Why theatre at all? What for?

“Theatres, actors, critics and public are interlocked in a machine that creaks but never stops. There is always a new season in hand and we are to busy to ask the only vital question which measures the whole structure. Why theatre at all? What for? Is it an anachronism, a superannuated oddity? Surviving like an old monument or a quaint custom? Why do we applaud and what? Has the stage a real place in our lives? What function can it have? What could it serve? What could it explore? What are its special properties?”

(page 45-46)

Peter Brook, The Empty Space. London: Penguin, 1968.

From my own library, bought from the Emily Carr University Library booksale, used, for 50 cents.

A jarring of externals

“When we consider how the inner unity of a complex work can be expressed we may find quite the reverse – that a jarring of externals is quite essential. When we go further and consider the audience – and the society from which that audience comes – the true unity of all these elements may best be served by factors that by other standards seem ugly, discordant and destructive.”

(page 44)

Peter Brook, The Empty Space. London: Penguin, 1968.

From my own library, bought from the Emily Carr University Library booksale, used, for 50 cents.

A roughness of texture and a conscious mingling of opposites

“What enabled [Shakespeare] technically to [succeed in passing through many stages of consciousness], the essence, in fact, of his style, is a roughness of texture and a conscious mingling of opposites which in other terms could be called an absence of style.”

(page 98)

Peter Brook, The Empty Space. London: Penguin, 1968.

From my own library, bought from the Emily Carr University Library booksale, used, for 50 cents.

We identify emotionally, subjectively; we evaluate politically, objectively

“We identify emotionally, subjectively – and yet at one and the same time we evaluate politically, objectively in relation to society. Because the profound reaches past the everyday, a heightened language and a ritualistic use of rhythm brings us to those very aspects of life which the surface hides; and yet because the poet and the visionary do not seem like everyday people, because the epic state is not one on which we normally dwell, it is equally possible for Shakespeare, with a break in his rhythm, a twist into prose, a shift into slangy conversation or else a direct word from the audience to remind us – in plain common sense – of where we are, and to return us to the familiar rough world of spades as spades.”

(page 98)

Peter Brook, The Empty Space. London: Penguin, 1968.

From my own library, bought from the Emily Carr University Library booksale, used, for 50 cents.