Shakespeare’s plays Brook directed include “The Storm” in 1991 and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 1970.
Peter Brook, who died at the age of 97, was one of the most influential theater directors of the 20th century, reinventing art by returning it to the most basic and powerful elements of drama.
An almost mystical figure often mentioned at the same time as Konstantin Stanislavsky, the Russian who revolutionized acting, Brook continued to work and challenge the audience until the 1990s.
The Royal Shakespeare Company, where Brook was recently an honorary associate artist, called him “a giant of European theater, who breathed new life into the art form,” in a statement on Sunday.
“We will not look at his likeness again,” he added, quoting Hamlet.
“His influence changed everything about Western theater, even the design of some of our buildings.”
He mesmerized London and New York audiences with his time definition “Marat / Sade” in 1964, which won a Tony Award, and wrote “The Empty Space,” one of the most influential texts in theater, three years later.
“I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage,” he wrote.
For many, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s stunning 1970 production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in a White Cube Gym was a turning point in world theater.
– African Odyssey –
Before his 30th birthday he was directing hits on Broadway.
His first film, “The Lord of the Flies” (1963), an adaptation of William Golding’s novel about abandoned schoolchildren on an island becoming savages, was an instant classic.
In 1971 he moved permanently to the French capital and the following year set out with a band of actors such as Mirren and Japanese legend Yoshi Oida on an 8,500-mile (13,600-kilometer) odyssey through Africa to test his ideas. .
“Every day they would put a rug in a remote village and improvise a show with shoes or a box,” he later told the BBC.
But the grueling trip took its toll on his company, most of whom fell ill with dysentery or tropical diseases.
Shortly afterwards he separated from Brook.
– Masterpiece “Mahabharata” –
His big milestone after “The Mahabharata” was “The Man Who” in 1993, based on Oliver Sacks’ bestseller on neurological dysfunction, “The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.”
Critics praised him as “the best director London doesn’t have”.
Eight years later, at the age of 92, he wrote and staged “The Prisoner” with Marie-Helene Estienne, one of the two women with whom he shared his life.
It was an adaptation of a book by the mystical philosopher George Gurdjieff, whose sacred dances Brook performed daily for years.
But Parry’s death in 2015 shook him. “One tries to negotiate with the destination and say, just bring it back for 30 seconds,” he said.
“I have a responsibility to be as positive and creative as I can,” he told The Guardian. “Giving way to despair is the last time,” he said.
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