Peter Brook is one of the most innovative British directors of the post 1950 period. He was born on March 21 in London, England in 1925 and at 19 he graduated from Oxford University where he established his own amateur theatre, The Torch. His industrious and celebrated career began in London's wartime club theatres and he joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1945. His career flourished after the war and he increasingly staged plays in London, Stratford-upon-Avon, Brussels, Paris and New York. In 1961, he became one of a triumvirate of directors (including Peter Hall) at Stratford's Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). While he is often recognised for the experimental workshops and productions he staged while working there, he has also directed classical and contemporary texts, musical comedies, opera, and films including Lord of the Flies (1962) and Meeting with Remarkable Men (1979). A number of his stage productions have also been filmed, including The Mahabharata (1985) a nine-hour epic that was developed over a period of ten years and adapted from the sacred Vedic text of the same name. This final work was one of the productions that developed from the collaborative and multi-cultural work done at a centre Brook founded in Paris in 1970 called the International Centre for Theatre Research (ICTR). At this centre, Brook continues to research, direct and produce work in collaboration with an internationally mixed company of performing artists who share his desire to create and perform a universal theatre language.
From an early stage Brook integrated and explored widely different forms, styles, themes, processes and working conditions. The results of many of these explorations were first outlined in his highly influential publication The Empty Space (1968). In this text he argued that any ‘empty' space could be transformed into a theatrical space because theatre is defined primarily by the relationship it forms between actors and audiences. He also argued that while theatre can be performed anywhere, those creating theatre must be aware of the intentions and expectations of both the actors and the audiences in a space. Brook's text provided a way of understanding the roles and the responsibilities of the director and the actor and distinguished four ‘types' of theatre that he called deadly, holy, rough and immediate. Much of the conceptual apparatus in Brook's text are based on his explorations of the work and ideas of Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, Samuel Beckett, and Bertolt Brecht. Indeed, his recollection, discussion and synthesis of the work of these figures reflects the strong influence of the Theatre of Cruelty workshops he helped lead at the RSC in the 1960s. Many of the new ideas and techniques that he explored with the company during this time led to powerful productions like Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (1964). The experiments he conducted with ritualistic expressions of sound and movement also laid the foundation for much of Brook's later work and stimulated his interest in collaborative and improvisational activity.
Since then, Brook's work has continually and surprisingly synthesised uncompromising experimentation with showmanship, commercial success and critical acclaim. He has continued to write about his work and constantly asks questions about the nature and parameters of theatre while exploring an assortment of images, theatrical styles and techniques. In his earlier days, he seemed to exemplify Gordon Craig's ideal of a total theatre artist because he often designed and composed music for many of his productions. Although he has increasingly relinquished this authoritarian directorial position and now favours more collaborative efforts, his more recent work is not without criticism. Many question the kind of totalising view that often accompanies his search for universal interests and language and suggest that his work with international artists may merely illustrate his centre's appropriation of what may be sensitive cultural material. Similar criticism has been applied to the international theatre research being conducted by Eugenio Barba in Denmark but one cannot deny that the work being produced by both directors continues to fascinate audiences and attract positive reports. To commemorate his many successes and contributions, Brook was awarded a lifetime achievement award in 2001 and he remains an important figure in the development of twentieth century theatre.