The Mask at the CRICOT1 Theatre: From the Pictorial to the « Operative » Gesture

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe the beginnings, rather unknown, of the CRICOT theatre and to demonstrate the evolution which took place between the first show of CRICOT1 and the last piece performed in 1938. Focusing on the manners of treating the scenic object, the scenography, the costumes and the masks, the paper analyses the transformation of the amateur theatre: artistic, satirical, visual and comic into quasi-professional theatre, carrying an existential message. Message to be developed afterward by the world-famous collective, reformer of the European stages: Tadeusz Kantor’s CRICOT2.