Peter Brook

First published in 1968, "The Empty Space" is a timeless analysis of theatre, from perhaps the most influential director of the twentieth century. In "The Empty Space," groundbreaking director Peter Brook draws on a life in love with the stage to explore the issues facing any theatrical performance. Here he describes important developments in theatre from the last century, as well as smaller scale events, from productions by Stanislavsky to the rise of Method Acting, from Brecht's revolutionary alienation technique to the free form happenings of the 1960s, and from the different styles of such great Shakespearean actors as John Gielgud and Paul Scofield to a joyous impromptu performance in the burnt-out shell of the Hamburg Opera just after the war. Passionate, unconventional, and fascinating, his book shows how theatre defies rules, builds and shatters illusions, and creates lasting memories for its audiences.

Peter Brook is the most consistently innovative director in Western theatre. In these three essays he returns to the concept of his first book The Empty Space and examines what that means for the life of a production. How can a company establish its own "empty space" - a rehearsal and performance environment which will encourage the actors to abandon the security of the hackneyed and release their true creativity?The potency of Brook's writing lies in his ability invest general truths with fresh vigour and to be as simple as he is profound.

"Speaking is part of a whole: an expression of inner life." Cicely Berry has based her work on the conviction that while all is present in nature our natural instincts have been crippled from birth by many processes—by the conditioning, in fact, of a warped society. So an actor needs precise exercise and clear understanding to liberate his hidden possibilities and to learn the hard task of being true to the ‘instinct of the moment’. As her book points out with remarkable persuasiveness ‘technique’ as such is a myth, for there is no such thing as a correct voice. There is no right way—there are only a million wrong ways, which are wrong because they deny what would otherwise be affirmed. Wrong uses of the voice are those that constipate feeling, constrict activity, blunt expression, level out idiosyncrasy, generalize experience, coarsen intimacy. These blockages are multiple and are the results of acquired habits that have become part of the automatic vocal equipment; unnoticed and unknown, they stand between the actor's voice as it is and as it could be and they will not vanish by themselves. So the work is not how to do but how to permit: how, in fact, to set the voice free. And since life in the voice springs from emotion, drab and uninspiring technical exercises can never be sufficient. Cicely Berry never departs from the fundamental recognition that speaking is part of a whole: an expression of inner life . After a voice session with her I have known actors speak not of the voice but of a growth in human relationships. This is a high tribute to work that is the opposite of specialization. Cicely Berry sees the voice teacher as involved in all of a theatre's work. She would never try to separate the sound of words from their living context. For her the two are inseparable. —from Peter Brook's foreword to Voice and the Actor

Hailed as "the theatrical event of this century" (Sunday Times), Peter Brook's unique dramatisation of India's great epic poem, The Mahabharata played to ecstatic audiences worldwide. In The Shifting Point, his first book since The Empty Space, Brook assesses the lessons of his pioneering work from his brilliant debut at Stratford and the West End in the 1960s to the triumphant success of The Mahabharata. With the bravura and insight of a great practitioner and explorer he reveals some of the inspiration behind his extraordinary career."The great thing about Brook is that, in a medium where others provide answers, he keeps asking questions. This sage and stimulating book shows that, inside a sophisticated adult mind, lurks the intemperate curiosity of a child; which is the mark of genius." (Michael Billington, Listener)