The Body Speaks

Documentary, introduced by Jarosław Fret

Part I: “Plastiques”. Part II: “Corporals” 27’, 28’

Directed by John Musilli, produced by CBS for Camera Three, 1975

Film in English with Polish subtitles

This film is comprised of two television programmes featuring Laboratory Theatre actor Ryszard Cieślak and Margaret Croyden, host of Camera Three, a New York-based television show dedicated to the arts. Cieślak was asked to comment on excerpts from a documentary entitled Training at Teatr Laboratorium in Wrocław (1971), a film recording of actor training in Denmark, whose participants included two young Odin Teatret actors. The teacher/instructor was played by Ryszard Cieślak. The film has two 40-minute parts: the first focuses on plastiques, the second on corporals. A voice off camera reads excerpts from Jerzy Grotowski’s Exercises.

Each programme begins with an interview with Ryszard Cieślak, in which the actor discusses the essence of the training at the Laboratory Theatre and the role it plays in the daily work of the actors and in the live creative process. The documentary made at the Odin Teatret demonstrates how elements of training become elements of improvisation.