Peter Brook
There are few artists who can claim the breadth and depth of experience, or the measure of influence, that Peter Brook has boasted over the course of his career. His life is a hall of fame populated by some of the most important figures in theater history of the last century.
Credited with making theater an absolutely necessary and challenging place for the work of the director, Brook is to theater as Balanchine was to ballet. Yet he shies away from such accolades, deferring to his craft first and foremost: "A craft is a ladder. There always has to be another level to everything.
There are few artists who can claim the breadth and depth of experience, or the measure of influence, that Peter Brook has boasted over the course of his career. His life is a hall of fame populated by some of the most important figures in theater history of the last century.
Credited with making theater an absolutely necessary and challenging place for the work of the director, Brook is to theater as Balanchine was to ballet. Yet he shies away from such accolades, deferring to his craft first and foremost: "A craft is a ladder. There always has to be another level to everything."
Born in 1925 in London to Russian-Latvian emigrés, Brook had an illustrious academic career, attending university at Magdalen College Oxford. However, he was to dedicate himself to the performing arts, soon appearing alongside some of the great actors of his time--Sir John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Paul Scofield--as well as in iconic venues across the UK and beyond. He directed and performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, including Titus Andronicus, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Antony and Cleopatra.
Brook became increasingly identified with a pared down, minimalist style in which the audience was returned to a raw and unmediated encounter with the power of the performing art.
In 1971, he founded the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris and in 1974, opened its permanent base in the Bouffes du Nord Theatre. Among his landmark works are the stage adaptation of the epic Indian poem Mahabharata, the story of mankind; the film version of The Lord of the Flies; and Sizwe Banzi is Dead, an Apartheid-era classic. His sparse use of set and props along with the elevation of language and symbol make him perfect for the work of Beckett.
Brook, who has written and directed works in French and English, recently announced his retirement from the Bouffes du Nord Theatre, adding, "Having spent my whole life fighting against tradition, [I want to] avoid a successor who would have to try and prove my line."
April 2011
