Tell me about your two friends, Jerzy... "Avec Grotowsky" Texts by Peter Brook about Jerzy Grotowski.

I've just started reading "Avec Grotowski", a book by Romanian-French theatre researcher George Banu, where collects Peter Brook's words about Jerzy Grotowski.  In the introduction of the book Banu quotes a short conversation with Grotowski, a really charming and clarifying sentences about one part of Grotowski's personal world:

" (...) je l'interrogeais sur son amitié bifrons avec Barba et Brook :

'Tu as deux amis. De quoi parles-tu avec Eugenio? Et avec Brook?

- Avec Eugenio je ne parle que du théâtre, avec Peter je ne parle que de la vie !' "

...and we can translate those words in this way:

" (...) I asked him about his bifrons friendship with Barba and with Brook :

'You have two friends. What do you talk about with Eugenio? and what about with Brook?

- With Eugenio I only speak about theatre, with Peter I only speak about life!' "

That demon of two heads (bifrons) puts every of its heads on each side of Grotowski, but the Polish director was never in the centre of anything, ¡he always was on the extreme!

Fascinating research for unveiling the secrets hiding behind the encounter of great men!

"Avec Grotowski" is without any doubt a book full of wisdom of life, wisdom of human relationships, and wisdom of theatre itself. I'm reading it with passion and curiosity. We'll see...

- Posted by Gustavo Thomas. Registered by Creative Commons.

Eisenstein film about Mei Lanfang Art.

They say when in 1935 Mei Lanfang performed in the former USSR he changed the theatrical point of view of the most important creators of that land. Einsenstein, among those creators amazed by this Chinese Star and crazy about excentric moments and people in history, decided to take advantage of Mei Lanfang visit and asked him for a special session of filming on March 29th, 1935; the result was 5 minutes of film Mei Lanfang performing his Beijing Opera new style; although the film projected by Einsentein never was finished, it is an invaluable visual material. (1)

I found a short part of this film and I love to share it (2).

Eisenstein film:

(1) George Banu wrote his version of that visit: "Eisenstein qui le rencontre dès le 12 mars lui propose de le filmer. Et le 29 mars, juste à la fin des représentations, une longue séance de tournage aura lieu, mais sans que le film projeté soit réalisé. Par ailleurs Eisenstein écrit la fameuse étude A l’enchanteur du jardin des poiriers, qu’il va reprendre trois fois dans la période 1935-38, et il offre à Mei son article, paru en anglais, The Principle of Film Form, avec une dédicace lourde de significations à l’heure du « réalisme socialiste » : « A M. Mei Lanfang, le plus grand maître de la forme, mon article essentiel sur la question »" (Mei Lanfang : procès et utopie de la scène occidentale, by Georges Banu)
(2) Film extracted from a Chinese documentary.