Brooke, Peter

Brook, Peter (Brook, Peter) (p. 1925), English theater, opera and film director. Born March 21, 1925 in London. After graduating in 1945 from Oxford University, became a director of Birmingham Repertory Theater. Later he worked with various troupes, including the Royal Shakespeare Theater (Stratford-upon-Avon), Royal Opera 'Covent Garden' and the commercial theaters in London's West End. Of his productions have received special recognition performances of "King Lear" and "Midsummer Night's Dream". In King Lear Brook under the influence of existentialist ideas of the Polish critic J. Cotte created a picture of a devastated, inhuman universe, used in decorating, dirty-gray canvas and panels rusty copper color. "Midsummer Night's Dream", by contrast, was an extravaganza of jumps and somersaults actors in colorful costumes, with the use of ladders and trapezes.

In 1963, Brooke began experiments on the implementation of the 'theater of cruelty' A. Artaud, the result was a famous play by P. Weiss's "Marat / Sade" and the setting of Shakespeare's Tempest. In 1970, Brooke was founded in Paris, the International Center of Theater Research. Here they have created such shows as the reduction of up to 80 minutes and devoid of choral chamber version of the opera "Carmen" and Chekhov's "Cherry Orchard".

For many years, Brooke, was a follower of Russian mystic George Gurdjieff (1866-1949), whose influence can be felt in many productions of the Center, particularly in the "Assembly of birds," a Persian poem of 12 in. In 1984, the Center appeared in the repertoire staged Brook 11-hour performance on the Indian epic Mahabharata. In movies Broek best known "Lord of the Flies" (1963; the novel by William Golding), "Marat / Sade" (1967), "King Lear" (1969), "Meetings with Remarkable Men" (1979; on Gurdjieff's autobiography). Their understanding of theater and theater producers Brook outlined in the book "Empty space" (The Empty Space, 1968).