Brook was based in France from the early 1970s, where he founded an international theatre company, playing in developing countries, in an approach of great simplicity. He was often referred to as "our greatest living theatre director".[2] He won multipleEmmy Awards, aLaurence Olivier Award, the JapanesePraemium Imperiale, thePrix Italia and theEurope Theatre Prize.[3] In 2021, he was awarded India'sPadma Shri.
Brook directed Marlowe'sDr Faustus, his first production,[9] in 1943 at the Torch Theatre in London, followed at the Chanticleer Theatre in 1945 with a revival of Cocteau'sThe Infernal Machine.[12] He was engaged from 1945 as stage director at theBirmingham Repertory Theatre (BRT).[9] Hired by BRT directorBarry Jackson when he was just twenty years old, Jackson described Brook as "the youngest earthquake I've known".[13]
In England, Peter Brook andCharles Marowitz undertook The Theatre of Cruelty Season (1964) at the Royal Shakespeare Company, aiming to explore ways in which Artaud's ideas could be used to find new forms of expression and retrain the performer. The result was a showing of 'works in progress' made up of improvisations and sketches, one of which was the premier of Artaud'sThe Spurt of Blood.
– Lee Jamieson,Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice, Greenwich Exchange, 2007
In 1971, withMicheline Rozan, Brook founded theInternational Centre for Theatre Research, a multinational company of actors, dancers, musicians and others, which travelled widely in the Middle East and Africa in the early 1970s. It has been based in Paris at theBouffes du Nord theatre since 1974.[11][9][22] The troupe played at immigrant hostels, in villages and in refugee camps,[11] sometimes for people who had never been exposed to theatre.[16] In 2008 he resigned as its artistic director, beginning a three-year handover toOlivier Mantei andOlivier Poubelle [fr].[23]
In the mid-1970s,[24] Brook, with writerJean-Claude Carrière, began work on adapting the Indian epic poem theMahabharata into a stage play, which was first performed in 1985[25] and later developed into a televised mini series.
In a long article in 1985,The New York Times noted "overwhelming critical acclaim", and that the play "did nothing less than attempt to transformHindu myth into universalized art, accessible to any culture".[26] However, many post-colonial scholars have challenged the claim to universalism, accusing the play oforientalism. Gautam Dasgupta wrote that "Brook'sMahabharata falls short of the essential Indianness of the epic by staging predominantly its major incidents and failing to adequately emphasize its coterminous philosophical precepts."[27]
In 1951, Brook married actressNatasha Parry. They had two children:Irina, an actress and director, andSimon, a director. Parry died of a stroke in July 2015, aged 84.[11][31]
Brook died in Paris on 2 July 2022, aged 97.[11][14]
He kept producing works by Shakespeare for the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, in French, includingTimon d'Athènes, adaptated byJean-Claude Carrière, 1974,[38]Mesure pour mesure in 1978 and as a film a year later,La Tempête, adaptated by Carrière, with Sotigui Kouyaté in 1990.
He directedThe Tragedy of Hamlet, withAdrian Lester (Hamlet), Jeffery Kissoon (Claudius / Ghost), Natasha Parry (Gertrude),Shantala Shivalingappa (Ophelia), Bruce Myers (Polonius), Rohan Siva (Laertes / Guildenstern), Scott Handy (Horatio) and Yoshi Oida (Player King / Rosencrantz) in 2000, followed by a TV film version in 2002. In 2009, he directed a theatrical version of sonnets,Love is my Sin. In 2010, Shakespeare was among the authors for the productionWarum warum (Why Why), written by Brook andMarie-Hélène Estienne after alsoAntonin Artaud,Edward Gordon Craig,Charles Dullin,Vsevolod Meyerhold andZeami Motokiyo.
2011:A Magic Flute, an adaptation of Mozart'sThe Magic Flute, directed with Marie-Hélène Estienne, composer Franck Krawczyk to positive reviews[41] at theGerald W. Lynch Theater of John Jay College.
2013:The Suit, after Can Themba's tale, directed with Marie-Hélène Estienne and Franck Krawczyk
2015:Battlefield, fromThe Mahabharata and Jean-Claude Carrière's play, adapted and directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne
2018:The Prisoner, written and directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne
2019: 'Why?'. Written and directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne[42]
In the field of world theatre of the second half of our century, the long theoretical and practical work of Peter Brook has – without any doubt – unrivalled merits, which are – broadly speaking – unique. Brook's first merit is that of having always pursued an authentic research outside the sterile 'routine' of what he has defined as 'Deadly Theatre'. Brook's second merit is that of having been able to use different languages of contemporary scene; in the same way he has been able to unify the variety of languages. Brook's third merit is that of having discovered and given back a bright vitality to some great cultural and theatrical heritages which hitherto had remained distant from us both in space and time. Nevertheless – without any doubt – Brook's noblest and most constant merit is that of having never separated the strictness and finesse of research from the necessity that the result of those ones would have had the audience as their receiver and interlocutor; the audience which is also requested to renew its habits.[61]
Brook, Peter; et al. (Alessandro Martinez and Georges Banu) (2004).La voie de Peter Brook [Peter Brook's journey] (in French and English). Translated by Tucciarelli, C.; Watkins, B.; Herbert, I. Premio Europa per il Teatro.ISBN978-8-89010-141-0.
Brook, Peter (2013).The Quality of Mercy: Reflections on Shakespeare. Nick Hern Books.ISBN978-1-84842-261-2.
— (2017).Tip of The Tongue: Reflections on Language and Meaning. Nick Hern Books.ISBN978-1-84842-672-6.
— (2019).Playing by Ear: Reflections on Sound and Music. Nick Hern Books.ISBN978-1-84842-831-7.
Jamieson, Lee,Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice (Greenwich Exchange: London, 2007) Contains practical exercises on Artaud drawn from Brook'sTheatre of Cruelty Season at the RSC;ISBN978-1-871551-98-3
Freeman, John,The Greatest Shows on Earth: World Theatre from Peter Brook to the Sydney Olympics. Libri: Oxford;ISBN978-1-90747-154-4
Heilpern, John,Conference of the Birds: The Story of Peter Brook in Africa, Faber, 1977;ISBN0-571-10372-3
Hunt, Albert and Geoffrey Reeves.Peter Brook (Directors in Perspective). Cambridge University Press. (1995)
Moffitt, Dale (2000).Between two silences : talking with Peter Brook. London: Methuen.ISBN0-413-75580-0.OCLC44933150.
Todd, Andrew; Lecat, Jean-Guy (2003).The open circle : Peter Brook's theater environments. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN1-4039-6362-2.OCLC52948936.
Trowbridge, Simon (2010).The Company : a biographical dictionary of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Oxford: Editions Albert Creed.ISBN978-0-9559830-2-3.OCLC668192625.
