Buddah Still Works— the Work on Oneself Never Ends: Essay on Grotowski

Abstract

This essay uses the personal recollections of Italian director Gioacchino Palumbo, including the experience of viewing of Apocalypsis cum figuris as well as some personal encounters with Jerzy Grotowski, to present a subjective account of selected aspects of Grotowski’s theatrical and non-theatrical practices, with an emphasis on understanding theatre as a lifelong work on oneself. Palumbo highlights those aspects of Grotowski’s work and quotations from his statements and writings that have contributed to his own development as a theatre artist. Particularly interested in Grotowski’s attitude to diverse sources of inspiration, Palumbo extensively discusses Grotowski’s interview on Gurdjieff, considering it as a representative example of artist’s approach to cultural phenomena that influenced him. The essay is preceded by an introduction in which Giuseppe G. Condorelli presents the original theatrical work of Palumbo, who has been running his own theatre laboratory in Catania since 1981.