Tribute To Tadeusz Kantor
Francine Prose writes: ‘The Wooster Group’s A Pink Chair (in Place of a Fake Antique) suggests what it might have been like to watch a ghost materialize on stage, called up by an early-twentieth-century medium. The ghostly presence summoned here is that of Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990), the celebrated director and performance artist who profoundly affected modern theater, both in his native Poland and the wider world. In a program essay, Anna BurzyÅ„ska, a professor of theater, describes Kantor as a “shaman leading this theatrical rite of communication with spirits past. During performances he would sit on an old, damaged, squeaky chair, as if to emphasize that we are entering the private world of his memory, looking through his album of family photographs alongside him. He was Charon, the old ferryman of Hades, who carried his audience on his boat across the river of oblivion and into the land of the dead.‒
