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Title: The Empty Space : A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate by Peter Brook ISBN: 0-684-82957-6 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Insightful and Important
Comment: Yes: Brook is a genius.
Yes: This work is of great value to any theatre artist.
BUT!!! This book is rather dense, and those who are unfamiliar with major movements and theories in the last century of theater may find themselves a bit lost when Brook begins to talk about Artaud and the "Holy Theater" or Brecht and "Rough Theater."
Brook's ideas, through his sometimes dense writing, are meant to inspire and invigorate. This is not a manual or even a reference to create good theatre, as a major argument of Brook's is that good theater is far to complex and ever-changing to be explained by any book/manual/dogma/etc.
Read this book and know that it will not help you to create good theatre- if anything, it will raise the bar for "good" theatre so much higher that one's task becomes infinitely more difficult. This is the agony and the ecstasy of reading Peter Brook.
Rating: 5
Summary: The theatre as a living organism
Comment: Building upon the earlier work of Aristotle, Brecht, Artaud and others, Brook confronts the living organism of the theatre on four levels: Deadly, Holy, Rough and Immediate. In each level, Brook makes the case that the theatre is not only a necessary component to the human creature, but a being that despite its constant wounds and ills, manages to bounce up from the death bed and find a way to survive.
Interestingly when Brook was writing (1968) there were many cynical critics who complained that the theatre was dying in the wake of television and film. Brook confronts the issue that theatre attendance was reacing all time lows. Today, over thirty years later, it is daunting to consider that there are even more distractions (the internet, home video, etc.) and attendance is even lower still. Yet despite these imposing knives thrusting into the communal body that is the Theatre, the world's oldest art form manages to forge ahead, survive and, the rare cases, thrive all the while maintaining its cultural importance.
Brook believes the theatre is unique is that it requires a community of artists and audiences alike to exist. That very sense of humanity and awe is what allows it to flourish in many instances.
Brook's writing is admittedly erudite and sometimes pretentious. And perhaps when one takes the positions that he does, such lofty language and posings may indeed be impossible. I hate to say it, but Brook's book may be hard going for the theatre lay person- God knows I'm aware of how elitist that sounds, but I think it is true. Because of his thick verbage, it may take a couple of stabs for the reader to unlock Brook's fevered soapboxing. But the journey is well worth the price.
This is a book of theatre theory and therefore it may appear quite barren of practical solutions. However when read in conjunction with not only life experience in the theatre as well as the many great acting, directing and play wrighting texts, it does provide the theatre artist with the basis for forging a true political manifesto. To quote Brook himself, "To play needs much work. But when we experience the work as play, then it is not work any more. A play is a play."
Rating: 5
Summary: Opening the mind
Comment: Have you ever noticed that several of the worlds truly Great Books are very short? Reading this book, along with The Dramatic Imagination by Robert Edmond Jones, Acting: the first 6 lessons by Boleshavsky and Aristotles Poetics are (to my less than humble opinion) all one really needs to have a degree in Theater/re.
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Title: Towards a Poor Theatre by Jerzy Grotowski, Eugenio Barba ISBN: 0878301550 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Theater and Its Double by Antonin Artaud, Mary C. Richards ISBN: 0802150306 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: December, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre by Anne Bogart ISBN: 0415238323 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Brecht on Theatre : The Development of an Aesthetic by Bertolt Brecht, John Willett ISBN: 0809005425 Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub Pub. Date: 01 January, 1964 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Open Door: Thoughts on Acting and Theatre by Peter Brook, Peter Brock ISBN: 1559361026 Publisher: Theatre Communications Group Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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