Peter Brook: Threads Of Time (Biography and Autobiography) - Softcover

Peter Brook

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0413733009 ISBN 13: 9780413733009

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 1999

Synopsis

The theatre's greatest contemporary director tells the story of his life

Peter Brook is the modern stage's greatest inventor. For over fifty years he has held audiences spellbound with his critically acclaimed productions. Now he has finally written an account of his life. Born in 1925 in London, at twenty-one Brook became the enfant terrible of British theatre directing major post-war productions of Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon, opera at Covent Garden and new plays in London's West End. He even made films. In 1964 he produced Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade for the RSC and his whole approach to theatre became radicalised. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Brook began exploring the roots of non-Western theatre which once again changed his view of what theatre could be for actors and audiences. His journey took him to Paris where he founded a company at the Bouffes du Nord theatre where he still works today. Brook's biography charts all the stages of his aesthetic and spiritual journey, and touches on all parts of a career that has been widely reported but never previously talked about from his personal perspective.

""First there was the master conjurer adept at musicals, farces, opera and Shakespeare. Then there was the philosopher-king. . . who has devoted his energies to a quest for a theatre that was simple in form and rich in meaning"" (Michael Billington)

About this title

About the Author

Peter Brook (b. 1925) is a British theatre director, noted for his strikingly original productions. The child of Russian emigrés, Brook made his debut at the age of 18 with a production of Marlowe's Dr Faustus. In 1945 Brook was invited to direct Paul Scofield in King John at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, following this with a celebrated production of Love's Labours Lost (1946) at Stratford-upon-Avon (again with Scofield). Further successes included Anouilh's Ring Round the Moon (1950), Otway's Venice Preserv'd (1953), Hamlet (1955), The Power and the Glory (1956), and The Family Reunion (1956). Brook was made a codirector of the newly formed Royal Shakespeare Company in 1962, directing later that year a highly acclaimed production of King Lear (with Scofield once again). Other successes with the RSC included Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (1964), Seneca's Oedipus (1968), and a famous production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1970), featuring an all-white set and the use of circus skills. In 1970 Brook founded, with Jean-Louis Barrault, the International Centre for Theatre Research, a company of international performers with whom he toured extensively. Since 1974 the Centre has been based at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris. Brook's subsequent productions have included a nine-hour adaptation of the Indian epic The Mahabharata (1985), a pared down version of Carmen (1989), and Qui est la? (1995), a reworking of Hamlet. In 2004 Brook presented Tierno Bokar, a meditation on the life and teachings of the title character, a Sufi mystic in French colonial Africa.

From the Back Cover

For fifty years, Peter Brook's opera, stage, and film productions have held audiences spellbound. His visionary directing has created some of the most influential productions in contemporary theater. Now at the pinnacle of his career, Brook has given us his memoir, a luminous, inspiring work in which he reflects on his artistic fortunes, his idols and teachers, his philosophical path and personal journey. In this autobiography, the man The New York Times has called "the English-speaking world's most eminent director" and The London Times has named "theater's living legend" reveals the myriad sources behind his lifelong passion to find the most expressive way of telling a story. Whether in India's epic Mahabharata or a stage adaptation of Oliver Sask's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, South Africa's Woza Albert or The Cherry Orchard, Brook's unique blend of practicality and vision creates unforgettable experiences for audiences worldwide.

Edition details

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0413733009
• ISBN 13: 9780413733009
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256