Conversations with Peter Brook: 1970-2000 - Softcover

A volume of interviews with the director Peter Brook that explores his work and the innovations that helped forge a new kind of theater

Peter Brook is one of the giants of twentieth-century theater, having started as a stage director at the age of twenty before being named the primary director at the Covent Garden opera house and, eventually, becoming the unique creative genius who virtually reinvented the way actors and directors think about theater, through his groundbreaking productions of King Lear, Marat/Sade, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and, especially, The Mahabharata. Since the creation in the 1970s of his International Center for Theater Research in Paris, he has sought to focus on teaching and researching as well as directing—always looking for new ways to illuminate the truth of a text so that actors and audiences alike are challenged to question both the performance of the piece and the larger truth surrounding it.
Margaret Croyden has followed Peter Brook’s career from 1970 up to the present. As a result, her perspective on the evolution of his work is unparalleled, and she brings to the interview process the acuity of a critic and the knowledgeability of a devoted observer. As she says in her introduction, “The most important aspect of Brook’s character and his artistry is that he is a searcher . . . a questioner, a teacher.” In this book, Brook—with Croyden’s able assistance—shares some of his most insightful thoughts and deepest feelings about the theater and the world.
Margaret Croyden has written for The New York Times, among other publications, and is the author of In the Shadow of the Flame: Three Journeys and Lunatics, Lovers, and Poets: The Contemporary Experimental Theater. She lives in New York City.
Peter Brook is one of the giants of twentieth-century theater, a uniquely creative genius who, through his groundbreaking productions of King Lear, Marat/Sade, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and especially The Mahabharata, has virtually reinvented the way actors and directors think about theater. Margaret Croyden has followed Peter Brook's career from 1970 to the present, gaining unparalleled perspective on the evolution of his work. Throughout the interviews in this book, she uses that knowledge to elicit from Peter Brook some of his insightful thoughts and deepest feelings about theater and the world.
"Here is the fascinating and provocatively stimulating distillation of three decades of intense, but sometimes gossipy, conversations between one of the 20th century's few true theater innovators and America's leading writer on the theatrical avant-garde. A splendid book. A great read. I loved it."—Clive Barnes
"A success . . . Challenging and fearless in her questions, Croyden also conveys such vivid vignettes of the plays and their often beautiful or striking settings that a pang is evoked for every missed chance to say 'I was there' . . . Croyden's ability to put questions in a fitting way allows Brook to share with her some astonishingly authentic impressions and observations . . . The conversations between Croyden and Brook . . . stand as proof that Croyden was talking to an artist who 'is interested in something more than his art,' an artist whose aim, among others, is to 'reach the point in a common service where everything is charged and a rewarding experience begins to shape.'"—Parabola

"Again and again in this fascinating collection of interviews with Brook about his extraordinary body of work Croyden shows how the craft of journalism can rise to the level of art itself by challenging an artist to reveal himself . . . Croyden tracks Brook through his spiritual and geographic travels, asking challenging questions and refusing to back down until the answer Brook gives has the ring of personal truth. The resulting work will illuminate and enthrall anyone who loves the theater—and everyone interested in what it can mean to live fearlessly and creatively, to make one's life a search."—Kirkus Reviews

"Here is the fascinating and provocatively stimulating distillation of three decades of intense, but sometimes gossipy, conversations between one of the 20th century's few true theater innovators and America's leading writer on the theatrical avant-garde. A splendid book. A great read. I loved it."—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 Burns

"Margaret Croyden’s sharp, provocative questions to Peter Brook and his brilliant responses make Conversations with Peter Brook a truly sophisticated book—not only about the theater, but about what a great artist thinks, how he works, and how he lives. It is a pleasure to read."—6Ellen Stewart

"In Conversations with Peter Brook, Margaret Croyden has compiled a fascinating portrait of Brook—the director, the artist, the man—a book that will inspire theater people and all those who love the arts."—Joseph Chaikin

"What comes across in Margaret Croyden's Conversations is Peter Brook's warm, engaging search that touches all of us. Brook talks about ultimate matters with remarkable insights that reveal the spiritual need for the theater of our time. Margaret Croyden has done a brilliant job in catching the essential Peter Brook."—Andrei Serban

"I loved it. The interaction between Margaret Croyden and Peter Brook is amusing and not at all reverential and the revelations of Brook on his adventures in theater and in life are thrilling. A great life inspiring story."—Harvey Lichtenstein

"Margaret Croyden's book is an absolute necessity for any reader interested in 20th century theater or interested in Peter Brook, one of the great artistic explorers of our time. A valuable book about an extraordinary artist! Conversations with Peter Brook is truly a meeting with a remarkable man."—Andre Gregory

"I really enjoyed reading Margaret Croyden’s Conversations with Peter Brook. It amused, enlightened and infuriated me—which is as much as you can expect from any book."—Richard Eyre

"'No man reveals his depth, or his truth, without a challenge,' the groundbreaking theatre director Peter Brook told Croyden. Again and again in this fascinating collection of interviews with Brook about his extraordinary body of work—from tiny performances in African villages to his masterpiece, a nine-hour production of the Hindu epic The Mahabharata—Croyden shows how the craft of journalism can rise to the level of art itself by challenging an artist to reveal himself. The author, who has written about the theatre for The New York Times and other publications, draws out the aims and motivations that led Brook far beyond the commercial success that hit in 1971, with a beautiful, soaring production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (the actors took to the air on trapezes, walked on stilts, swung on ropes) that liberated Shakespeare from chains of convention and dazzled crowds. By the time
dn0 the play opened on Broadway, Brook (along with Croyden) was on a mountainside in Iran, directing a play that featured a made-up language and an international cast. Not content to liberate just Shakespeare, Brook and his Paris-based International Center of Theater Research were out to explore how the d