Avant-garde Polish director Jerzy Grotowski, one of modern theater's most influential innovators, died Jan. 14 at his home in Pontedera, Italy, near Pisa. He was 65 and had been suffering from leukemia and a heart condition.
His work stressed the importance of the actor. Fellow director Wojciech Krukowski, who runs the Academy of Movement, an experimental Warsaw theater, said Grotowski "discovered a specific role of an actor who releases not only his own energy but also that of a spectator. He created a kind of spiritual process of acting."
Born in the town of Rzeszow, 190 miles south of Warsaw, Grotowski studied acting and directing at the State Theater School in Krakow and in Moscow. He made his directorial debut in 1959 at the Old Theater in Krakow with Eugene Ionesco's "Chairs."
He received world recognition with his Laboratory Theater, which he founded in the provincial town of Opole, southwest of Warsaw. Grotowski left Poland in 1982 for the United States; the company closed in 1984. Three years after leaving Poland, he moved to Italy and opened a theater center in Pontedera.
He received honorary degrees from Pittsburgh U and DePaul U in Chicago.
According to his wishes, his body was to be cremated and his ashes dispersed in India.
There will be no funeral.
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