Peter Brook: Oxford to Orghast

R. Helfer, G. Loney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136650406
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

Peter Brook is known internationally as a theatre visionary, and a daring experimenter on the cutting-edge of performance and production. This book concentrates on Brook's early years, and his innovative achievements in opera, television, film, and the theatre. His productions are viewed separately, in chronological order, suggesting Brook's developing and changing interests. The authors include thought-provoking interviews with Brook (and with numerous outstanding artists who have worked with him) and bring to the reader penetrating critiques of Brook's theories and practices as a man of the theatre.

DESCRIPTIONS OF PETER BROOK'S PRODUCTIONS (1942-1971)

1942

1

Doctor Faustus
by Christopher Marlowe

London: Torch Theatre

1943

2

Late 1943

A Sentimental Journey
from the novel by Lawrence Sterne

Oxford: the Oxford Union

January 17, 1944
London: The Torch Theatre

Like many geniuses, Peter Brook has his share of nerve. While a student at Oxford, he had worked his way into being President of the University Film Society—which he had himself revived—and became Britain's youngest film director. J. C. Trewin describes what happened:

He had chosen a full-length treatment of Laurence Sterne's “traveling fancy,” A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Sacha Guitry's mimeodramatic technique in Le Roman D'un Tricheur had impressed him, so the script had no dialogue, merely a commentary extracted from the book and spoken as if by Sterne himself, with a background of eighteenth century music. [This is also, it should be noted, a good idea for making a film on a severe budget, live sound being much more expensive.] Character parts, as in Russian films, were played by ordinary folk recruited from Oxford pubs and haunts. Improvising gallantly on a budget of £250—the unit had to take a garden truck as a trolley—Brook shot his exteriors in Oxford and the nearby country, at Abingdon, and at Woodstock in Blenheim Park. The problem of interiors he solved after going to see John Gielgud's Haymarket revival of Love for Love. Calling at Gielgud's dressing-room, he asked tentatively if he might use the set for his film, Gielgud agreed, and the unit came into the theatre for some rapid work. Unhappily, because the film was made on short lengths of raw 16 mm stock, [there were wartime restrictions on such things] each roll of which reacted to printing in a different way, A Sentimental Journey could not be shown in an ordinary cinema, and when it had its premiere at the Oxford Union, the hall was the wrong size, diminishing the images while disconcertingly magnifying the sound. Still, within two months, the film had a London showing at the Torch.

What is even more amazing, the film was actually reviewed in advance by the Times, though the tone of the review—not helped by the problems with the film processing—might have made Brook wish otherwise.

This film, which was made by Oxford undergraduates at a cost of a £250, shows how thorny and difficult is the task of the amateur director. It should, theoretically, be easy enough for a man with a good camera and a knowledge of what he wants to produce a film which will be aesthetically and intellectually satisfying and not fall too far short of the technical standards of the commercial cinema. Apparently it is not.

A Sentimental Journey, since it keeps close to the pattern of Sterne—there is no dialogue and gramophone records of passages from the book recited by Mr. Frederick Hurdis supply the commentary—doubtless has aesthetic and intellectual virtues, but it is hard to discern through the murk in which the action takes place. The camera seems to find the lighting provided by our weather altogether too much for it, and the variable noises of the gramophone combined with the uncertain photography on the screen continually get between the audience and a sincere effort to transcribe Sterne faithfully into terms of visual acting. The cast, in spite of the wigs, can hardly help looking its youth, and A Sentimental Journey must be regarded as a brave attempt at an objective which, in the event, proved too difficult.

The film begins a week's run at the Torch Theatre on Monday.

1945

3

February 3 to 18,1945

The Infernal Machine
by Jean Cocteau
Translated by Carl Wildman

London: The Chanticleer Theatre Club

Production by	Peter Brook
Scenery Painted by	Corinne Cooper

CAST

The Young Soldier	Roger Trafford
The Soldier	Frank Tregear
The Chief	Ronald Long
Jocasta, the Queen, widow of Laius	Sigrid Landstad
Tiresias	Robert Marsden
The Sphirx	Joy H...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Contemporary Theatre Studies
• Title Page
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Introduction to the Series
• Preface
• Production Chronology: Oxford to Orghast
• List of Peter Brook's productions (1942-1971)
• Descriptions of Peter Brook's productions (1942-1971)
• Interviews: Oxford to Orghast to India
• Myth and Music: Resonances across continents and centuries as explored by Peter Brook and his ensemble Glenn honey
• US Rehearsal Break: Comments by Peter Brook Glenn Loney
• A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Drama Desk: Peter Brook and major players discuss the production in New York
• Peter Brook's Birds Take Wing: With Sally Jacobs before the American tour Glenn honey
• Peter Brook on ha Tragédie de Carmen Glenn honey
• Marat/Sade as play and film: Stanley Kauffmann compares!
• Richard Peaslee: Creating music for Peter Brook
• Lord of the Flies in production Edwin Wilson
• Peter Brook's Quest: Margaret Croyden traces it
• Working with Brook: Bruce Myers and Robert Langdon Lloyd discuss The Mahabharata and other adventures
• Peter Brook at the CUNY Graduate Center
• Bibliography
• Index to the Production Chronology
• Index to the Interviews