Peter Brook, the British-born director who won Tonys and Emmys but best known for his stage work, has died at the age of 97. His death was confirmed by his former publisher and later by the BBC.
His career spanned eight decades and included operas, plays, musicals, and film and television productions. After bringing an unorthodox approach to the traditional works of Shakespeare and Puccini, he moved to Paris, where he became even more daring and experimental: in one play, audiences saw a French theater company perform in a language the actors they invented
Among Brook’s most memorable productions is Marat/Sade, from 1964, which brought a spectacular theatricality to Peter Weiss’s complex play about the Marquis de Sade and the patients of an insane asylum.
His first directing job was in 1943 for dr faust in London. From 1947 to 1950 he was production manager at the Royal Opera House. His productions included Salome, by Strauss, with decorations by Salvador Dalí. She later staged operas for the Metropolitan Opera and the Aix en Provence Festival. He worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1950 to 1970, directing, among others, The king readby Paul Scofield; Titus Andronicus, by Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh; Y measure for measureby John Gielgud.
In 1970 Brook and Micheline Rozan founded the International Center for Theater Research, a multinational group of actors, artists, dancers and musicians. It then became the International Center for Theatrical Creations and established a permanent base: the Bouffes du Nord Theater. His theater company became less theatrical and more original, using myth, legend, music, pantomime, and improvisation. Eschewing traditional Western theater settings, they toured the Middle East and Africa with their work in the early 1970s. Many plays were performed in both French and English.
Along with many original works and works by relatively unknown authors, there are productions such as The Iks (1975) by Colin Turnbull; works by Chekhov, Samuel Beckett, Caryl Churchill, and Athol Fugard; and arrangements by Mozart and Oliver Sachs.
Brook was influenced by the experimental theater work of Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski and Bertolt Brecht, but said his biggest influence was Joan Littlewood.
