JAN BERSKI

GOING AROUND WORDS. A CONVERSATION WITH HENRYK TOMASZEWSKI

    Last year’s Warsaw Theatre Meetings (1978), in spite of its excited ambience while everyone pursued tickets to the Dramatic Theatre, were not, according to the critics, marvellous at all. There was something that the critics disregarded. I refer to the presence of the Wrocław Pantomime Theatre at the Meetings. It is a very curious thing that the annual festival of dramatic theatres started with a spectacle – Henryk Tomaszewski’s “Dispute” (“Spór”) – that is firstly an author’s theatre, and secondly – which is certainly more important – does not follow the principles of a dramatic theatre’s play, but belongs to the choreographic theatre.

   Although in Tomaszewski’s plays, it is the pantomime that dominates, which the dramatic theatre is familiar with, the way it is shaped by the director is typical of a choreographic piece of art. The pantomime used in “The Dispute” and in other plays by Tomaszewski does not only consist of epic gestures and facial expressions, but it conveys expressions, whose vital meaning lies in describing: how did it happen, what reaction did it evoke, while the element of pantomime in drama supports above all the narration itself, that is, the anecdote of the event, “what” happened.

   When we look at the line-up of the 19th Warsaw Theatre Meetings, the first thing that draws our attention is the fact that two of eight plays presented on stage (“Death in Old Decorations” – “Śmierć w starych dekoracjach” and “The Foreigner” – “Cudzoziemka”)  were “based on” literature not meant for the theatre. A third one (“As Years Go By, As Days Go By...”) has been directed on the basis of a previously prepared script which includes texts of nine different authors. What is more, “The Dispute” has been generally recognized as a spectacle “based on”… (which we will deal with in a moment).

   These facts seem to not only contribute to the changes taking place in contemporary theatre, but also give an evaluation of the turning point in the traditional drama creation – in playwriting. Whatever we may say about the modern dramatic theatre, it is doubtless that the shows of Tomaszewski’s Wrocław Pantomime Theatre belong to a different theatrical tradition than drama: it is in the ambient of the choreographic art. And that is what we should try to take a look at.

   There is a clear note in the “The Dispute’s” programme that Tomaszewski wrote the script, the choreography and directed it. It is only in the supplement that we learn that the script is a “loose” adaptation of Marivaux’s “La Dispute” and that in the first act of “The Dispute”, a motif of one of the lesser known works by Lope de Vega was used. But still, this “loose adaptation” and the “use of a motif” somehow clouded the way Tomaszewski’s masterpiece was perceived. “The Dispute” was considered to be “based on” Marivaux and de Vega. Zofia Sieradzka (“Teatr”, nr 2/79) went as far as to claim that Tomaszewski “used the text written by Marivaux and Lope de Vega”; which is obviously false, for not even a word from the texts of Marivaux or de Vega could be heard on the stage.

   I would not even bother mentioning the problem if the case was not so significant. It is because we can prove, beyond all doubt, that a great many of monumental pieces of art were not created deus ex machina, but were “based on” Michelangelo’s “La Pieta” that we can see in the Vatican City, was based on the medieval pattern of a pieta. Almost all of the religious paintings – from Titian to Rubens, Rembrandt, El Greco – all those flagellations, pietas, descents from the cross, entombments etc. were created on the basis of models in the iconography of the previous ages. Shakespeare, Goethe and Wyspiański did not invent it all by themselves either, each of them saw something somewhere, looked at something, read something, yet nobody recognizes their works as “based on”.

   “The Foreigner” directed by Anna Lutosławska of the Miniatura Theatre in Cracow is certainly “based on” a novel by Maria Kuncewiczowa. But Tomaszewski’s “Dispute” has next to nothing to do with such doings. It is curious that here, when talking about choreographic theatre, we are so reluctant to admit the originality and authenticity of a choreographic masterpiece. The dramatic theatre is self-reliant, creative, authentic – but the choreographic theatre is in most cases “based on”. But still, it was the choreographic masterpiece – Tomaszewski’s “Dispute” – that opened the latest Theatre Meetings.

   But that is not the only thing that we can reproach the dramatic theatre for.

   The recently vivid discussions about a crisis in the theatre seem to be long gone. Now we know that the crisis did not affect the theatre itself, but rather the traditional theatrical drama – the “word” seems to have suddenly lost its power. “Today’s theatre – writes Zbigniew Raszewski – is reaching out to means of expression that have the privilege of being exclusive in the pantomime (...) The whole theatre is now more mimic, and it is not only because of our liking of gesture, but also because of our attitude towards words. We have entered times where speech is so ambiguous that the speech itself has became a form of silence” (1). Meanwhile, since theatre abhors the void (i.e. silence), new kinds of theatres have begun to emerge.

   From the temporal chaos caused by the idea of a simultaneous theatre, a total theatre and whatnot, emerged what is I believe justly called the author’s theatre. We have a few of them in Poland, above all the theatres of Grotowski, Kantor and Szajna. These artists have achieved well-deserved fame even abroad, but... But the dramatic theatre, proud of its achievements, lost sight of Henryk Tomaszewski’s Wrocław Pantomime Theatre, which 23 years ago was the first to give life to, to educate and to shape the author’s theatre, a few years before Grotowski’s or Szajna’s theatres were created. And what is also important – Tomaszewski did not let the others outdistance him – he is still present in the panorama of our theatre, above all, as a creator of new choreographic pantomime dramas, but also as a director in drama.

   Years ago, Tomaszewski directed “Marat-Sade” in Poznań in a dramatic theatre with dramatic actors. A kind of a regularity (i.e. uniformity) of this performance was the result of the director’s inclusion of pantomime in the drama, not really “mimic”, but rather “expressive”, maybe we should call it the “expressive-spatial pantomime” – thus showing by the means of evolution not only the character’s psychological profiles; by the performers’ acting the pantomime created a particular atmosphere of a given scene. An atmosphere expressed not by arguments and dramaturgical conflicts, but by means of the constant (evolving) stage happening of “motion”, which in a way fills the psychological “inside” of the whole situation the spectacle’s characters found themselves in.

   This expressive-spatial pantomime, presented in the entire stage space the director had to his disposal, provided each particular scene with a specific consistency – a thickening of the theatrical matter, in other words: the dramatic structure of the whole performance. And that is a novum in our theatre, introduced by Henryk Tomaszewski’s theatrical experience – first in the plays of the Wrocław Pantomime Theatre, then adapted for the dramatic theatre.

   In Stanisław Witkiewicz’s “Mother” (“Matka”) directed by Jerzy Jarocki in Cracow, the actress Ewa Lasek created a wonderful character. But the means by which Ewa Lasek portrays the Mother seems to be taken from the expressive-spatial pantomime of Tomaszewski’s theatre. Jerzy Grzegorzewski, on the other hand, employed a mime-dancer Danuta Kisiel to play in “The Un-Divine Comedy” (“Nie-boska komedia”) in the Polish Theatre in Wrocław. The role included in “The Un-Divine Comedy” is almost a quote from the theatre created by Tomaszewski. In Wyspiański’s “Varsovian Anthem” (“Warszawianka”, also in Cracow), Tomaszewski installed a whole, almost independent, stage of expressive-spatial pantomime.

   Whereas, in the Polish Theatre in Wrocław, Tomaszewski is directing “The Killing game” (“Gra w zabijanego”) by Ionesco. But here we will be dealing with only one mime character created by Tomaszewski by the pantomimic means, openly adding this character to Ionesco’s text. This one mime – by the way, a brilliant portrayal by Erwin Nowiaszak – will shift the substance of the whole play from word to silence, a “quiet” expression of expressive-spatial pantomime.

    Étienne Decroux – the greatest mime of our times before Jean Louis Barrault and Marcel Marceau appeared – when recapitulating his theatrical experiences said: “Only words can say what was, what do we want to be, where someone comes from, where does he go, what does someone think about what they do to us; only words can express the abstract, so necessary for the thought to exist… A mime can never do that and he should not even try.” Yet the theatrical experiences of Decroux’s successors seem to prove the exact opposite.

   It is true that today “words” cannot be substituted by anything else when describing an anecdote of an event, neither has it lost its magical power in the realm of agitation and advertising. But something important has happened to the “words” in theatre in the last decades. – “the word” as a symbol, metaphor, oracle has become unintelligible “gibberish”. People have stuck their tongues at the erstwhile “parol d’honneur” for a long time now. No word is insulting anymore. There are no words that could offend or hurt. Sartre, Beckett, Frisch, Pinter did not provide us with even one epithet that we could use to blacken or purify the Protagonist. It suddenly turned out – which is hard to believe – that all the “players” have lost all their verbal trumps. “Silence” has begun to rule in theatre. “Maybe – as Marceau says – the silence will be broken by a scream of love and hope hidden in people’s hearts”.

   When theatre was still there to play, to have fun, to entertain, a wittingly placed word had its power. But now, when the word is expected to speak the truth (also the ultimate truth), we began to see its weaknesses: “Artists start to feel a kind of uneasiness (says Tomaszewski in an interview), an overwhelming embarrassment when they are put under the obligation of showing real feelings using words… Well, when the word in relation to them becomes helpless, imposes the false, is artificial, deceitful... that is where – on the ground where the word surrenders – movement appears. Movement that goes around the irritability of the word, expresses things that the word is afraid to express”.

   Let us take notice of how close is Tomaszewski’s statement to the opinion of Antonin Artuad: “Theatre’s objective – he says – is not to solve social or psychological conflicts, not to serve as a battleground for moral passions – the theatre should (emphasizes Artuad) objectively express hidden truths”. What is it that “the word is afraid of” the most? – “the hidden truths”, in other words, intimacy. Maybe it is not even able to express it. Intimacy uncovers both in its literal and figurative meaning – the word serve much too often as a camouflage. Many of Tomaszewski’s performances, “The Dispute” included, are largely a search and an uncovering of the intimacy – the harboured feelings and complexes. Maybe this is the charm and sense of Tomaszewski’s theatre – it lies in the way it shows human intimacies.

   Marek Jodłowski in “Odra” (11/78) expressed an opinion repeated in a great many of comments on Tomaszewski’s “Dispute”. He writes: “I’ll say it straight: I miss shows such as »The Movement« (»Ruch«) and »The Seed and the Shell« (»Ziarno i skorupa«)… Because »The Seed and the Shell« is a poetry of movement, a poetry of vibrations, the matter of life. When faced with this notion, all the others lose a bit of their importance – because the matter of life and the poetry of movement is what Tomaszewski’s theatre has been breathing with for years. Tomaszewski gives it a different plot each time, and a new title like: »The Overcoat« (»Płaszcz«), »The Dress« (»Suknia«), »Salome«, »Marathon« (»Maraton«), »The Post Office« (»Poczta«), »The Garden of Love« (»Ogród miłości«), »Coming Tomorrow« (»Przyjeżdżam jutro«), »Gilgamesh« (»Gilgamesz«), »November Night« (»Noc listopadowa«)…”

   The longing for a show like “The Seed and the Shell” is very characteristic here. But really, in “The Dispute” Tomaszewski “has run away and misled the pursuers”. He took a step away from the clear compositions of movement, from the sculptural architecture of motion in a way, a step away from the clearly composed uniform sequences of movement – from all that we would call a spatial pantomime. He also took a step away from the literal “expressive” pantomime, that is, from the representation of man’s determination, fate and destiny – simply speaking, he turned to aesthetics. At the same time, he also gave the spectators a silly story – the dispute about who is more prone to change their feelings, a man or a woman (because that is the premise of “The Dispute”) – as a poor substitute of this appealing idea, this matter of life, constantly present in the choreographic pantomime theatre of Henryk Tomaszewski. It is no surprise that it is difficult to catch an artist with such a rich imagination, theatrical experience and knowledge in the act, in his own métier.

   What is “The Dispute” all about? About nothing – in the sense the idea of man’s fate and destiny. But in the sense of ideas of classical aesthetic values of a theatrical masterpiece, “The Dispute” is directly a rendezvous of classical pantomime and modern choreography, which we can observe in about all of his plays; indirectly, it is a search for the style of the age that passed.

   It is not the first time that Tomaszewski plays with various forms of movement. He showed us not only sewing with a twine, without the thread or the needle, or a murderous run in place, which the theatre has seen long before. But a novelty in our theatre – shown already in Tomaszewski’s first play in 1956 – was using the silhouette of a mime-dancer-actor as an element of the architectonical construction of movement. In “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (“Dzwonnik z Notre Dame”) Tomaszewski builds the naves of a gothic cathedral from the silhouettes of mime-dancers – and that was only the first novelty in his choreographic pantomime theatre.

   Then he constructed and shaped labyrinths, statues, “movements”, seeds and shells. Whole blocks of human-built stage space were used either to indicate the changing setting, or to organize the stage for the occurring drama. But not only. Tomaszewski was able to create a protagonist of a touching romance out of a nincompoop and a loser. He showed in his theatre a study of emotional elation, also in its erotic licentiousness. He showed the defeat, breakdowns, victories of protagonists, he shamelessly uncovered intimate determination, defiance, complexes, embarrassments.

   But this time, in “The Dispute”, with all the veneration he could afford, Tomaszewski kept himself busy with the atmosphere and the detail of the age that passed. He introduced an element of the modern, you could say, nude choreography, interchangeably with a rigid etiquette of form, into its sophistication and exhibitionism.

   “The Dispute’s” primary fault is said to be the lack of man. Indeed, in “The Dispute” there is a lot of formal details about the theatrical digression – lighting the chandeliers, perfuming the air, characters in masks and characters without faces. It is behind all that, that a human being is hidden, we have to dig him up from all these surroundings. Thus, for some people there is too little of man, for he is squeezed into the set and dressed in the costume up to his ears. And those in the negligee are more like toys in the hands of the costumed, so we do not really learn much about their own internal “self”. Nonetheless, the living man is in “The Dispute”.

   The spectator, used to great issues in Tomaszewski’s theatre, is now being tested. For there is no heroic protagonist, no athlete that takes the bull by the horns, not even a weak man that is strong at heart. There is, however, a gallery of character types: a great man for small business”. I am convinced that no spectator of “The Dispute” will want to identify himself with the characters of the play since they are too small, too common (too banal?). No one feels as the addressee of an anecdote about a naïve – naked – simpleton nor about a suspicious gallant.

   In “The Dispute” nobody really loves or hates anyone. All they care about is their own whims. The play lacks a protagonist of a large calibre, some kind of Sisyphus, Daedalus or the Marathon runner. Maybe this is why it is said that there is no man in “The Dispute”.

   „The Dispute” is the 15th spectacle in the 23 years of the history of the Wrocław Pantomime Theatre. Henryk Tomaszewski invented all the programmes and realized the stage and choreographic compositions of them all. The constant presence of the artist in our theatre has also another important aspect. The school of pantomime in Wrocław, functional for all these years, has already educated a new generation of mime-dancer-actors, which led to the creation of other theatres and art houses – or amateur – pantomime theatres, swiftly functioning in Warsaw, Lublin, Szczecin and Cracow.

   The movement of pantomime theatre slowly, but steadily, is developing and enriching – not only diversifying – the pantomimic image of our theatre. It is a fact worth elaborating on, especially considering that the now independent, not to say self-reliant, Wrocław Pantomime Theatre, led by Tomaszewski since the beginning, was created in 1956 as a modest Pantomime Studio by the Dramatic Theatre in Wrocław.

   At last, a question that appears by itself: why did the Pantomime Theatre survive? – what made it so that it did not become an evanescent ephemeris as so many other similar ventures. Firstly, because Tomaszewski himself is a talented artist and a temperamental creator. Secondly, during the years when his artistic personality was being shaped, he was at first related to the dramatic theatre, and then – which later turned out to be the most important – to another field of theatrical art – choreography – and he stayed faithful to it until today.

   Choreography – the same field of theatrical art that pinnacled choreographic performances by Ashton, Béjart, Limón, Graham, Grigorowicz, Cranko, Neumeier to the heights of popularity and general interest, it also pinnacled Parnell, Jarzynówna-Sobczak, Tomaszewski, and recently Conrad Drzewiecki. Each of these artists individually created a different theatre, maybe even a different choreographic “language” of dialogue with the spectator, with the problems of the century.

   It is also doubtless that their works belong to the same genre – they are pieces of choreographic art. Also, it is important that the beginning of the crisis in the dramatic theatre occurred at the same time of the renaissance of the choreographic theatre. This renaissance enters the area of Polish theatre more and more clearly. And the choreographic works of Tomaszewski's, Jarzynówna-Sobczak's and Drzewiecki’s theatres play a large part in the changes of the last twenty years.

***

   JAN BERSKI: — Both kinds of performance – the pantomimic, with mimes, and the ballet, with dancers, belong to the same genre of movement. How do you think dance and pantomime relate to each other?

   HENRYK TOMASZEWSKI: — To say it in short – I believe that pantomime that expresses some contents and states, feelings and thoughts by movement and facial expression – which the dance does as well – is closer to the dramatic theatre. I think it was always like that. The mime’s job, as well as an actor’s, consists above all in imitating, in a mimetic adoption of the character.

   J.B.: — That means that in pantomime there is no place for a content-free, asemantic aesthetics of movement just for aesthetics.

   H.T.: — I think that there is no such thing in pantomime at all. In pantomime we’ll always be showing “something”, pantomime will always be about something, it will never be a concert show, in the sense of what a concert ballet is. It’s true that ballet can be, and frequently is, a theatre, but it is not necessary, it can be a pure form of aesthetic movement as well, and it doesn’t have to be called theatre. Now, theatre is something I have always understood as a case of some conflicts and some struggles – not necessary for ballet.

   In my pantomimes I put the human being in some situations of conflict between him and the world that surrounds him, where he is forced to fight. I generally believe that struggling determines our lives – we keep fighting, even such a trivial action of our body as breathing is a struggle for keeping us alive, even though it is not a “movement” we’ve learnt, it’s innate. What I want to say is that the pantomime is closer to “moving” – the action that we identify with our life, while the ballet in its convention is more artistic and equilibristic.

   I admire ballet, but I can’t identify myself with a dancer that wants to defy the laws of gravity, the laws of physics in general, which is what the classical dance strives for – our body is unable to “feel” that kind of movement. What I’m trying to say is that the spectator perceives the ballet by the forms of aesthetic movement, while the pantomime – because it always shows “something” with the movement – is closer to the moment of identification of the spectator with what he or she sees on stage.

   J.B.: — I’m thinking about something different – about choreography, the kind of architecture, plastic art of movement that is frequently present in your pantomimes. I frequently get the feeling that you’re sculpting in the matter of movement.

   H.T.: — Simply speaking, a more experienced spectator can see motion sequences or dance elements typical of a ballet in my theatre – that’s true. I think that the repertory of motion techniques used in ballet every day are a repertory that, if used correctly, can express something important. I’m not a purist when it comes to pantomime... And that’s why I’m using choreographic, acrobatic, gymnastic movement. It all depends on the correct selection, the trick is to choose and to choose the right “thing”.

   J.B.: — But you make the choice thinking about the content, the whole of the theatrical case?

   H.T.: — Obviously, when we prepare a spectacle we do some kind of research, first on the subject, then on all of the characters, and we look for the proper material to create each of them, so that they could express what was presupposed in the script. If I’m to make a choreography, the most important thing is not to think about what I’m directing, but about what associations does the subject I’m working on create within me. The associations regarding the subject are the proper basis of my analysis and looking for the right means of expression – maybe that’s how, in simple words, the so-called creative process looks like.

   J.B.: — Coming back to the previous subject, because we left it a bit: don’t you think that the basic difference between the dance and the pantomime is that the dance means to dance “everything”, while the pantomime means to show “everything”?

   H.T.: — These differences aren’t so clear. Actually, we can only talk about this subject in general terms, we can’t say that this is dance and this is pantomime. Because if we’re to analyze the two phenomena, we can’t put aside the purely aesthetic movement, so we would move around the field of dance – that’s clear...

   J.B.: — It wasn’t my intention to force you to categorize. It’s understandable that there is no clear division between the dance and the pantomime, because movement is still movement. I mentioned it because you call the compositions of your plays “choreography”. It’s also doubtless that there is a “composition of movement”, in many cases very clearly guided, which gives us a connection between the pantomimic play and a pure choreography or ballet. What I’m asking about is if – despite all that – the issue in pantomime is not about showing everything and in ballet about dancing everything – are they not the fundamental differences?

    H.T.: — Generally, the thing is that dance, just like singing or recitation, is a form of art, while the action of “showing” is not an art by itself, so I think it’s about a form that we should call pantomimic acting.

   J.B.: — You were talking about the closeness of pantomime to dramatic theatre. Would you agree that dramatic theatre would properly answer the question: why did something happen? And the pantomime would answer the question: how did it happen? – although it’s obvious that in both cases there exists an element of narration. In other words, would you agree that in general the pantomime would focus on presenting the anecdote and illustrating the narration, while the dramatic theatre would focus on expressing, verbalizing the anecdote and the narration.

   H.T.: — This “why” will always come up. A drama would be lacking the idea if we didn’t answer that question in the pantomime and if we didn’t show the outcome of some kind of operation.

   J.B.: — I agree, but for example in your pantomimic version of “Hamlet” I think you are presenting him as if everyone already knew everything about him.

   H.T.: — Not necessarily. I take into consideration the fact that a spectator that comes to the theatre doesn’t necessarily have to know “Hamlet”, that he didn’t have to read Shakespeare’s play before watching the pantomime – so I try to present it so that everyone can understand the story. I even consider it to be one of pantomime’s obligations. It can’t be situated only in the realm of the idea, that would be a terrible mistake.

   J.B.: —When it comes to “Hamlet”, a dispute rages on about his behaviour. We can ask ourselves why did Hamlet go insane, did he only pretend insanity, while your spectacle presents above all how Hamlet looks like when he is, or pretends to be, insane – isn’t that so?

   H.T.: — I think that in my spectacle, by adding my own comment, I clearly show why Hamlet pretends to be insane.

   The principle of my pantomime is – at least as I feel it – to first show a man standing on the ground and then tearing away from it and entering a kind of higher sphere. To show this higher sphere, you first have to be on the ground, something common must happen here, something plain, grey, even banal, even kitschy, because kitsch is also present in our lives. Only then, after we have seen the man in our everydayness and identified ourselves with him, we can go somewhere else. When working, we often talk about the ellipsis in dramaturgy – the ellipsis is a very quick turn – and such a thing is present in the pantomime, we go in one direction that seems to be completely ordinary, mundane, and out of the blue, there is a turn into “heaven”.

   I think it was particularly visible in “Coming tomorrow” – the maid could be working, cleaning, mopping the floor, setting the table, and the next moment she could be flying along with the “guest” to entirely new regions. I think this “flying” is characteristic of pantomime. If I were to talk about any rules in my work, that is how I would describe them. I worked on “Hamlet” using the same principle – almost all of these comic stories, these ordinaries: that Hamlet came home from Wittenberg, that he went to his father’s grave with flowers, that there was a party, that he met someone, that someone at the ball was drinking, etc., all these banal events create a situation thanks to which the character can, at one point, “find wings and fly away”.

   J.B.: — I understand that these concretes from everyday life should be understood as plot connecting points, that they are some sort of information for the spectator about the events.

   H.T.: — If showing the concretes of everyday life was there just to connect the plot points in order to inform the spectator about the events and their sequence – it would be pretty much senseless. In my opinion, these scenes are there to characterize the protagonists, they serve the idea of wholeness and are expressed by the form proper for the pantomime. That’s why I would be a little afraid of such a sharp classification of drama and pantomime that you propose in your question.

   J.B.: — Even if we assume that both belong to the convention of theatre, with all the intertwining and complementing of each other on a lot of levels of the dramatic theatre and the pantomimic theatre, we do still say: that this is pantomime, and that is not. So there must be some differences. I think that in the pantomime the main idea is to guide the spectator through the spectacle so they can learn how it came to be, while in the drama it is why it came to be. At this moment I can’t see any other clearer differentiating factor between the drama and the pantomime.

   H.T.: — I won’t deny your definition, but I can’t agree that our pantomimic theatre doesn’t show “the why”, and doesn’t show the cause. If there is place for any doubts, maybe they come from the fact that in the pantomime there is in fact no so-called back-story. So we can’t say what happened before nor what will happen next – the plot consists of what we see on stage and only that is the dramatic reality, we only perceive what is happening now on stage. In the pantomime we can’t say what happened behind the scenes or that after the curtain was dropped, one of the characters went somewhere to do something, etc., because that was not said to us during the spectacle. Maybe that’s where the assumptions come from, that the pantomime above all shows “the how”, and later, perchance, “the why”.

   J.B.: — Obviously assuming that a pantomimic spectacle can be narrated in a way that “the why” dominates over the whole theatrical play.

   H.T.: — I’m fully convinced that it is possible, and that the spectacle “Coming tomorrow” proved that very well.

   J.B.: — From what I heard about you a while back, you were greatly opposed to the idea of treating your spectacles as ballet, it wasn’t good to even think about it in your presence...

   H.T.: — I believe that my approach to the work on pantomime rules out the possibility of treating my plays as ballet.

   J.B.: — But if we are to understand ballet not as a collection of spectacular trademark moves related somehow to some kind of leisure plot, as in “Swan Lake”, but as a choreographic drama, as a choreographic theatre? I’m talking about this because the element of composing the movement – what in general makes it possible for us to talk about choreographic art – is very strong in your pantomimes.

   H.T.: — To put some light on the case from my side, I’ll use an example. If in the pantomime someone wants to present a waiter, no matter how terribly he would do it, the spectator will still perceive him as a waiter. In the ballet, however, the waiter will always be a dancer that represents this character by the means of balletic resources and I admit that I can’t really identify this character with a real life waiter. In the ballet, he will always be a metaphor of a waiter, he’ll be a poetized character. Of course, poetization is ballet’s great merit, that goes without saying. And let us agree that balletic poetry always adds a metaphorical element, a symbol to the real, everyday, ordinary character. That’s why I will always perceive such a character differently than in the dramatic theatre.

   J.B.: — So you believe that the creation of a balletic waiter – let’s stick to this example – will be largely influenced by the artistic setting made by means of movement, purely artistic movement, which at the same times blurs the real function of the character?

   H.T.: — Yes, because no waiter in the world would use such means of artistic expression, these means don’t match, they are not appropriate for the image of a real waiter.

   J.B.: — And now the same waiter in the pantomime – how would you show him?

   H.T.: — In the pantomime, the analysis itself of the waiter’s movements will be different, focused on characteristic features of a waiter. It’s obvious that on stage, they will be sharper than in reality, but that’s how they emphasize the waiterness of the character.

   J.B.: — At the beginning of your pantomimic creation there was a clear division between the resources typical of the pantomime and purely choreographic resources (that is, composing the movement on stage). But at one point it began to merge with one another – not to complement, but to merge, intertwine. Were there any reasons for that?

   H.T.: — It wasn’t planned or intended, it’s just a result of my work, I wouldn’t be able to plan such things. I just started to work in a different way.

   J.B.: — That may sound banal, but wasn’t that the so-called pursuit of new means of artistic expression?

   H.T.: — No, it wasn’t.

   J.B.: — Has anything become devalued for you in theatre?

   H.T.:— No. I think that balletic or dancing resources I use at times...

   J.B.: — I’m not referring to the fact that you use arabesques, that someone in the show jumps, does a pirouette or turns in the air, etc. – I’m thinking of the choreographically composed movement, about whole sequences, purely choreographic parts that take up a lot of the time for a pantomime spectacle. I’m thinking of a kind of spatial architecture of movement, quite characteristic in your works. It was all well divided once, often simply on another stage plan, from the often “pure pantomime”. It was like that in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, in “The Labyrinth” (“Labirynt”), in “Faust Departs”...

   H.T.: — There are reasons for that: the Walpurgis Night scene in “Faust” suggests that choreographic means should be used alone; if it’s a swarm of witches, that kind of impression can be conveyed by using collective choreography. So that part of “Faust” can be perceived as more choreographic than, say, the meeting of Faust and Margaret in the garden, all that courtships with pearls. In spite of all that, I still think that we stay within the same dramaturgy, though a particular scene may enforce this or that type of formal solution of presentation. Naturally, I’m the one to choose the resources, both for creating the whole of the spectacle and for each particular scene, that’s why I don't think that these are the only solutions. I don’t have and I’ve never had a recipe for pantomime. When I was directing “Faust Departs” I chose these means of expression – I don’t know if I would choose the same if I was to deal with the subject again today.

   J.B.: — Do you prepare all the subjects and librettos for your pantomimic spectacles by yourself?

   H.T.: — I prepare the subjects by following literary models. I have no ambition to invent the scripts by myself, I prefer to base it on somebody else’s text that I trust more...

   JB.: — Can you catch or name the moment: this is it, this subject interests me.

   H.T.: — Everything is a result of some interests, the time in which one thing is happening and not another, some books I’m reading. There are subjects, like “Hamlet” for example, that have been absorbing me for a long time. But the year when I decided to do “Hamlet” had the greatest impact on its final shape.

   J.B.: — Has it ever occurred, that you searched for a subject especially for someone, did you ever decide to direct a pantomime thinking about a particular performer?

   H.T.: — For a commission?

   J.B.: — No, for one of the actors or a group of performers.

   H.T.: — No, I’ve never done that. However, I do think about the whole team when I’m preparing each scene of my choreographic work. The entire team takes part in each of my pantomimes and they are all busy.

   J.B.: — Do you ever take interest in the so-called life, human problem or issue, and after reading a text you suddenly realize: this is a text that I can use to show the things that concern me , that upset me, that interest me...

   H.T.: — You know, I have always been interested in the opposition of worlds, the most interesting image actions come from it. For example, in “The Dispute”: the contrast between culture and the nature. These two issues most often explain themselves through decadence, so also through contradictions.

   J.B.:. — Contradictions in a general sense, like the good on one side and the evil on the other?

   H.T.: — Oh, not that much, no!...

   J.B.: — So simply a clash of two different issues create a conflict? Or maybe: the good seen from another side is not so good anymore?

   H.T.: — You know, I think there might be something like that in “The Dispute”. I contradicted two worlds. On the one side we have the prince, the princess, the whole court, so the world of culture and decadence as well. On the other side there’s the innocence of young people – a completely blank, white sheet of paper, as if the children of nature were rebuilding paradise. And now the two worlds intertwine: by cooperation and even intervention. Because these two world have to meet at some point and one of them has to interfere with the other – and what comes next, I won’t tell the whole story now.

   J.B.: — Are you interested in how much of it the spectator understands?

   H.T.: — I can’t do anything in theatre without thinking about the spectator. For me he’s the basic fact of the theatre.

   J.B.: — Do you also feel inclined to educate the spectator?

   H.T.: — What do you mean?

   J.B.: — As for instance Richard Wagner thought: you’ve come to the theatre, so I’m giving you a masterpiece and I won’t show you anything else until you understand it...

   H.T.: — What I said about the spectator was in the context of today’s tradition almost, which allows the creation of theatrical pieces without any consideration for the spectator. I was once at a conference where a lot of theoreticians and critics of theatre were present. It’s characteristic that they kept on talking about the theatre, but not even once was the spectator mentioned. He was completely ignored, as if a theatre only consisted of the stage and had no auditorium – hence my answer to the question regarding the spectator. And as for the educational issues... I think that modern theatre plays a crucial role in the shaping of the spectator.

   J.B.: — To be honest, I was thinking about something slightly different – I’ll use an example. Let’s suppose that it’s the opening night of your new play and now – the curtain is dropped, the spectators get up and say: “We haven't understood a single thing from what you have showed us”; and you respond: “OK, come back in a week and I’ll change the play so that you can understand it”. Would you do such a thing in your pantomime theatre?

   H.T.: — I don’t know... But I do trust myself enough to be convinced that while working on some new thoughts of mine, they won’t be completely unintelligible.

   J.B.: — I’m sorry, my example was a bit extreme, but I obviously mean directing the play with the best intentions, but yet the spectator didn’t understand a thing, none of the things you were thinking about reached the spectator.

   H.T.: — I don’t know if I would improve such an “unintelligible” spectacle, maybe I wouldn’t even be able to improve it. But anyway, I would consider it to be my failure – if the spectators came and said: “We have no damn idea what he means”. Not one spectator, but in general...

   J.B.: — Obviously in general. And it wouldn’t necessarily mean that you made a failure, not at all. After the show, the spectators would simply say: “We went to the theatre to see, to hear something, but unfortunately, we didn’t understand a thing of it”. And I don't mean any dramatic conflict between the creator and the addressee. The spectator simply wants to be told the same story, but in a different way.

   H.T.: — I don’t know, just saying: “yes, I'll try to improve what I’ve already done” seems to be too little...

   J.B.: — Well, let’s say that you would talk to the spectators: “OK, I'll try to explain it to you, let’s see that again”, or maybe “Tell me what you didn’t understand”...

   H.T.: — I don’t really know how I would behave in such a situation, it’s difficult to say anything in general. I would really have to be convinced that I am unintelligible. Because you know that the spectator’s perception is sometimes very different, it depends on the intelligence, sensitivity, imagination. So a great many factors decide whether the spectator understood and how he understood it.

   I often hear that a spectator has his own interpretation that was not considered at all when creating the play. I don’t deny this interpretation, on the contrary, I think that it’s the spectator’s own trophy – that may well be beautiful that he can see the things we show differently. Maybe this is the vital value and richness of the pantomime, which goes around every word and is therefore ambiguous, leaves a much greater space for the imagination and the individual sensitivity of the spectator than we expected. And really, I couldn’t answer surely: “yes, I would change a spectacle I’ve prepared” or “no, I won’t change it”, because I would have to know what kind of a spectator it concerns and if the changes are really necessary. If a painter paints a picture and then someone says: “I don't get what you painted here”, the painter wouldn’t come with a brush and start to repaint it – he’d leave it...

   J.B.: — You once said: “Artists start to feel a kind of uneasiness, an overwhelming embarrassment when they are put under the obligation of showing real feelings using words… Well, when the word in relation to them becomes helpless, imposes the false, is artificial, deceitful… that is where – on the ground where the word surrenders – movement appears. Movement that goes around the irritability of the word expresses things that the word is afraid to express”.

   H.T.: — That’s true. I said that, but it was a period of the so-called storm and stress in my work. However, I’ve never fought with the word, I’ve never intended to overhaul the word with pantomime, nor have I thought that the art of pantomime is more valuable than the art of the word. I still believe that the word is the basic means of interpersonal communication. But the thing you’ve just quoted, I said many years ago and maybe I wouldn’t say it today, or I would said it differently, because I’ve gained new, different experience since then.

   In art alone many things have changed since those times. Above all, there were strong tendencies in literature to show the devaluation of the word – it’s gone now.

   J.B.: — But in this quote of yours from years ago, there is something that I think is still relevant, that is: “Movement that goes around the irritability of the word expresses things that the word is afraid to express”. Don’t you think that when we say words...

   H.T.: — “I love you” – for example.

   J.B.: — Yes, that we can feel embarrassed when hearing our own words. Maybe, really, today as well, we’re afraid of spoken words that to us mean uncovering ourselves, looking deeper into ourselves and then it is the movement that comes to help us, the gesture that lets us burst out with something real or to uncover something deeply hidden. What do you think?

   H.T.: — Maybe not as much, but I would say that it is easier for us to make a gesture, to move, than to say it when we want to express a feeling towards another person. I think it’s something generally common in our times, that we’re embarrassed of our own feelings. What I said back then referred to feelings – we seem to forget about them, as if we unlearnt to express them.

   J.B.: — To tell the other person about our feelings – is that what you mean?

   H.T.: — Yes, to tell the other person about our feelings or to express them at all. We’ve lost what the romanticism had. I think that’s what made me say that back then. Now I see things a bit differently and I don’t think I would say it again today.

   J.B.: — Maybe doing something without talking about it is now easier for us?

   H.T.: — To do something like that (Henryk Tomaszewski waves at somebody in the distance to bid farewell) is easier than to say: “look, it’s possible that we will never see each other again...”

NOTES

(1) In the foreword to “The History of Pantomime” (“Z dziejów pantomimy”) by Janina Hera.

[Translation of a text originally published as “Going around words. About Henryk Tomaszewski’s Theatre” (“Omijając słowo. Rzecz o teatrze Henryka Tomaszewskiego”), in: Jan Berski, “In the Theatre of Sound and Movement” (“W teatrze dźwięku i ruchu”), Bydgoszcz 1985, pp. 145-179.]