The Shifting Point: Forty Years of Theatrical Exploration, 1946–87 (Bloomsbury Revelations) - Softcover

Peter Brook

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1350069426 ISBN 13: 9781350069428

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018

Synopsis

Hailed as 'the theatrical event of this century' (Sunday Times), Peter Brook's unique dramatization of India's great epic poem, The Mahabharata played to ecstatic audiences worldwide. In The Shifting Point, one of theatre's great visionaries assesses the lessons of his pioneering work from his brilliant debut at Stratford and the West End in the 1960s to the triumphant success of The Mahabharata. With the bravura and insight of a great practitioner and explorer he reveals some of the inspiration behind his extraordinary career. Published in Bloomsbury's Revelations series, Brook's account covers many of the groundbreaking productions that cemented his reputation as 'one of the artistic geniuses of our time' (San Franciso Herald): his controversial productions of King Lear and Romeo and Juliet; the three-month period in Africa which culminated in The Conference of the Birds; Marat/Sade; filming King Lear and Lord of the Flies, and the epic The Mahabharata. With Brooks's reflections on the problems of Shakespeare and opera, and on a range of modern theatre artists including Grotowski, Gordon Craig and Samuel Beckkett, The Shifting Point provides a uniquely revealing account of 4 decades of artistic exploration. 'The great thing about Brook is that, in a medium where others provide answers, he keeps asking questions. This sage and stimulating book shows that, inside a sophisticated adult mind, lurks the intemperate curiosity of a child; which is the mark of genius.'(Michael Billington, Listener)

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1350069426
• ISBN 13: 9781350069428
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256