The same processes unfold within the theatrical realm as in reality, only here they progress at an accelerated rate. As much can transpire in a single month as in a year of reality. The transformations are more dynamic, and the becomings can be sudden and painful. There are confrontation and struggle. There is violence, and blood is spilt. Birth is not a one-off event, but a recurring one. The performance and characters hatch repeatedly, and each time different.
When constructing a role, the actor, quite naturally, draws upon his or her own life experience, but the exchange also flows in the opposite direction. The theatre becomes a personal laboratory in which the actor is not only an element of the experiment but its author. The actor begins to function in two modes at once, with a foot in both theatrical and personal life. The differences between the two spheres blur. As the actual blends with the invented, it becomes difficult to distinguish between onstage and offstage interactions. The character slips into the actor’s subconscious, absorbing some of his or her personality traits in the process.
In Tomek Tyndyk’s theatre work, there is one additional plane of experience: that of the photographic. The artist takes photographs during performances and rehearsals, in an attempt to create enough distance from himself to perceive his self differently. Although physically present with his fellow actors, he remains unaffected by their states and emotions. Photography also becomes a way for him to more intensely experience his offstage life. As the artist himself explained, in an interview with Anka Herbut, ‘The two-track operation of the photographic and the theatrical gives rise to a third quality, in which a domain for confronting one’s own fears or desires opens up, as does a process for probing deeper into oneself. It is a moment of great intimacy. I do not have a name for it’.
