| Peter Brook |
 He was born in London in 1925. He directed his first play there in 1942 and the age of eighteen. since then he has directed over eighty productions in London, Paris and New York.His work with the Royal Shakespeare Company includes Love’s Labour’s Lost (1946), Measure for Measure (1950), Titus Andronicus (1955), King Lear (1962), Marat/Sade (1964), US (1966), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970), and Antony and Cleopatra (1978). In 1971 he founded the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris (CIRT) and in 1974 opened its permanent base in the Bouffes du Nord Theatre. At this time, CIRT was transformed into CICT – the International Center for Theatre Creations. There, he directed Timon of Athens (1974), The Ik (1975), Ubu aux Bouffes (1977), Conference of the Birds (1979), L’Os (1979), The Cherry Orchard (1981), The Mahabharata (1985) – with Polish actors Ryszard Cieslak and Andrzej Seweryn in the cast, Woza Albert! (1989), The Tempest (1990), The Man Who (1993), Qui est là? (1995), O! les Beaux Jours (1995), Je suis un Phénomène (1998), Le Costume (1999), The Tragedy of Hamlet (2000), Far Away (2002), La Mort de Krishna (2002), Ta Main dans la Mienne (2003), Tierno Bokar (2004), Sizwe Banzi is Dead (2005), Le Grand Inquisiteur (2005) and Fragments (2006). Many of these productions were performed both in French and English. King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Le Costume, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Tierno Bokar and Le Grand Inquisiteur were presented in Poland. In opera, he directed Boris Godounov (1948), La Bohème (1948), Le Nozze de Figaro (1949), The Olympians (1949) and Salomé (1949) at Covent Garden in London; Faust (1953) and Eugene Onegin (1957) at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York; La Tragédie de Carmen (1981) and Impressions of Pelleas (1992) at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris; and Don Giovanni (1998) for the Aix en Provence Festival. Peter Brook’s autobiography, Threads of Time, was published in 1998 and joins other titles including The Empty Space (1968), translated into many languages; The Shifting Point (1987); and There are No Secrets (1993). He is also the author of Evoking (and Forgetting) Shakespeare (2002) and Theatre is Just a Form: On Jerzy Grotowski (2007). All above – excluding Threads of Time – were translated into Polish. His films include Moderato Cantabile (1960), Lord of the Flies (1963), Marat/Sade (1967), King Lear (1970), Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979) and The Mahabharata (1989). “The director’s role,” according to Peter Brook “is not to be the one showing his own vision of the world but to be the one who lets his own vision open and be multiplied by the meetings with other people” (The Empty Space, 1977). Grzegorz Ziolkowski says in his book, The Immediate Theatre of Peter Brook (published by Wydawnictwo słowo/obraz terytoria, Gdansk 2000): “[Brook] is for inconstancy, fluency and openness opposed to inertia, numbness and sclerosis – both in theatre and in life. He demands equally from an actor and from the whole production team. Brook seeks what connects not divides; like Grotowski, not just inside a ritual but using a dramatic plot. Similarly to the Towards a Poor Theatre’s author, he is driven by the desire to follow further and further and to explore the most important – the essence. He puts emphasis on communication and is prepared to sacrifice any technology on its altar (as opposed to Barba). He places the truth of an event and of a moment at the same importance in theatre (not without Brecht’s influence) – after all “theatre is a self-destructive art, and it is always written on the wind.” But for him theatre is mostly about telling stories – not yarns! The connection point is not important – one must focus on revealing the main narrative; and therefore the main performer in his theatre becomes “an ancient storyteller taking the audience in and beginning the story.” Brook has been honoured with honorary doctorates from universities, including a doctorate honoris causa from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan in 2005. See also www.peterbrook.net and www.bouffesdunord.com |