the empty space: a book about the theatre: deadly, holy, rough, immediate

Brook made his directing debut at the Stratford Theatre at the age of 21, with a production of Love's Labours Lost. At the same time he directed his first play in London, a production of Marlowe's Dr. After spending two years in Switzerland recovering from a glandular infection, Brook became one of the youngest undergraduates at Oxford University.

A precocious child with a distaste for formal education but a love of learning, Brook performed his own four-hour version of Shakespeare's Hamlet at the age of seven. Peter Brook's parents were immigrant scientists from Russia. A native of London, he has been based in France since the 1970s. Peter Brook is a world-renowned theater director, staging innovative productions of the works of famous playwrights. Passionate, unconventional, and fascinating, The Empty Space shows how theatre defies rules, builds and shatters illusions, and creates lasting memories for its audiences.

Along the way, Brook provides theatre-makers with an indispensable guide to creating exhilarating and fresh performances. 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. 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. A timeless classic on the art of theatre from the most influential stage director of the twentieth century.

The empty space: a book about the theatre: deadly, holy, rough, immediate