Peter Brook

« I never believed in one single truth.  Be it mine or that of the others.  I believe that all schools, all theories can be useful in a certain place, at a given time.  But I believe that one can only live by passionately and absolutely adhering to one viewpoint.  However, with the passage of time, as we change, as the world changes, aims vary and point of view moves.  If I look at the essays I wrote, the ideas I voiced in different places, something becomes obvious: a certain continuity.  If a point of view is to be of any use, one must give oneself to it totally, one must defend it to death.  And yet, at the same time, a little interior voice whispers to me: "hold on tightly, let go lightly". »

Excerpt from Points de suspension by Peter Brook, Éditions du Seuil.

Peter Brook was born in London in 1925.  Throughout his career he has distinguished himself in different genres: theatre, opera, cinema and writing.

He has staged many plays, mostly by Shakespeare for the Royal Shakespeare Company, such as Love Labour’s Lost (1946), Measure for Measure (1950), Titus Andronicus (1955), King Lear (1962), Marat/Sade (1964), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970) and Antony and Cleopatra (1978).

In 1971, Peter Brook founded the International Centre for Theatrical Research (CIRT) in Paris, which, with the opening of the Bouffes du Nord became the International Centre for Theatrical Creation (CICT). His productions stand out by their iconoclastic aspects and their international stature: Timon of Athens (1974), The Iks (1975), The Bone (1979), The Mahabharata (1985), The Cherry Orchard (1989), Woza Albert! (1989), The Tempest (1990), The Man who (1993), Who’s there? (1995), Oh! Les Beaux Jours (1995), I am a Phenomenon (1998), Le Costume (1999), The Tragedy of Hamlet (2000), Far Away (2002), Krishna’s Death (2002), Your Hand in Mine (2003), Tierno Bokar (2004), The Grand Inquisitor (2005), Sizwe Banzi is dead (2006), Fragments by Samuel Beckett (2007), Eleven and Twelve after Amadou Hampaté Ba (2009) and The Suit (the English and musical version of Le Costume, 2012).

He has directed several operas: La Bohème (1948), Boris Godunov (1948), Les Olympes (1949), Salomé (1949) and The Marriage of Figaro (1949) at the London Covent Garden (United Kingdom), Faust (1953), Eugene Onegin (1957) at the New York Metropolitan (United States), The Tragedy of Carmen (1981) and Impressions of Pelleas (1992) at Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, and Don Giovanni (1998) for the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.

With Marie-Hélène Estienne and Franck Krawczyk, he produced A Magic Flute after   Mozart and Schikaneder as part of the Festival d’Automne in Paris (2010), The Valley of Astonishment (2013) and Battlefield (2015), all at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord theatre.

His major books are The Empty Space (1968), Points de Suspension (1987), Boredom is the Devil (1991), With Shakespeare (1998), To forget the Time (2003), With Grotowski (2009) and The Quality of Forgiving (2014).

Peter Brook also directed films Moderato Cantabile (1959), His Majesty of the Flies (1963), Marat/Sade (1967) and The Tragedy of Hamlet (2002).

Official website: www.newspeterbrook.com