Peter Brook > Quotes

“A stage space has two rules: (1) Anything can happen and (2) Something must happen.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space

“Reality' is a word with many meanings.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space

“Time, which is so often an enemy in life, can also become our ally if we see how a pale moment can lead to a glowing moment, and then turn to a moment of perfect transparency, before dropping again to a moment of everyday simplicity.”
― Peter Brook

“A word does not start as a word – it is an end product which begins as an impulse, stimulated by attitude and behaviour which dictates the need for expression.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space

“Truth in theatre is always on the move. As you read this book, it is already moving out of date. it is for me an exercise, now frozen on the page. but unlike a book, the theatre has one special characteristic. It is always possible to start again. In life this is myth, we ourselves can never go back on anything. New leaves never turn, clocks never go back, we can never have a second chance. In the theatre, the slate is wiped clean all the time.

In everyday life, "if" is a fiction, in the theatre "if" is an experiment. In everyday life, "if" is an evasion, in the theatre "if" is the truth. When we are persuaded to believe in this truth then the theatre and life are one. This is a high aim. It sounds like hard work. To plays needs much work. But when we experiences the work as play, then it is not work anymore. A play is play.”
― Peter Brook

“The closeness of reality and the distance of myth, because if there is no distance you aren't amazed, and if there is no closeness you aren't moved.”
― Peter Brook, the stage director describing his approach to storytelling

“I am ready to disclaim my opinion, even of yesterday, even of 10 minutes ago, because all opinions are relative. One lives in a field of influences, one is influenced by everyone one meets, everything is an exchange of influences, all opinions are derivative. Once you deal a new deck of cards, you've got a new deck of cards.”
― Peter Brook

“There are prophets, there are guides, and there are argumentative people with theories, and one must be careful to discriminate between them.”
― Peter Brook

“A large part of our excessive, unnecessary manifestations come from a terror that if we are not somehow signaling all the time that we exist, we will in fact no longer be there”
― Peter Brook, There Are No Secrets: Thoughts on Acting and Theatre

“I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all is for an act of theatre to be engaged.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space

“Of course, it is most of all dirt that gives the roughness its edge; filth and vulgarity are natural, obscenity is joyous: with these the spectacle takes on its socially liberating role, for by nature the popular theatre is anti-authoritarian, anti- traditional, anti-pomp, anti-pretence. This is the theatre of noise, and the theatre of noise is the theatre of applause.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space

“You become a director by calling yourself a director and you then persuade other people that this is true.”
― Peter Brook, The Shifting Point: Theatre, Film, Opera 1946-1987

“It's easy to give up, and that's the one thing we cannot do. That's what gives me a reason for working: to leave people with a little more courage, with a little hope that has been nourished. Even if, of course, it's going to disappear, whatever touches one isn't lost forever.”
― Peter Brook

“The life of a play begins and ends in the moment of performance. This is where author, actors and directors express all they have to say. If the event has a future, this can only lie in the memories of those who were present and who retained a trace in their hearts. This is the only place for our Dream. No form nor interpretation is for ever. A form has to become fixed for a short time, then it has to go. As the world changes, there will and must be new and totally unpredictable Dreams.”
― Peter Brook, The Quality of Mercy: Reflections on Shakespeare

“Because if one starts from the premise that a stage is a stage -not a convenient place for the unfolding of a staged novel or a staged poem or a staged lecture or a staged story- then the word that is spoken on this stage exists, or fails to exist, only in relation to the tensions it creates on that stage within the given stage circumstances.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space

“Once a computer was asked, "What is the truth?" It took a very long time before the reply came, "I will tell you a story…”
― Peter Brook, The Quality of Mercy: Reflections on Shakespeare

“Theatre is always a self-destructive art, and it is always written on the wind.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space

“Aktorius (ir bet koks menininkas) - nelyginant sodas: beprasmiška stengtis išravėti visas piktžoles vieną kartą ir visiems laikams. Piktžolės auga visada, tai natūralu, ir jas reikia rauti - tatai irgi natūralu, ir, be to, būtina.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space

“Iš teisybės, režisierius niekada negali pripažinti, kad tai jo pirmasis pastatymas. Girdėjau, jog pradedantis hipnotizuotojas niekuomet neprasitaria pacientui hipnotizuojąs pirmąkart.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space

“Today the theatre of doubting, of unease, of trouble, of alarm, seems truer than the theatre with a noble aim.”
― Peter Brook, The Empty Space