Research, Experimentation and Creation in 20th century Theatre

Abstract

The emergence of the avant-garde art in the nineteenth century affected the old conventions and turned artists into experimenters and also researchers, in the scientific sense of the term. However, the fact that being an experimenter does not make the artist necessarily a researcher. In the theatrical field we can distinguish the two ones: 1) Experimenting artists testing new means of expression (Jarry, Artaud, Kantor, Carmelo Bene and Brook); 2) Researching artists seeking new principles, forms, languages and knowledge (Appia, Puchs, Craig, Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Copeau, Osterwa, Decroux among others). In the latter case, research occupies a special place, where director-pedagogues devoted it the time that was not granted before, thus transforming the school into a space also dedicated to experimentation and research, in a process able to modify the researchers themselves. The analysis of the examples of the theatrical laboratory of Decroux, Grotowski and Barba clarifies notions of progress, development, discovery and demonstration in art research, particularly in the theater.

Keywords: experimenting artist; researching artist; theatrical laboratory.