Peter Brook

I already have a base knowledge on Peter Brook thanks to his book, The Empty Space, but that is all it is: base. Basic. There’s so much more to Brook than I know now, and hopefully this presentation will help me to understand him and his teachings in a stronger way.

Peter Brook: Randomly Relatable

           Influences on Peter Brook

-       Interested in film as a child and in present day

-       Interested in Jean Paul Sarte

-       Gurdijeff

-       Gordon Craig

-       Artaud (Theater of Cruelty)

-        Push to mental, physical, and emotional limits.

-       Merce Cunningham

Key Philosophies

-       Theater should be Relatable

-       Everyone should understand

-       The power of words (different aims for different purposes)

-       Use incredible phrases like the end of a whip

-       Truest expression is ‘silence’

-       A certain degree of applause or laughter

Manifestations of the Philosophy

-       King Lear (1962)

-       Extraordinary Theater with the Royal Shakespeare Company

-       Trusted actors

-       Experimentation

-       Outlandish rehearsal techniques

-       Director as designer

-       Simplification

-       Salvador Dali

-       Salome

-       Christopher Fry

-       Ring Around the Moon

More than any of these notes, I think that the group’s adaptation of the Korean folktale into a short play was able to convey the true essence of Brook’s philosophy to me more clearly than the powerpoint and handout combined.

[will elaborate when there is time and I don't feel ill ><]