Abstract
The chapter revisits the work of Jan Grossman (1925-1993), a pupil of Jan Mukařovský and Václav Černý and arguably one of the most vital inheritors of the Prague structuralist thought. It focuses on Grossman's essays on Ubu Roi, Kafka's The Trial, and the plays of Václav Havel in juxtaposition with Grossman's stagings of these works, with a particular emphasis on the use of the grotesque and the influence of functionalist approach on the theory of theatre (Mathesius, Mukařovský).
Grossman's theoretical and practical elaboration of the concept is appraised in relation to the most influential earlier theories of the grotesque, especially that of Mikhail Bakhtin, the comparison being driven by an effort to define the power of the grotesque in relation to restrictive political regimes.