Peter Brook, "The Shifting Point" (London: Methuen Drama, 1988) 15-16
We talk of "directing." The notion is vague and includes too much. For example, although film making is a collective activity, the director's authority is absolute and the other partners are not an equal footing. They are merely instruments through which the director's vision can take form. Most people questioned on the subject would reply that things are the same in the theatre. The director assimilates the world, including the playwright's, and produces it afresh.
Unfortunately that idea ignores the true riches that are latent in the theatre form. According to the accepted idea, the director is there to take the various means at his disposal - lighting, colrs, set, costumes, makeup, as well as the text and performance - and play on them all together as if on a keyboard. By combining these forms of expression he creates a special director's language in which the actor is only a noun, an important noun, but dependent on all the other grammatical elements to give it meaning. This is the conception of "total theatre," taken to mean theatre in its most evolved condition.
But, in fact, the theatre has the potential - unknown in other art forms - of replacing a single viewpoint by a multitude of different visions. Theatre can present a world in several dimensions at once, whereas the cinema, although it tirelessly seeks to be stereoscopic, is still confined to a single plane. Theatre recovers its strength and intensity as soon as it devotes itself to creating that wonder - a world in relief.
.....
There is a golden rule. The actor must never forget that the play is greater than himself. If he thinks he can grasp the play, he will cut it down to his own size. If, however, he respects its mystery - and consequently that of the character that he is playing - as being always just beyond his grasp, he will see that a sympathetic but rigorous director can help him to distinguish between intuitions that lead to truth and feelings that are self-indulgent.
We talk of "directing." The notion is vague and includes too much. For example, although film making is a collective activity, the director's authority is absolute and the other partners are not an equal footing. They are merely instruments through which the director's vision can take form. Most people questioned on the subject would reply that things are the same in the theatre. The director assimilates the world, including the playwright's, and produces it afresh.
Unfortunately that idea ignores the true riches that are latent in the theatre form. According to the accepted idea, the director is there to take the various means at his disposal - lighting, colrs, set, costumes, makeup, as well as the text and performance - and play on them all together as if on a keyboard. By combining these forms of expression he creates a special director's language in which the actor is only a noun, an important noun, but dependent on all the other grammatical elements to give it meaning. This is the conception of "total theatre," taken to mean theatre in its most evolved condition.
But, in fact, the theatre has the potential - unknown in other art forms - of replacing a single viewpoint by a multitude of different visions. Theatre can present a world in several dimensions at once, whereas the cinema, although it tirelessly seeks to be stereoscopic, is still confined to a single plane. Theatre recovers its strength and intensity as soon as it devotes itself to creating that wonder - a world in relief.
.....
There is a golden rule. The actor must never forget that the play is greater than himself. If he thinks he can grasp the play, he will cut it down to his own size. If, however, he respects its mystery - and consequently that of the character that he is playing - as being always just beyond his grasp, he will see that a sympathetic but rigorous director can help him to distinguish between intuitions that lead to truth and feelings that are self-indulgent.
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