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In Contact With the Gods? : Directors Talk Theatre
This is a fascinating look at the theater world and what goes
on before the audience sees the finished production. In 1994,
the Arts Council of Great Britain brought together in Manchester
some of the theatrical world's most famous and innovative directors
to discuss what they do and why. Eighteen outstanding directors
of the last 20 years - including Peter Brook, Jonathan Miller,
Maria Irene Fornes, Peter Sellars, Arane Mnouchkine, and Robert
Wilson - were asked questions by the audience, and the text supplied
is in a Q&A format. The range of material is extensive, with
the directors giving full, detailed answers that are informative
and, at times, quite thought-provoking. The epilog is a transcription
of a conversation among Peter Brook, Jonathan Miller, and Oliver
Sacks. After reading this book, one will never view a performance
the same way; this valuable text belongs in all theater collections
in academic and large public libraries |
 
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The Shifting Point : Theatre, Film, Opera 1946-1987
by Peter Brook
For the ordinary theatergoer, Shakespeare has become a bit of
a bore, Brook maintains. Yet the Bard's "cubism of the theater,"
his curious splicing of verse and prose, ought to resonate with
meaning for us today. Here the well-known director explains the
rationale behind his controversial productions of King Lear and
Romeo and Juliet. This tapestry of essays, notes and manifestos
includes a section on the international, multicultural theater
group Brook organized in Paris to reinvent the sounds, gestures
and scripts that he feels should animate true theater. He relives
the group's three-month journey in Africa, which led to his mounting
The Conference of the Birds. Another play in which ceremony and
performance fuse, Brook's re-creation of the Indian epic Mahabharata,
is also discussed. Several pieces on opera explore ways to revive
what he considers an artificial, stagnant form. With its far-reaching
perspective on avant-garde and classical theater, this journal
will reward even readers who are not familiar with the works
discussed. |
 
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Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the
Art of Directing
Mr. William Ball, the former artistic director and founder of
The American Conservatory Theatre in San Fransisco, boils down
almost forty years of teaching, acting and directing experience
into possibly the most effective,educational and practical document
about directing. I shudder to use the word text book as that
term implies dry academia- an approach which leads to the the
death of the theatre- but really this book is indespensable to
any theatre director. Ball lays out in a logical, simple and
jargon free manner the nuts and bolts of building a balanced
right and left brained community which has complete and utter
access to the creative impulse. |
