At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions

(Excerpt)
Grotowski knows that to learn something means to conquer it in practice. One must learn through "doing" and not through memorization of ideas and theories . . . the axis of this text is a method, or better yet a practice, finally central to the work of Stanislavski, and later developed by Grotowski: physical actions.

Grotowski is inheritor of the mantle of Stanislavski, renowned and revered for his radical innovation as a director, and for his seminal manifesto Towards a Poor Theatre.

At Work With Grotowski on Physical Actions by Thomas Richards, Grotowski's long-time collaborator, is the first available statement in English of Grotowski's current working practices and theoretical position in over twenty years.

This is Thomas Richards' inside account of his decade-long exclusive collaboration with one of the central figures of 20th-century theatre. It reviews in jargon-free terms Grotowski's developments since the time of Towards a Poor Theatre.

With the preface and concluding chapter by Grotowski himself, At Work With Grotowski is not only a portrait of the master at work, but also Grotowski's personal testimony to a life spent on the leading edge of the theatre world.

At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions will take its rightful place alongside the dozen or so seminal theatre books of this century. Richards' account will prove a unique resource for actors, students, and anyone seriously interested in the best that the theatre has to offer.