The Valley of Astonishment

Theatre exists in order to astonish us and must combine two opposite elements – the familiar and the extraordinary. In The Man Who, our first venture into the brains of neurological patients – who in the past were often relegated to ranks of madmen – we were confronted with human beings like ourselves whose behaviour, due to illness, had become unpredictable. It was often sad, sometimes very funny and always moving – they were we, we were they. Today again we wish to explore the brain, but this time the members of the audience will be confronted with individuals in whom music, colour, taste, images, memories… trigger off experiences of such force that they pass from one moment to another from paradise to hell. In the great Persian poem by Farid Al-Din Attar Conference of the Birds, thirty birds must complete their search by travelling through seven valleys, each harder to cross than the previous.  This time, by entering into mountains and valleys of the human brain, we find ourselves in the sixth valley, that of astonishment. Our feet tread steadily on the ground, but with each step we penetrate into the unknown.
Peter Brook

Performed in English with French subtitles