Returning to the Subject: The Heritage of Reduta in Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre

Zbigniew Osiński is Professor at the Department of Polish Literature in the Polish Philology Department of Warsaw University. He is the founder and first director of the Centre for Study of Jerzy Grotowski's Work and for Cultural and Theatrical Research, in Wrocław, Poland, where he was the artistic and scholarly director from 1990 to 2004. His most important works are: Teatr Dionizosa. Romantyzm w polskim teatrze wspÓłczesnym (The Theatre of Dionysus: Romanticism in the Polish Contemporary Theatre; 1972); Grotowski i jego Laboratorium (1980; released in English in 1986, Grotowski and His Laboratory); Grotowski wytycza trasy. Studia i szkice (Grotowski Blazes the Trails: Studies and Sketches; 1993); Jerzy Grotowski. Od “divadla predstaveni” k rituÁlnym hrÁm (Jerzy Grotowski: From Theatre of Productions to Ritual Arts; 1995); Jerzy Grotowski. ŹrÓdła, inspiracje, konteksty (Jerzy Grotowski: Sources, Inspirations, Contexts; 1998); Pamięć Reduty. Osterwa, Limanowski, Grotowski (The Memory of “Reduta”: Osterwa, Limanowski, Grotowski; 2003); “Nazywał nas bratnim teatrem”. Przyjaźń artystyczna Ireny i Tadeusza Byrskich z Jerzym Grotowskim (“He used to call us a sister theatre”: Artistic Friendship of Irena and Tadeusz Byrski with Jerzy Grotowski; 2005).

Kris Salata teaches stage directing and performance at Stanford University. He has translated a number of texts by Jerzy Grotowski and published several essays on the Workcenter. His full biographical note appears in this issue of TDR with “Toward the Non-(Re)presentational Actor.”