props characteristic of Cricot 2 Theatre reappeared in those short performances: the furniture in the room – the bed, the table, the chairs. The cross from “Wielopole, Wielopole” could be seen in “The Wedding” and in “Silent Night”. The window, which in “The Dead Class” was the object attached to the Woman outside the window, in “Wielopole, Wielopole” was one of the elements that made up the room, whereas in “A Very Short Lesson” it was a window raised to the metaphysical level – it was through that window that the world on the other side could be seen. The tomb in “Wielopole, Wielopole” was a little grave with a small wooden cross. In “The Wedding” it was a heavy wooden object. A coffin (“A Very Short Lesson”, “Silent Night”) appeared in Cricot 2 Theatre in “The Cuttle-Fish” (1956), but as the object over which the debate on art took place. In “The Wedding” its function was the same as in everyday life. Later it appeared in “Today Is My Birthday” as the top of a table. So as not to waste time, the objects were less thoroughly prepared than in Cricot 2 Theatre. In “Silent Night”, for instance, the artist placed an object made of polystyrene on the stage – it was a chimney – but he painted it himself. The cannon in “The Wedding” and in “Silent Night” became the public organs in “Today Is My Birthday”: the cannon, the police car and  the machine guns. Those objects were prepared simultaneously with the performance and were constantly improved.

 

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

 

The characters could appear when the details of the setting were already specified. Being reduced to one feature, a few gestures or several lines, the characters were easily recognizable. Deprived of their inner selves, they had no past or future. They appeared out of nowhere. Their gestures and the words repeated by them did not create a personality – it became reduced to one characteristic feature only. In cricotages (with the exception of “Machine of Love and Death”) the characters were suggested by the students. The students thought of their own roles and Tadeusz Kantor agreed to their proposals, changing them slightly and introducing some new elements. He would emphasize the fact that the characters were the students’ own creation. Specifying roles was the most important element of those lessons. In “Machine of Love and  Death”, in Cricot 2 productions the actor’s role was imposed on him. Tadeusz Kantor took into consideration the actor’s personality and the behaviour of the character suggested by the actor. However, the process of constructing a character was a long and delicate one. When it was completed, the actor’s performance had to be perfect. Each of the characters is alienated and lonely and makes vain attempts to communicate with the others. The characters resemble one another because of their reduced nature, and are linked by the setting. Costumes usually had to be black, with no specification of time, but stigmatised by its flow: mouldering, bearing some traces of the fashion of the twenties and with a characteristic detail, e.g.  a tiara for a bishop or a veil for a bride.
        The characters become involved in the events that take place around them. But the incidents caused by them are futile. These events, the recollections that constitute their everyday existence, lie at the basis of drama: the Bible, history, civilisation, rituals (the wedding, the funeral), a live photograph (in Cricot 2 Theatre only). What was happening in cricotages (except for “Machine of Love and Death”) was invented by the actors or, more frequently, by Tadeusz Kantor himself. Apart from constructing characters, this was the second important function  of the actors participating in the performances. The events came into existence while they were working. When Tadeusz Kantor began his work, he had some ideas specified (“Silent Night”). Sometimes they were changed drastically (“A Very Short Lesson”) because of the actors or the place, or perhaps because they  were still not ready in the artist’s imagination. When the productions were in rehearsal everything crystallised and changed – under Tadeusz Kantor’s strict control.
 Music, just as in Cricot 2 Theatre, was first of all an important factor in the construction of a performance; it was to appeal to emotions. When a performance was prepared, a particular piece of music was selected according to some general directions left by Tadeusz Kantor. Following his theory of reality, he relied on ready-made music. In Cricot 2 Theatre the music was frequently prepared for a particular performance. 
 In Cricot 2 Theatre the stage was to be lit evenly, whereas in some of his cricotages Tadeusz Kantor used the light to create the appropriate mood. In Kassel his “Machine of Love and Death” was lit by stable beams of light. In “The Wedding” the scene that is set in the graveyard is accompanied by dim light. In the second part of “A Very Short Lesson” the front of the stage is dimly lit so as to contrast it with the brightly lit world outside the window.

 

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

 

In cricotages there was always a character who established a link between the stage and the audience: the Bishop, the Chronicler, the Author, Nino/St Joseph. In Cricot 2 Theatre, starting with “The Dead Class”, it was always Tadeusz Kantor himself who established the connection between the world on the stage – the world of the dead – and the audience.
I am “on the stage” again (…)
Actually – not “on the stage”
but on a borderline.
In front of me: the Audience, (…)
behind me the so-called Stage (…)
… I am not leaning
forwards
nor backwards (…)
The best summary of my
Theory and Method (…)
   
        While working on these productions Tadeusz Kantor would continue drawing. In Milan he drew illustrations to accompany his lectures – later on they were redrawn before being included in his book. He would use the drawings as visual aids when explaining his reflections on the space of the Primary Matter which, combined with an individual artist’s creativity, is the impenetrable mystery of creationCharacters and objects become a function of space and its alterationsSpace can shrink and expandThe tension resulting from reducing space to a plane can be set in motion: it can be made to rotate, sway or move the planes: to SLIDE them INTO or OUT OF one another, c o v e r a n d  u n c o v e r  them. (…) the VEHEMENCE and the PACE of these movements creates new values: TENSION and a change of the SCALE. These drawings and theoretical explanations refer both to drama and to painting. There are only two pictures referring exclusively to drama: a scene from a constructivist play and a scene from a surrealist play. The sketches made for “Machine of Love and Death” depict characters and scenes drawn with the lyricism of Wojtkiewicz, technical designs of marionettes, abstract Supermarionettes of the Servants (drawn once more, after fifty years), sometimes a note appears: God, I had to wait for nearly half a century .”The pictures drawn in Charleville- Mézieres resemble the ones drawn for the performances of Cricot 2 Theatre: characters captured in motion, with a characteristic gesture, sometimes with the lines spoken by them noted down. The drawings made for “Silent Night” depict all the characters appearing in the performance – they were intended as gifts for all the participants, to be kept by them as mementos. Before that, Tadeusz Kantor painted a chimney – “My House”. In his sketch-book he drew a stage with a chimney situated centrally, then walls improvised from boards and beams – the remains of a house after a disaster. Such a setting seemed most appropriate to him during the rehearsals. However,  finally he modified it and built a regular wall of boards.  Some of his drawings were exhibited in October 1990. it was the last exhibition in Cricoteka during which Tadeusz Kantor was present.

 

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

 

The time when the last cricotages were prepared was the period in the work of Tadeusz Kantor when drama invaded painting and painting invaded drama. Various characters from plays appear in his pictures, and Infanta, “She”, on the stage. The Unknown Model from “Machine of Love and Death” (the Kassel version) is transferred to the picture She: what an interesting picture. In his notebook from the times of “A Very Short Lesson” the artist drew one of the first sketches of the paintings: Peeping through a window has its consequences; the pictures themselves were painted after his return from Charleville- Mézieres, where the second part of the performance, seen through the window – the world on the other side, eternity – makes the link between the paintings and this scene clear. In “Silent Night”, before the performance began, Tadeusz Kantor said a few words to the audience: (…) The word ‘convention’ is implicitly present in art. To begin with, let’s make it clear that this is not a performance, this is not a stage, and you are not spectators; there is no scenery and this very chimney is the chimney from my painting, and therefore it is my house . (. . .) One year earlier he painted a series of pictures “My House”. The chimney from the paintings was transferred onto the stage. Sometimes, when he had no meetings with students and the theatre was empty, he would come and paint the chimney in solitude. Before that, during the rehearsals for “Today Is My Birthday”, the artist’s studio was the setting. The frames of his pictures were placed there, and the figures from paintings – Infanta, the artist’s self-portrait, “She” (now as the Poor Girl) – emerged from the frames.
        Those cricotages were created in four months over the five-year period of Tadeusz Kantor’s work as an artist who was then in his seventies. It was then that he created two of the performances of Cricot 2 Theatre: “I Shall Never Return” and “Today Is My Birthday”, as well as the series of paintings “Nothing ahead”. The artist was slowly beginning to summarise his work. He prepared for the editors a collection of his texts as well as an album with his paintings My Work, My Travel . He devoted much of his time to his Cricoteka, which was to be his own message for  posterity. He made a design of his own statue, which was to be placed in Kanonicza Street. He designed and prepared his own tomb. In one of his texts, in which at that time the division between drama and painting was blurred, he wrote:
My life, my fate
were in unity with my creation.
Work of art.
They were fulfilled in my creation.
They found a solution there.
My creation was – and still is – my HOME.
The painting, the performance, the theatre, the stage.

 

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

 

Translated by: Monika Markiewicz

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