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THE TRAGEDY OF MAN AS THEATRUM THEOLOGICUM (A DRAMATURG’S DIARY) knowledge and the quest for eternal life — that is, the creation of an earthly paradise in contrast to the spiritual one: Man will brew both in his “chemical kitchen,” and in doing so, definitively topple God from His throne. But why would he do that? Arising from superbia, the motivation of the ambition to rule is found in the desire to rule itself, and it is utterly infertile. We'll stop here, says Purcarete, we will not repeat it anymore, lest it become mechanical: he doesn’t allow the form, constructed with undeviating exactitude, to turn into formalism. He leaves the life within it and the actor — which, nevertheless, is none other than the smudges of the contingencies of theatrical play, thus everything that still makes the theater human, warm, intimate, experiential. Robert Wilson “overdoes” the infinitely purified form: it is this intensification beyond all limits that endows his theater with its unique life and undeniable power. Sometimes I see perfect performances (including here, in my immediate vicinity) that can no longer hold my attention after a few minutes precisely because they take perfection to be mechanical execution in which the actor’s individuality and presence completely disappear. Of course, there have been attempts at this sort of theater of perfection, but they all failed because they forced a sort of theatrical eugenics whose desired result was hoped to be for the actor, in the name of technological precision, to transform him/her/them into a marionette: that is, into the unthinking soldier of the director-deity. We do not know what sort of theater Tadeusz Kantor’s” would be if he, the director transformed into a layman compared to the actors, were not continuously in the productions as observer and animator, reflecting consciousness and stage master, the viewer always freely displaying his feelings and, because of his own imperfect creation, shaking his head, a hysterical and clumsy demigod. Without Kantor’s continual onstage presence, we would not be dealing with the theater of Tadeusz Kantor: facing masterworks, all we can say are clumsy sentences, biting their own tails and merely confirming the works’ existence. What exists, exists. What is Lucifer’s “drive” in The Tragedy of Man? What really drives him through the entire work? Without a “drive,” the actor has nothing to say, the question-quartet, “whence-where-why-how” is unanswerable, and as a result we cannot get hold of Lucifer’s character. He is not Job’s Satan who, at an elegant celestial reception, taking advantage of the Lord’s good mood, takes objection to the impeccable, God-fearing, evil-avoiding Job and sets to the great attempt to empty him of his unconditional faith and love." Madáchs 2° Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990): Polish artist, set designer, and director. 30 For the sake of remaining faithful to Holy Scripture, let us note that Satan does not, in fact, object to Job, but accusing Job of hypocrisy, he provokes, as it were, the “Faustian” pact: “Ihen the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.’ ‘Does Job fear God +239 +
