Seemingly everything looks like in THE DEAD CLASS by Tadeusz Kantor in 1975. In the school benches the students sit, raise their hands to give answers and school formulas: “Hannibal ante portas”, “Alea iacta est”, “Capitoline geese!?”. From the speakers “Valse François” flows. But these are not the gray-haired old men with wax faces, as in Kantor, but good-looking, rosy-cheeked youth who wear contemporary coloured clothes instead of funeral suits.
Grzegorz Józefczuk, Gazeta Wyborcza Lublin, 10.2001
Cantor believed in conspiracies. Like every uncommon man, he was busy restlessly building a vision and model of his own world. I really liked him for that. For obvious reasons: it turned out to be true.
After the September 11 the fear of the conspiring forces of evil seized everyone and everything. It seemed that censorship was removed for this shameful allergy. An enlighten intelligentsia, who even yesterday criticised those who were scared of the backstage drama, today excels in providing more and more revelations of the conspiracy theories. We can repeat after Różewicz – “what was hidden becomes exposed”. This sudden and rapid transformation of seeing the world is one of the biggest revolutions, which takes place in our consciousness after September 11.
Kantor created stage works that have gained huge resonance. We did not know, however, that “there was a method to the madness.”
Krzysztof Miklaszewski, a long-time associate of Kantor and a man whose contribution to the popularization of his works cannot be overstated, told us and showed here in Gardzienice how deliberately Kantor had it all arranged.
I thought it was one of the few cases in theatre work today, which may well serve a teaching practice. Miklaszewski works with movement, gesture, rhythm, word, incorporating music to acting activities, he teaches orientation in space …
From the initial workshop “a conspiracy” was born. A performance, “plotted” by Miklaszewski, should be treated as a work-in-progress, which says that the method of Kantor – Miklaszewski is effective.
As far as it is known, Kantor was silent through all the rehearsals. Qui tacet, consentir videtur. He who is silent seems to consent.
Włodzimierz Staniewski