Editing Jerzy Grotowski (section)

==Analytical Psychology==

Both Grotowski and Hart compared the desired effect of the rehearsal process upon their actors, and the impact of their performances upon the audience to [[psychotherapy]], drawing upon the principles of [[Carl Jung]] and [[analytical psychology]] to explain the principles behind their creativity. Grotowski said that theatre 'is a question of a gathering which is subordinated to ritual: nothing is represented or shown, but we participate in a ceremonial which releases the [[collective unconscious]]'.<ref>Grotowski, J. (1987) 'Dziady jako model teatru nowoczesnego.' Wspolczesnosc, 21, 1961</ref>
Grotowski repeatedly described his rehearsal process and performances as 'sacred', seeking to revive what he understood to be the routes of drama in religious [[ritual]] and [[spiritual practice]].<ref>Schechner, R. (1995) The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance. London: Routledge.</ref>

To achieve his aims, Grotowski demanded that his actors draw from their psyches images of a collective significance and give them form through the motion of the body and the sound of the voice. Grotowski's ultimate aim was to effect in the actor change and growth, transformation and rebirth in order that the actor, in turn, could precipitate a similar development in the audience.<ref>Kumiega, J. (1987) The Theatre of Grotowski. London: Methuen</ref> It was for this reason that Grotowski often chose to base productions on works based on ancient narratives. For he believed that they 'embodied myths and images powerful and universal enough to function as [[archetype]]s, which could penetrate beneath the apparently divisive and individual structure of the Western psyche, and evoke a spontaneous, collective, internal response'.<ref>Grotowski, J., 'Theatre is an Encounter', 1975.</ref>

[[James Roose-Evans]] states that Grotowski's theatre 'speaks directly to the fundamental experience of each person present, to what [[Carl Jung|Jung]] described as the [[collective unconscious]] ... what Grotowski asks of the actor is not that he play the [[Lady from the Sea]] or [[Hamlet]], but that he confront these characters within himself and offer the result of that encounter to an audience.<ref name="Roose-Evans, J. 1989"/>

Grotowski, like Hart, did not consider the dramatic text or script to be primary in this process, but believed that the text 'becomes theatre only through the actors' use of it, that is to say, thanks to intonations, to the association of sounds, to the musicality of language'. Grotowski thus pursued the possibility of creating 'ideograms' made up of 'sounds and gestures' which 'evoke associations in the psyche of the audience'. But, for Grotowski, as for Hart, there was, between the psyche's reservoir of images and the bodily and vocal expression of that [[imagery]], a series of inhibitions, resistances and blocks, which his acting exercises set out to remove. Many of the acting exercises and rehearsal techniques developed by Grotowski were designed to removing these personal obstacles, which prevented the physical and vocal expression of this imagery, and Grotowski proposed that such a training process 'leads to a liberation from complexes in much the same way as [[Analytical Psychology|psychoanalytic therapy]]'.<ref>Grotowski, J. The Theatre's New Testament. 1975.</ref>