Jerzy Grotowski

Do they translate to a product?

Well, like, you know, the great directors like Brecht and Grotowski, they explored different ways to tell a story.

And the people who worked with those great directors, they benefited from that because they were... willing to work in a different way.

And the people who benefit the most from having these type of discussions, like we here in this circle, we're benefiting because we're exploring that.

Now, to digress, but not really, you know, I've worked for over 50 years with Andre Gregory, and he was the first person in the theater to really respond to my plays.

And he is an admitted disciple of Grotowski, and Grotowski started by doing...

Jerzy Grotowski, Polish director, in case anybody listening doesn't know that.

Grotowski started by doing plays, but after a few decades, a couple of decade, I don't know how long, of doing plays, well, first of all, he decided, "I don't need scenery.

I don't need costumes.

I just need the actors doing the play."

So that's just, like, my statement.

My question is, and I'll leave it in the public space, um, how does Grotowski and your work that you've talked about in the public sphere relate to this book?

So what Greg is asking me, uh, when I was in my very early twenties, um, I worked with a, a remarkable Polish director by the name of Jerzy Grotowski, who some of you may know of because there's a movie that was made in nineteen eighty-two, uh, called "My Dinner with Andre," in which Andre goes to a Polish forest to work with a now fat, now thin Polish director who has quit directing theater and is now doing spiritual work So I worked with Grotowski about 10, 10 years after that movie came out.

I spent a year with him in Italy, and he was, um, you know, one of two people.

The other is not, not you, but you're definitely in the top five.

I'll give you an example.

Andre talks about this in, um, "My Dinner with Andre." He says there's this Tibetan monastery and that the exam that they've got is that there's a basket of wet underwear and af- you know, after the yogis have done their training, they have to be able to generate enough heat off of their own bodies to be able to dry the wet underwear outside in the winter.

So I-- You know, you, you watch it in the movie and you're like, "This guy's out losing his fucking mind," right? Well, weirdly enough, after spending eight months working with Grotowski, I started to have this experience where I would go into the Italian sea and it was cold.

Like, choosing to go to theater school, theater school was very important.

Going to Denmark to, to study in Odin Teatret with, uh, Grotowski crew.

Oh, wow.

Uh, I went there, and it was, it was very important, and I came back, and I did my second album, which was, that was very successful.

...

Grotowski as well, and, and-

Yeah

...

"And we'll get together." And so we kinda went for six months and saw 120 productions all over the world.

You know, Peter Brook, Grotowski, uh, Jean-Louis Barrault said, "Yes, come stay." We had lunch with Barrault and in Paris and saw his, his wife Madeleine Renaud do Not I, the, the Beckett play and, and, um, it, it was just amazing.

It was, it was one, two plays a day as long as we could sustain that.

So everywhere from London to, to Athens, right?

... and you go too.

Like, I, I'm a guy who started my, my acting career, like, cutting my teeth on the boards of Chicago Theater and studying Stanislavski and Grotowski, and I have a lot of pride in the work that I do, and I love to do the work that I do.

And there, there's that element that you walk into a situation, you're like, "This, this is a person with a background in music, another person with a background in sports, another person with a background into comedy, a different form of entertainment." Like, are they gonna bring...

Everybody came- Yeah ... like here, man.

Yeah, she did a great job.

I would absolutely kill to see Sissy Spacek in a Grotowski River.

Yeah.

If you know, you know.

Five people

raising their hands.

Yeah, the five people that have heard of Grotowski.

So speaking of casting, Nancy Allen, John Travolta, and Piper Laurie, who play Chris, Billy, and Margaret respectively, all thought that their characters were like so over the top that they were there for like comedic relief.