Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Kathleen Cioffi
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I Our Auschwitz: Grotowski's Akropolis
- Part II Our Memory: Kantor's Dead Class
- Chapter 22 Tadeusz Kantor: A Very Short Introduction
- Chapter 23 Dead Class: The Making of the Legend
- Chapter 24 Dead Class in Poland
- Chapter 25 The Polish History Lesson
- Chapter 26 Dead Class Abroad
- Chapter 27 On Not Knowing Polish, Again
- Chapter 28 The Visual and the Puerile
- Chapter 29 The National and the Transnational
- Chapter 30 Witkiewicz's Tumor
- Chapter 31 An Age of Genius: Bruno Schulz and the Return to Childhood
- Chapter 32 Conversing with Gombrowicz: The Dead, the Funny, the Sacred and the Profane
- Chapter 33 Panirony: “A pain with a smile and a shrug”
- Chapter 34 Raising the Dead
- Chapter 35 Dead Class as Kaddish…
- Chapter 36 Dead Class as Dybbuk, or the Absence
- Chapter 37 The Dead and the Marionettes
- Chapter 38 Men and Objects
- Chapter 39 Dead Class as Forefathers' Eve
- Chapter 40 Dead Class: The Afterlife
- Postscript
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 38 - Men and Objects
from Part II - Our Memory: Kantor's Dead Class
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Kathleen Cioffi
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part I Our Auschwitz: Grotowski's Akropolis
- Part II Our Memory: Kantor's Dead Class
- Chapter 22 Tadeusz Kantor: A Very Short Introduction
- Chapter 23 Dead Class: The Making of the Legend
- Chapter 24 Dead Class in Poland
- Chapter 25 The Polish History Lesson
- Chapter 26 Dead Class Abroad
- Chapter 27 On Not Knowing Polish, Again
- Chapter 28 The Visual and the Puerile
- Chapter 29 The National and the Transnational
- Chapter 30 Witkiewicz's Tumor
- Chapter 31 An Age of Genius: Bruno Schulz and the Return to Childhood
- Chapter 32 Conversing with Gombrowicz: The Dead, the Funny, the Sacred and the Profane
- Chapter 33 Panirony: “A pain with a smile and a shrug”
- Chapter 34 Raising the Dead
- Chapter 35 Dead Class as Kaddish…
- Chapter 36 Dead Class as Dybbuk, or the Absence
- Chapter 37 The Dead and the Marionettes
- Chapter 38 Men and Objects
- Chapter 39 Dead Class as Forefathers' Eve
- Chapter 40 Dead Class: The Afterlife
- Postscript
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Adapting Duchamp's concept of the “readymade” object, Kantor invents the idea of “readymade” man: an actor as is. As he said in one of his New York Times interviews: “For example, there's a creature I call ‘The Found Character,’ precisely like Marcel Duchamp's ‘objets trouves.’ In folklore a ‘found’ object is believed to possess links with the world of the dead; it is purposeless, gratuitous, a pure work of art.” Tish Dace notes that “Kantor achieves an additional grotesque quality, a non-living creepiness. Kantor's fascination with found objects instead of stage props – he uses two wooden alls in place of a baby doll in the mechanical cradle, for instance – further detaches us from the action.” Although Kantor often referenced Duchamp in his international interviews, Kantor's most prominent influence was Schulz's Reality of the Lowest Rank. Like Schulz, Kantor was interested in the lowest objects, abandoned and forgotten pieces of human existence; he saw the human being as a mere replica of this overlooked detritus. Like Shulz, Kantor was also interested in objects vis-a-vis their relationship to human beings. As Richard Calvoressi puts it in his review of the Edinburgh performance of Dead Class:
The performance space is blocked with junk: heaps of dusty books, old newspapers, weird Tinguely-like machines, a fire-iron, a wooden school lavatory, a row of scratched benches. But these are not props in the normal sense; Kantor believes that they are simply there, on an equal footing with the actors. And there is a sense in which the objects in The Dead Class are actors, obstacles which threaten to take on a life of their own and dominate the human action. Kantor cultivates what he calls the “poor objects,” a real thing taken from life. […] The association and memories, the fragments of past life which rise to the surface from all this detritus, made The Dead Class an unforgettable experience and Kantor’s visit the most exciting thing that has happened to the visual arts at the Edinburgh Festival for a long time.
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- The Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and KantorHistory and Holocaust in 'Akropolis' and 'Dead Class', pp. 267 - 273Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2012