Conversations with Peter Brook: 1970-2000

by Margaret Croyden (editor)

"A fascinating and provocatively stimulating distillation of three decades of intense conversations between one of the twentieth century's few true theater innovators and America's leading writer on the theatrical avant-garde. A splendid book."--Clive Barnes"Peter Brook continues to astonish, not in an ordinary, fashionable way, but in an ancient, insistent way that always forces one inward. There is a true, honest, fearless voice in this fascinating conversation."--Ken BurnsPeter Brook, one of the most important contemporary theatrical directors in the West, shares his most insightful thoughts and deepest feelings about theater with Margaret Croyden, who has followed his career for thirty years, gaining an unparalleled perspective on the evolution of his work. In these interchanges from 1970 to 2000, Brook freely discusses major works such as his landmark airborne "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and his untraditional interpretation of the opera "La Tragedie de Carmen." He also covers the establishment of the Paris Center, his work in the Middle East and Africa, and his masterwork, the nine-hour production of "The Mahabharata," which has virtually reinvented the way actors and directors think about theater.Margaret Croyden is a well-known critic, commentator, and journalist, whose articles on theater and the arts have appeared in "The New York Times," "The Nation," "The Village Voice," "American Theatre," and "Antioch Review," among others. She is the author of "Lunatics, Lovers and Poets," a seminal book on the development of nonliterary theater.

Genres: Theatre, Drama

320 pages, ebook

First published May 21, 2003

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the vast majority of this book a year ago, but the copy I had stayed in Mexico and I did not. The book is a series of conversations between Peter Brook and Margaret Croyden about his work. The conversations take place in the 30 year period between 1970 and 2000.

The topics are interesting are interesting as it the relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee. Brook can be by turns prickly, wise, arrogant, insightful... While Croyden can be inquisitive, servile, rational, defensive....

Much of what Brook says strikes me as too declarative. I am wary of absolutes. But, I also loved many of his descriptions. The chapter on "The Tragedy of Carmen" was particularly appealing. I would have loved to see that production.

Of all of his ideas, the one that remains most strongly with me after a year is in the chapter on The International Center of Theater Research. Croyden asks him "Why would theater be necessary or unnecessary?" and in his response he says,

"If it isn't something people in a community demand, that people feel they can't live without, without which people would feel deprived, as if you took the sunshine away - if theater doesn't evoke the same need, it is not a real theater."

Then he goes on to tell a beautiful story about Thanksgiving in New York as an example.

All in all, it is a lovely book and one I am sure I will return to in the future.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've gone back and read this collection again; if I could, I'd now change my rating from 3 stars to 4 stars ... reviewer's remorse :)