This is a unique collection of essays, interviews, and memories compiled at the University of Toulouse by Kinga Miodonska-Joucaviel. They are concerned with one of the key twentieth century artists and theater makers who have influenced the making of theater pieces in our time. The fact that he was Polish meant that his work was only spasmodically seen during the communist period in Europe, when Kantor's work was either underground or ignored by the authorities. It was finally discovered in the UK and shown at the Edinburgh Festival in the 1970s, under the auspices of Richard Demarco, where it won awards.
Kantor always had strong links with France. He spoke French as his second language and he recognized the importance of the key French artists of his time when he was finally permitted to visit Paris in 1946. The Theatre Garonne in Toulouse was the place where his last show, “Today is My Birthday,” was shown. This book therefore presents a unique collection of material, most of which has never been collated and published before. The scope ranges from academic insights to the personal experiences of those who worked with Kantor. As such it represents what might be the last compilation of material relating to Kantor from those who knew him and worked with him. The pity is that this is in French, and should be translated; in my view, the English-speaking world needs this material urgently.
It is now nearly 30 years since Kantor died, and there has been in many countries an explosion of interest in an artist whose work many people only have a vague experience of via the dvds that are now available. There is a real sense of loss that this book tries to address. What happens when a key European artist dies? If he/she is a visual artist, then the paintings, sculptures, and drawings remain. If he is also a theater artist, then there is usually nothing except recordings that remain. But Kantor was the exception in that he wanted his material to be recorded and he established what is now seen as an unique center for the documentation of his art, which is housed in the new Cricoteka on the banks of the Vistula in Kraków.
This book consist of contributions from established theater scholars and also memories from those practitioners who worked with Kantor. One of the most impressive sections of the book contains photographs of Kantor's performances, taken by several artists over a long period of time, so that we have a perspective which takes us back to the 1970s and 80s when Kantor's theater was at its most important and influential.
There is also a section on Kantor's connections and influence by the work of Vsevolod Meyerhold, the great Russian director. Even in the early stages of the communist takeover of Poland, it is clear that Meyerhold's abstract, anti-Stanislavskii position was of interest to Polish artists. There is a full documentation of this as well as a study of the influence of Kantor on contemporary Polish artists such as Krystian Lupa and Christian Boltanski.
In addition, there is also valuable information on Kantor's attitude towards the exportation of the Jews from Kraków. Kantor lived within view of the Jewish ghetto in Kraków during the period of the Nazi occupation of Poland. His feelings towards this are quoted in an interview with Marie Vaysierre, one of his actors, who once asked if Kantor had visited Auschwitz, to which the answer was “I have no need to visit there. I have seen it all.” In this book are presented memories by his friends, colleagues, actors, and crucially, the many photographs by Bruno Wagner, Krystztof Plesniarowicz, and Wojtek Sperl, which together make up a unique collection of visual images of Kantor's theater work. Then there are essays on the implications of sound and music in Kantor's theater work, as well as much writing about Kantor's last performance, first performed in Toulouse's Garonne Theatre.
After sifting through these distinctive and valuable contributions, one is left with another question about what happens next. What and how does one record the work of an artist who was both a painter and “theater” maker? The book does not really consider these rather complicated issues, considering Kantor mostly as a maker of theater. There is a further volume to be edited, which looks at the contacts between the visual material of the Polish visual avant-garde of his period and the material which is now broadly defined as “Performance.” But as a compilation of views on the reputation and importance of Kantor's theater work, this book is crucial.
A further omission, hopefully to be explored by the editors of this book, involves an analysis of the documentation of Kantor's theater work—one of his key legacies—much of which was undertaken by a variety of sources outside Poland. There is a myriad of recordings held at the Cricoteka in Krakow, and as far as I know, there has been no analysis of the nature of this, asking whether these films are an “accurate” record of Kantor's performances, or whether they simply represent the view of the individual director and his/her cameraman. There is also now a major Kantor study to be initiated, which he meant as an “archive” of his work, established so long ago in Kraków, and how his idea of a record of his work has had an impact on how we see such work in our time.
Above all, in this uncertain European world which we now inhabit, it is an inspiration to read all this material relating to an artist who survived the traumatic Polish twentieth century with the unique ability to create works of art that still influence practitioners and scholars. For us Kantor is the model of the creative artist as survivor in one of the most terrible periods of European history.
