Peter Brook’s illustrious career earned him the right to be called a visionary. You’ll hear it a lot. He was one of the most influential theatrical directors of all time. Generations have learned from him, found inspiration in his work, his visions, his bold-ness. He died in 2022 at the age of 97.
He helmed so many groundbreaking and famous productions. He brought Marat/Sade to England for the first time. (He also directed a film adaptation of Marat/Sade.) His Shakespeare productions were talked about far and wide, often the hottest ticket on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as continental Europe. He brought his adaptation of Mahabarata to New York, and it caused a tremendous stir (positive and negative: this was not a new response to his work. He was so far “out there” he often went up against pushback. His bold style and “why the hell not” approach often drew complaints from more conservative theatrical establishments.) He leaned towards the abstract, the surreal. He was not linear or conventional.
Peter Brook’s “Mahabarata”, 1989
Let’s start with the most important of his productions: his famous Midsummer Nights Dream, produced in 1970 at the Royal Shakespeare Company before moving to the West End. There is no recording of the production, so we have to just take the word of people who saw it. The few photos we have are striking: the set was a white box, no adornments: just a white clear pure space. His motif was the circus, and his production included clowns and gymnasts, trapeze artists – trapezes dangling over the stage and actors would swing, or slump, or stand on them, swaying above the action. These images have traveled through the decades.
Peter Brook’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1970
Actors know about this production. Or they should. People who saw it still talk about it 50 years later. There are very few productions like this in the theatre. Theatre is here today, gone tomorrow, unless it is captured on film. Orson Welles’ 1937 production of Julius Caesar, its set and costumes reflecting the rise of fascism in Europe. There is no record of it but it left a mark, it still inspires.
Orson Welles’ Julius Caesar
The original Glass Menagerie with Laurette Taylor is another production like this, where Taylor’s performance remains so influential – even though there is only a couple minutes of footage of it – you can say it changed acting forever, 10 years before Brando came along.
Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie, 1946
The Victorian-era’s Lyceum Theatre’s productions of Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing, with one of the most famous actors of her time, Ellen Terry – and innovative stage techniques, set design, lighting – caused a sensation which you can still feel over a century later. Those productions revolutionized stage lighting/set design.
Lyceum Theatre, Much Ado About Nothing, 1882
Midsummer Night’s Dream seems like it couldn’t generate much buzz beyond “we love this famous play” – but Brook’s handling of it was so distinct, it opened up a world of possibilities for other productions.
Word of Peter Brook’s Midsummer filtered down to us acting students in college, two decades after the production. The chairperson of our department saw Brook’s Mahabarata in New York and told us about it, how he designed it, its mood and set, she walked us through the whole thing. She gave us the context of who Brook was, the gigantism of his career and his impact. She passed this information on to us. The controversy around Mahabarata was par for the course, completely valid in many of its particulars, and yet also slightly irrelevant, considering the impact. The same was true of his Marat/Sade and also Midsummer. Purists resented him. C’est la vie.
Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is often called “Peter Brook’s Dream“, that’s how singular a vision it was!
We need to understand we are in a continuum. We need to understand the tradition of experimental theatre is in Brook’s debt, although he did not get there first (which he acknowledged – Artaud’s “theatre of cruelty” was a major influence on Brook, as was the revolutionary career of Joan Littlewood, who brought Brendan Behan’s The Hostage to America). Brook was totally establishment – which was part of why his career was so radical and startling. He wasn’t some outsider. He was artistic director of the RSC! But he was also a dynamic and inventive storyteller.
Marat Sade, Peter Brook 1966
His book The Empty Space should be required reading for theatre major undergraduates (we read it in our theatre history class), and if you haven’t read it, there’s my recommendation! Like I said: the past has valuable lessons for us and it’s important to understand the continuum of the avant-garde, so that we can recognize it – and not instinctively reject it – when it shows up again. There is still a fear of the new, and not just in politically conservative circles. I see it all the time in film critic circles, and it’s true in theatrical circles too. New things are often rejected out of hand. Before they even have a chance to take hold.
There aren’t many pictures of Peter Brook’s Dream, but what we have is eloquent.
I have dreamt about going back in time so that I could see that production (among others).
