In this seminal and iconoclastic book, groundbreaking director and cofounder of the Royal Shakespeare Company Peter Brook draws on a life in love with the stage to explore the issues facing a theatrical performance. 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. Along the way, Brook provides theatre-makers with an indispensable guide to creating exhilarating and fresh performances.

Passionate, unconventional, and fascinating, The Empty Space shows how theatre defies rules, builds and shatters illusions, and creates lasting memories for its audiences.

It is a philosophy of paradoxes: We come to the theatre to find life, but that life must be different from the life we find outside. Actors have to prepare painstakingly yet be willing to sacrifice the results of their preparation. The director's most reliable tool may be his capacity to be bored. Brook illustrates these principles with anecdotes that span his entire career and that demonstrate his familiarity with Shakespeare, Chekhov, and the indigenous theatres of India and Iran. The result is an unparalleled look at what happens both onstage and behind the scenes, fresh in its insights and elegant in its prose.

Contains within its scintillating reflections the essence of all that Peter Brook has learned over a lifetime. Whoever imagined that a book about Shakespeare could also be such fun? --John Heilpern, Wall Street Journal

This volume positively seethes and sparkles with ideas... provides not only acute insights into the texts, but intriguing details of performance history, and a few morsels of grand theatrical gossip. --Stuart Kelly, Scotsman

If you want a gift for an actor, look no further than this educative, engrossing, entertaining book. -The Stage

In The Quality of Mercy, one of the world's most revered theatre directors reflects on a fascinating variety of Shakespearean topics. In this sequence of essays--all but one published here for the first time--Peter Brook debates such questions as who was the man who wrote Shakespeare's plays, why Shakespeare is never out of date, and how actors should approach Shakespeare's verse. He also revisits some of the plays which he has directed with notable brilliance, such as King Lear, Titus Andronicus and, of course, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Taken as a whole, this short but immensely wise book offers an illuminating and provocative insight into a great director's relationship with our greatest playwright.

An invaluable gift from the greatest Shakespeare director of our time... Brook's genius, modesty, and brilliance shine through on every page. --James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare and Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?

PETER BROOK is one of the world's best-known theatre directors. Outstanding in a career full of remarkable achievements are his productions of Titus Andronicus (1955) with Laurence Olivier, King Lear (1962) with Paul Scofield, and The Marat/Sade (1964) and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1970), both for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Since moving to Paris and establishing the Centre International de Créations Théâtrales at the Bouffes du Nord, he has produced a series of events which push at the boundaries of theatre, such as The Conference of Birds (1976), The Ik (1975), The Mahabharata (1985) and The Tragedy of Hamlet (2000). His films include Lord of the Flies (1963), King Lear (1970) and The Mahabharata (1989). His books, especially The Empty Space (1968), have been hugely influential.

A new work from Peter Brook - the contemporary theatre's greatest inventor

Whatever the social and national barriers, we all have a brain and we think we know it. But, the moment we go inside, we find we are on another planet.
Using Oliver Sacks' neurological study The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat as its inspiration, The Man Who offers a series of fascinating Doctor/Patient scenarios that examine our attempts to understand the workings of the brain. In turn, these case studies become Brook's starting point in his search for a new theatre form.
Peter Brook is not only one of the truly outstanding directors of our time, he is also, undoubtedly, the only one whose skill as a writer equals his genius as a practitioner of the theatre - Martin Esslin

For fifty years, Peter Brook's opera, stage, and film productions have held audiences spellbound. His visionary directing has created some of the most influential productions in contemporary theater. Now at the pinnacle of his career, Brook has given us his memoir, a luminous, inspiring work in which he reflects on his artistic fortunes, his idols and teachers, his philosophical path and personal journey. In this autobiography, the man The New York Times has called the English-speaking world's most eminent director and The London Times has named theater's living legend reveals the myriad sources behind his lifelong passion to find the most expressive way of telling a story. Whether in India's epic Mahabharata or a stage adaptation of Oliver Sak's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, South Africa's Woza Albert or The Cherry Orchard, Brook's unique blend of practicality and vision creates unforgettable experiences for audiences worldwide.

The devastation of war is tearing the Bharata family apart. The new king must unravel a mystery: how can he live with himself in the face of the devastation and massacres that he has caused?

An immense canvas in miniature, this central section of the ancient text is timeless and contemporary, asking how we can find inner peace in a world riven with conflict.

The most pioneering theatre director of the twentieth century. --Independent on Peter Brook

Achieves a magnificent balance of stillness, relaxation, and narrative tension; compelling us to pause, to breathe, and to reflect, but also moving the story towards its end with the inevitability and energy of a natural force, harnessed by an absolute master. --Scotsman

Elliptical and surprisingly witty...There is a delicious lightness at play, however profound the play's contemplations. --Herald

During one hour and fifteen minutes, the Earth stops spinning at its maddening speed, to allow Brook to whisper in our ear one of his beautiful universal stories. --Les Echoes

The work of an artist for whom the human heart has no secrets and who knows the revealing and consoling force of theatre. --Le Figaroscope

Somewhere in the world, a man sits alone outside a prison. Who is he, and why is he there? Is it a choice, or a punishment? With The Prisoner, the internationally renowned theatre director Peter Brook and his long-time collaborator Marie-H l ne Estienne ask provocative and profound questions about justice, guilt, redemption--and what it means to be free.

The Prisoner opened at Th tre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris, in March 2018, before an international tour which included performances at the Edinburgh International Festival, the National Theatre of Great Britain, and Theatre for a New Audience in New York.

In this collection of essays, legendary theatre director Peter Brook reflects on the role of music in theatre and performance and revisits some of the best-known productions from his long and distinguished career, including Titus Andronicus, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, and The Prisoner. In his prologue, Brook writes, As Orpheus discovered, every animal can respond to sounds. For us, the living question is 'Which sounds? What music?' In this book we will try to explore together the infinite range of experiences that can sometimes touch us deeply, sometimes leave us cold. With topics ranging from how to evoke true listening to the relationship between words and music to the living presence of silence, Brook's ever-inquisitive and questing mind invites the reader to pay greater attention to the rhythms and melodies present on stage and in life.

A thoughtful and deeply personal book by a master theatre-maker.

In Tip of the Tongue, Peter Brook takes a charming, playful, and wise look at topics such as the subtle, telling differences between French and English, and the many levels on which we can appreciate the works of Shakespeare. Brook also revisits his seminal concept of the empty space, considering how theatre--and the world--have changed over the span of his long and distinguished career. Threaded throughout with intimate and revealing stories from Brook's own life, Tip of the Tongue is a short but sparkling gift from one of the greatest artists of recent times.