ABSTRACT
Grotowski left Poland in 1982, during the period of martial law. (For further discussion of the Polish political context, see Taviani Ch. 21.) Despite strong limitations on international travel due to the Polish political situation, Theatre of Sources allowed Grotowski a viable pretext to travel extensively. Yet he was faced with a difficult task at the onset of martial law: to ensure that if he were to refuse to return to Poland, his collaborators from the Laboratory Theatre would not pay the price of his exile through harassment from the martial law government or by being denied permission to work elsewhere. In a 1994 interview with Franco Quadri, Grotowski clarified that if he had still been working as a director in public theatre, he might have remained in Poland.
I left Poland because of the martial law that was proclaimed there. For me personally, it was an inevitable decision, because in such a situation there is an enormous difference between directing (as the other stage directors were doing) a theatre that does performances for a large national audience – even if it is financed by a state considered as oppressive – and to direct (as I was doing in this period) an international, closed laboratory, still using the money of a country where martial law is in effect. I received political asylum in the United States.
(1994:110)
