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Peter Stephen Paul Brook (born 21 March 1925) is a British theatre and film director and innovator.

Contents 1 Life 2 Influences 3 The Empty Space 4 The Mahabharata 5 Tierno Bokar 6 Major productions for the RSC 7 Other major productions 8 Films 9 Awards 10 Honours 11 Books 12 References 13 External links

Born in Chiswick, west London, in 1925, the second son of Simon and Ida Brook, Peter Brook was educated at Westminster School, Gresham's School, Holt, and Magdalen College, Oxford.

While at Gresham's he took part in The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, and while at Oxford The Infernal Machine. In 1945–1946, he worked at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre on productions of Man and Superman, King John, and The Lady from the Sea. In 1946, his first London production was Vicious Circle. In 1947, he went to Stratford-upon-Avon as assistant director on Romeo and Juliet and Love's Labour's Lost. From 1947 to 1950, he was Director of Productions at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. A proliferation of stage and screen work as producer and director followed.

In 1951, Brook married the actress Natasha Parry, and they have one son and one daughter.

His work is inspired by the theories of experimental theatre of Jerzy Grotowski, Bertolt Brecht, Meyerhold, G. I. Gurdjieff and the works of Edward Gordon Craig and Stuart Davis^{[citation needed]}

Brook was influenced by the work of Antonin Artaud and his ideas for a Theatre of Cruelty.

In England, at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Peter Brook and Charles Marowitz undertook The Theatre of Cruelty Season in 1964, 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's The Spurt of Blood

Peter Brook's book "The Empty Space" was a highly influential piece of work. It consists of 4 parts, each describing a version of the notion and nature of theatre. Each section is an adaptation of a speech he gave at various Universities. For this reason this book has an accessible, fluid tone.

The opening couple of sentences are extremely widely quoted

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. An actor moves across this space while someone is watching and a piece of theatre is engaged.

This quote has become something of a mantra for practitioners of site-specific theatre, and also for those working with devising.

The Empty Space strips theatre down to the bare bones of what performance is, rejecting the necessity for traditional theatre spaces, elements or forms in themselves, and placed a huge emphasis on the direct relationship between actor and audience. These ideas are shared with Jerzy Grotowski.

In the mid 1970s^[1] Brook, with writer Jean-Claude Carrière, began work on adapting the Indian epic poem the Mahabharata into a stage play which was first performed in 1985^[2] and then later into a televised mini series. The production using an international cast caused heated intercultural debate. Negative criticism came from Indian scholar Pradip Bhattacharya who felt that Brook's interpretation "was not a portrayal of a titanic clash between the forces of good and evil, which is the stuff of the epic... [but] the story of the warring progeny of some rustic landlord"^[3]

In 2005 Brook directed Tierno Bokar, based on the life of the Malian sufi of the same name. The play was adapted for the stage by Marie-Helene Estienne from a book by Amadou Hampate Ba (translated into English under A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar). The book and play detail Bokar's life and message of religious tolerance. Columbia University produced 44 related events, lectures, and workshops that were attended by over 3,200 people throughout the run of Tierno Bokar. Panel discussions focused on topics of religious tolerance and Muslim tradition in West Africa. ^[4]

• 1950 Measure for Measure with John Gielgud (Shakespeare Memorial Theatre)
• 1952 The Winter's Tale with John Gielgud (Shakespeare Memorial Theatre)
• 1958 Titus Andronicus with Laurence Olivier (Shakespeare Memorial Theatre)
• 1962 King Lear with Paul Scofield
• 1964 Marat/Sade
• 1966 US an anti-Vietnam protest play with the The Royal Shakespeare Company, documented in the film Benefit of the Doubt
• 1971 A Midsummer Night's Dream with John Kane (Puck), Jennie Stoller (Helena), Ben Kingsley and Patrick Stewart

• Hamlet with Paul Scofield
• The Visit with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne
• Marat/Sade
• Oedipus with John Gielgud and Irene Worth
• The Conference of the Birds
• The Ik
• The Mahabharata

• 1953, The Beggar's Opera
• 1960, Moderato cantabile (UK title Seven Days... Seven Nights)
• 1963, Lord of the Flies
• 1967, Ride of the Valkyrie
• 1967, Marat/Sade
• 1968, Tell Me Lies
• 1971, King Lear
• 1979, Meetings with Remarkable Men
• 1979, Mesure pour mesure
• 1982, La Cerisaie
• 1983, La Tragédie de Carmen
• 1989, The Mahabharata
• 2002, The Tragedy of Hamlet (TV)

• Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for Marat/Sade, 1966
• Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1971
• Freiherr von Stein Foundation Shakespeare Award, 1973
• Grand Prix Dominique, 1975
• Brigadier Prize, 1975, for Timon of Athens)
• Society of West End Theatre Award, 1983
• Emmy Award, 1984, for La tragédie Carmen)
• Prix Italia, 1984
• International Emmy Award, 1990, for The Mahabharata
• Dan David prize, 2005

• Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1965
• Honorary DLitt, University of Birmingham, 1990
• Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1991
• Honorary DLitt, University of Strathclyde, 1990
• Honorary DLitt, University of Oxford, 1994
• Légion d'honneur (France), 1995.
• Companion of Honour, 1998

• Brook, Peter (1968). The Empty Space. 
• Brook, Peter (1988). The Shifting Point. UK: Methuen Drama. ISBN 0-4136-1280-5. 
• Brook, Peter (1991). Le Diable c'est l'ennui. 
• Brook, Peter (1993). There Are No Secrets. 
• Brook, Peter (1995). The Open Door. 
• Brook, Peter (1998). Threads of Time: Recollections. 
• Brook, Peter (1999). Evoking Shakespeare. 

• Peter Brook, Threads of Time (1998)
• Lee Jamieson, Antonin Artaud: From Theory to Practice (Greenwich Exchange: London, 2007) Contains practical exercises on Artaud drawn from Brook's Theatre of Cruelty Season at the RSC. ISBN 978-1-871551-98-3
• John Heilpern, Conference of the Birds: The Story of Peter Brook in Africa, Faber Book Services, 1977, ISBN 0571103723
• Dale Moffitt, Between Two Silences: Talking with Peter Brook (1999)
• Biographies by J. C. Trewin (1971) and A. Hunt and G. Reeves (1995) and Michael Kustow (2005)
• Andrew Todd and Jean-Guy Lecat, The Open Circle: Peter Brook's Theatre Environments (2003)

• Dan David Prize, Dan David Prize laureate 2005
• - Peter Brook official website
• "meetings with remarkable men" - DVD release
• Peter Brook biography and filmography at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Peter Brook at the Internet Movie Database