Polska wersja dostępna tutaj: „INSIDE” wileńskiego Teatru MMLAB w Instytucie Grotowskiego
The Grotowski Institute
The Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw is a municipal arts institution committed to documenting and disseminating knowledge about Jerzy Grotowski and his Laboratory Theatre as well as hosting events corresponding to the ideas laid down by Grotowski’s creative practice.
In Institute’s programme we can find various theatral forms, including performances released as a part of Non-fiction Theatre project (geared towards promoting documentary theatre among Wrocław audiences and young theatre artists) or invited theatres from other cities and countries. Like Arts and Science Lab (Meno ir mokslo laboratorija, MMLAB) which is a young professional theatre based in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Get „INSIDE”
Wroclaw premiere performance of „INSIDE” took place on 23rd January 2025 and draw on Jerzy Grotowski’s ideas like theatre laboratory, poor theatre and physical theatre. Grotowski has postulated that nobody should be only a consumer of art, each of us is invited to create and as an audience of the „INSIDE” performance, we are invited to co-create this form.
We are in a room where chairs are chaotically arranges, on one of them sits the creator-acress (Gintarė Šmigelskytė), she is blindfolded. A screen displays a request to take places against a wall. There are no props, decorations (Grotowski’s poor theatre conception). There is also no division between the stage and the audience.
The performance begins, at first an individual performance by actress, to which we are gradually invited. We delve into it as a group, a collective, but we still have the opportunity to participate in the event personally, each one of us. We get „INSIDE”.
During the performance not a single word falls from the lips of actress, her speech is movement and emotions, with which she touches the audience personally. It is we who stand in her way, give her shelter, only to arouse sadness a few moments lated and by our very presence make her knees break and she falls.
The performance ends in silence, we return to the beginning and are deprived of the opportunity to applaud the actress and the creators. We are asked to leave the room…
Something for those looking for an alternative and experience
The performance made a big impression on me, and by its semi-open form, in which we are able to determine the moment of the beginning but only presume the moment of the end, it was still playing out in me still after leaving the Na Grobli Studio of the Grotowski Institute. I will not wrote what I take away from participating in the show. That is individual to each viewer. The common experience is undoubtedly that it is an out-of-the-box form that cannot be told. It has to be experienced.
Krzysztof Antonik
teatralnie.pl