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Peter Brook: And The Way of The Theatre
By Michael Kustow
Bloomsbury
£25
336 pages
Dateline: 15th April, 2005
This new biography of Peter Brook has been published to coincide with
the great man's 80th birthday. Brook is something of a biographer's
dream having fitted more into his 80 years than seems possible for one
human being.
Brook's choice of biographer, Michael Kustow, is a good one, and not
just because he is organised and writes well. The two have worked together
over many years, clearly get on well and, as a consequence, we well
learn more about the subject than would otherwise have been the case.
With his tremendous success straight out of Oxford University and a
willingness to go his own way, even during the early stages of his career,
Brook ran very much in parallel with Kenneth Tynan. However, while Tynan
was a shooting star who fizzled out, Brook's imagination and determination
have allowed him to continue innovating into his eighth decade.
After a lonely childhood Brook avoided war service on health grounds,
having been close to death with a tubercular growth that necessitated
a two-year recuperation in Switzerland.
He was therefore able to enter Oxford at 17, something that was entirely
appropriate but is now almost unheard of. He got involved in theatrical
activities while there and these very nearly led to his being sent down.
The youngster was only saved by the considerable efforts of his Russian-Jewish
father.
His post-war success mirrored that of Tynan and was a consequence both
of a remarkable artistic vision and also considerable determination
to have his own way. This latter characteristic also assisted him to
satisfy his strong and sometimes varied sexual urges, about which he
is candid.
In a world where, despite the war, theatres continued to thrive on
Coward and Rattigan, Brook was far more adventurous. His first professional
production was Cocteau's The Infernal Machine. Soon, he had been
taken up by Sir Barry Jackson (a man who describes him as "the
youngest earthquake I've known") to direct at the Shakespeare Memorial
Theatre in Stratford and had begun his enduring partnership with Paul
Scofield.
Still in his early twenties, Brook was directing great actors in fine
theatres. He then had a largely unsuccessful stint as director of productions
at Covent Garden.
In the early Fifties, he continued his stage success producing more
commercial work in the West End with Binky Beaumont and HM Tennant and
also staging productions in France and Russia. He also assiduously pursued
the lady who was to become and, over fifty years later, still is, his
wife the actress, Natasha Parry.
For many directors, this varied experience would represent a lifetime's
achievement but by this point, Brook had still not had his 30th birthday.
His philosophy could be nicely summed up by a comment on his work in
the commercial theatre: "to learn theatre, you must explore all
its forms with equal enthusiasm".
He was also enchanted by film from a young age and enjoyed working
in the medium, never more successfully than when directing a low-budget,
freeform version of William Golding's Lord of the Flies using
untrained children to act.
In addition to his commercial work, Brook became a rather unconventional
part of the team that developed the Royal Shakespeare Company under
Peter Hall.
Having established himself in the mainstream, Brook then began a fifty
year (so far) exploration of the nature of theatre, humanity and himself.
In this he was heavily influenced by the teachings of the spiritualist
Gurdjieff and theatre exponents such as Artaud and Grotowski.
He completely dispensed with all of the normal crutches that actors
and directors rely upon, using "The Empty Space" as his starting
point. The Theatre of Cruelty that he created sounds as if it must have
been cruellest for his actors who were practically tortured by a director
who insisted that they made their experience all-encompassing.
In the early 1970s, following a defining production of A Midsummer
Night's Dream for the RSC, the next phase of Brook's life started.
Tired of England, he relocated to Paris where he believed that the cultural
climate would welcome (and finance) his theatrical research and cutting-edge
avant-garde productions.
At this point, he started touring the world and reducing drama to the
barest of essentials, removing all props and, at times, language as
well. This led to major one-off stagings, including Orghast for
which he got poet Ted Hughes to write a completely new language and
The Ik which toured around Africa bringing drama to those who
did not have the word in their vocabulary.
He was not afraid to take on big themes and produce long plays, as
he demonstrated with The Mahabarata, something akin to putting
the whole of the Bible into a day-long stage experience.
In more recent years, Brook has continued to combine experimentation
with every form of the art and productions, all generated from his ramshackle
Théàtre Bouffes du Nord in Paris.
Michael Kustow's biography easily persuades the reader that Peter Brook
is a remarkable man who has lived many theatrical lives. He effortlessly
fills over 300 pages and the pace rarely slackens because the subject
has achieved so much with his life.
It is easy to admire such a great individual, although one should be
grateful, judging by the experiences of so many of his actors such as
Glenda Jackson and Frances de la Tour, that it is possible do so at
a distance. He is surely the hardest taskmaster imaginable and while
the results are incredible, the sacrifices to get there must have been
immense.
Peter Brook is perhaps best summed up by one of his regular designers,
Sally Jacobs, who said of him, "he is like a magician who's got
everything at his fingertips and he pulls it together impeccably".
We must all hope that this conjuror of the theatre continues to do so
for many more years.
Philip Fisher
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