The influence of RSC associate artist and legendary director Peter Brook lives on despite his death aged 97
Legendary opera and theatre director Peter Brook CBE died on Saturday, 2nd July, aged 97.
Often referred to as “our greatest living theatre director”, Brook had a close relationship with the RSC, where he was an associate artist.
After graduating Oxford University and directing two plays, including Dr Faustus at the Torch Theatre in London, he first came to Stratford in 1947 aged 22 as an assistant director on Romeo and Juliet and Love’s Labour’s Lost.
His prolific output saw him write ground-breaking and seminal books about putting on theatre, as well as directing in theatre, film and opera. He picked up multiple Tony and Emmy awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Japanese Praemium Imperiale, and the Prix Italia.
In the early 1970s he moved to France where he founded the International Centre for Theatre Research based at the Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris, a multinational company of performers and musicians who travelled the world often performing at places such as refugee camps to people who had not seen theatre before.
Brook and his wife Natasha Parry, who died in 2015, had two children, daughter Irina, an actor, and son, director Simon.
The RSC said it was “deeply saddened to hear of the passing of visionary director and RSC honorary associate artist, Peter Brook”.
A spokesperson continued: “Peter was a giant of European theatre, who breathed exhilarating new life into the art form. His influence at the Royal Shakespeare Company cannot be overestimated, with more than 20 years of artistry and experiment, including the remarkable US, a daring response to the Vietnam war which premiered at the Aldwych in 1966 with a cast including Glenda Jackson.
“In 1970, he directed the truly revolutionary A Midsummer Night’s Dream, designed by Sally Jacobs and a cast including Frances de la Tour, Ben Kingsley and Patrick Stewart. This production completely reset what it meant to bring Shakespeare alive for a contemporary audience, and continues to exert a serious influence on theatre artists today.”
Erica Whyman, RSC acting artistic director, said: “I was privileged to get to know Peter in the 1990s at the National Theatre Studio where he generously shared his practice with younger theatre-makers, and later when I presented his work at Northern Stage. He was a mesmerising person, fascinated by the potential of human beings to communicate the most delicate feelings and thoughts to one another, by respecting the commanding simplicity of an ‘empty space’.”
Gregory Doran, RSC artistic director emeritus, added: “When Peter was last in Stratford in February 2019, he generously agreed to come and talk to the acting company. At 94, he still conveyed the boundless curiosity which has characterised his career. From the Watteau-inspired Love’s Labour’s Lost in Stratford in 1947, to the ground-breaking Titus Andronicus with Olivier in 1955, from the Theatre of Cruelty Season to the legendary A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1970, from the Marat/Sade to the Mahabharata, Peter defined the essential. We ‘shall not look upon his like again’.”
Stewart McGill, Playbox Theatre consulting director, said: “Much has been said in tribute to Peter Brook, rightly emphasising his vital role in shaping theatre. He was, for me, an inspiration – he was the Greatest Showman. We tend to get rather over reverent when speaking of him. The guru for drama students and writer of such holy writ as The Empty Space. His Dream at Stratford in 1970 was a whirlwind but one should not forget earlier work including King Lear with Paul Scofield that helped define the style for Shakespeare in the formative years of the RSC.
“I recall sitting in his Theatre Bouffes Du Nord in Paris for Hamlet. The architecture, the history and the text combining for a unique experience. Brook was a man of the theatre who, like many of his contemporaries in Europe sought to create a popular, culturally diverse and experience enhancing entertainment. Monk-like he was not, and in Brook was the spirit of joy, energy and humour.
“He could not find the support in the UK to evolve his conditions and ideas to create work and found a home in Paris to ignite amazing projects like Mahabarata, Orghast and Conference of the Birds which toured the world.
“I am guilty of always referring to him as The Master but I think he would rather, at the close of play, be thought of as a spirit who loved actors, the possibilities of theatre and the fun of it all. Rather like Shakespeare himself.”
