In 70 years of career, Peter Brook, whose funeral will be held on July 11 in strict privacy, has revolutionized the theater with innovative stagings of classics from the international repertoire.
He is thus considered, among other things, as the theoretician of what he called "
empty space
": according to his own words, "
the stage constitutes, for men and women, the best means of undermining, an established order, to bring both a concern and a happiness that other performing arts, likely to depend on economic forces that they could denounce, cannot bring to life
”.
His love affair with France began in 1970. He left his native England to settle in Paris where he discovered a hall in ruins which he renovated and turned into the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord.
The success is immediate.
At the dawn of the 1980s, he decided to stage Chekhov's last play there,
La Cerisaie
.
Madelen invites you to see, or see again, this story of a family which, at the time of the sale of a house loaded with memories, passes from the “
time of cherries
” to that of grief.
Directed in 1982 for the small screen, by Peter Brook himself, this capture obtained a success of audience much higher than that hoped for by the broadcasters and the director himself.
Read alsoDeath at 97 of great theater man Peter Brook, director of
Moderato Cantabile
When he embarks on this adventure, he also plans to adapt it.
His mother descended from a Latvian family, he speaks almost fluent Russian and immerses himself in the original text rather than in the translations made by Elsa Triolet, Adamov and a few others.
After two days, measuring the difficulty of the enterprise, he chose to entrust this task to his friend and accomplice, Jean-Claude Carrière.
See on Madelen
The Cherry Orchard
by Chekhov directed by Peter Brook
Niels Arestrup, Catherine Frot and Michel Piccoli on the bill
During this time, he offers Niels Arestrup, Michel Piccoli and Catherine Frot to be his headliners.
They accept without hesitation knowing, from the start, that they will have to play the game, in every sense of the word.
They first agree not to discover the text before having read, aloud for several days,
Chekhov's “
Narratives ”.
In Brook's eyes, it is impossible to serve an author without first knowing the essence of his work.
Rehearsals begin.
A ritual takes place.
Brook imposes two hours of warm-up every morning which he considers essential to relax and prepare the voice.
We then move on to very special group work which allows us to sharpen our reflexes.
The troupe forms a circle, then everyone advances, retreats, speeds up or slows down according to a clap of the director's hand.
The session ends with a game well known to children, the “
Arabic telephone
”.
An actor slips a sentence into the ear of his neighbour, or of his neighbour, which then has to be passed on, as accurately as possible, to the person next to him.
Brook assures that this represents an excellent way to weld a troop.
The day continues with more traditional rehearsals.
Jean-Claude Carrière almost always attends these workshops during which Brook truly creates his staging.
Periodically, it asks the adapter to modify replicas or to change a situation.
Sometimes the task turns out to be impossible.
Thus, when one afternoon, Brook reproaches him for not having sufficiently investigated a situation, Carrière replies, tit for tat: “
I am not a customs officer
”.
This will not prevent their
Cherry Orchard
from crossing borders.
Peter Brook's funeral will be held privately.
In agreement with his family, tributes will be paid to him soon at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord.
