Silent Night, Avignon 1990
Silent Night
O Douce Nuit
Académie Expérimentale des Théâtres, Paris, Institut Supérieur des Techniques du Spectacle, Avignon, 12 June – 13 July
I’d like to find out something about you, these were the words with which Tadeusz Kantor began his meetings with a group of French actors in Avignon. He heard as many as twenty stories (which corresponded to the number of students) about the most important event in the life of each of them. He himself placed a chimney on the stage. it was the chimney painted by him the year before – the one that could be seen on the picture hanging over the artist’s bed in his room in Sienna Street. It was to have been placed on the stage in Charleville- Mézieres, but it finally happened in Avignon. The artist’s intention was to use it in a performance that would explore the origin of everything and in which the actors could learn from the very beginning what the nature of objects was. The performance was also to show the annihilation of mankind followed by its continual rebirth. It was only then that the artist could write his moving texts about everyday routines, about the Imprints of childhood. This text develops the author’s ruminations presented in the text A Child’s Memory, which was written when the play “Wielopole, Wielopole” was in rehearsal. The artist came back to one scene which was left out then. The picture Christmas Eve (1979) depicts Mother Mary, St Joseph and the Infant Jesus lying in a manger.
On the stage (in the house) stand the usual objects characteristic of Cricot 2 Theatre: a table, chairs, a bed. What dominates, however, is the chimney. Figures covered with white canvas lie on the floor. They slowly begin to move. Each of them tells a story of their own. They listen to one another, but in fact everybody is absorbed in their own emotions. Then the Infant Jesus is carried into the room by a kneeling figure – neither an angel nor a clown. Nino and Helena try to play the roles of Joseph and Mary to the quiet sounds of the carol “Silent Night,” but they are successful for a while only. What was before is more important – the everyday reality, they themselves and their problems. But the Bible cannot be forgotten. A soldier with a gun aimed at the Infant Christ appears. And the herald of good news, the kneeling angel with his hand raised, is solemnly covered with white bandage. And he remains there motionless for a long while. Nino quotes the Bible – he has taken it out of the mattress – so as to inform us about the way in which the story, which is creeping back into the room, is going to develop: “Jesus is going to be crucified. ” The actors carry a cross onto the stage. The first victim is one of the inhabitants of the room. It is the Rabbi and the sentence is unanimous. It is the Rabbi who is crucified in fact. And the Priest, who is a witness to the entire ceremony, tears the clothes that cover the Rabbi’s breast. The Angel has completed his mission. The story suggested by him is fulfilled. He is laid in a coffin. The inhabitants of the room – the victims of the catastrophe – resume their roles. The Rabbi leaves the cross and sits on a chair. The others come back from the funeral and continue their own real story and their obsessive routine.
from: Halczak, Anna. Ostatnie cricotages Tadeusza Kantora [The last cricotages of Tadeusz Kantor]; Didaskalia. December 2000.
At this point history invades the house. A guillotine is pulled onto the stage to the sounds of Çaira – a French song from the times of the Revolution, now sung by the actors. A vulgar woman with a lustful expression on her face lowers and raises the blade of the guillotine by pulling at the rope. The priest oversees the functioning of this machine of death. The first execution is a failure (the victim’s head remains in place), but the second ends in a success: they manage to cut off a woman’s head (thanks to a trick: an artificial head was placed in the basket). But the actors only play at cruelty. Everything is left in place. A brief cosmetic intervention at the table is enough to make both heads look the same. In fact, historical events are of no significance for mankind, as it continually revives. The sound of tango reminds the characters of their everyday reality. “Silent Night” brings back biblical memories. And Ça ira is history. The actors’ behaviour changes in time with the music. Civilization enters for a while again – a cannon appears. After the Pater Noster has been said by one of the characters this machine of war fires. The inhabitants of the room become victims again. Everybody is falling down. After a while somebody says: “this is the end.”
The end is at the same time the beginning. The story of the inhabitants of the house, who are victims of civilization, may start afresh. The new version of the same events may be different.
This story of the actors who are victims has been interwoven into the artist’s tale. It became the last lesson taught by Tadeusz Kantor to young actors – the lesson which concerned being on the stage, the ways of constructing characters, the handling of objects, the building of the dialogue and the absence of the dialogue as well.
“Silent Night” was written during the rehearsals for the performance of “Today Is My Birthday”, in which the dead appear on the stage; this time they are Tadeusz Kantor’s nearest and dearest – his relatives and friends. History and civilization destroys their private world. And the table – one of the props typical of Cricot 2 Theatre – is transformed into a coffin.
from: Halczak, Anna. Ostatnie cricotages Tadeusza Kantora [The last cricotages of Tadeusz Kantor]; Didaskalia. December 2000.
Translated by: Monika Markiewicz