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ON BEARING WITNESS TO A POETIC RITUAL
predetermined play in the mind of the spectator. This tendency is character¬
istic of Robert Wilson’s theater and some Far Eastern forms of theater, such
as the Beijing Opera or Noh. The other tendency is the organic one, in which
the montage is created, in a sense, in the actor who is becoming a vehiculum,
a word applied to Grotowski’s theater by Peter Brook. My discussion of Pilin¬
szky’s prose and poetry based on the experience of having borne witness to the
rituals in Deafman Glance affirms Grotowski’s observation. Ritual, even if it is
a quasi-ritual or a poetic ritual, does not allow the spectator to remain separate
from the scene. In this sense, Pilinszky bears witness to Deafman Glance, and
especially the murder scene, as an anthropologist. As a spectator, he is cog¬
nitively involved. There is a certain anamorphism in understanding ritual. In
other words, the spectator must have the correct angle to see a comprehensible
form or figure. On the other hand, there are multiple correct angles, due to the
poetic, i.e., metaphorical, construction of meanings in poetic rituals.
In Pilinszky’s case, the writer of this article saw the recording — so to speak,
the relics of a performance — and analyzed the impact it made on a poet who
was witness to this theatrical rite and who wrote of this memory in prose and
poetry, writings which I have presented in this paper in the published Eng¬
lish translations. Compared to the “liminoid” state of receptivity of the live
theater performance, a double border-crossing takes place through the text
that is both written and translated. Thus Pilinszky’s relationship to Deafman
Glance gives the English readership another perspective on Wilson’s work:
that of poetic rituality.
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