美国国家公共电台 NPR At 94, Director Peter Brook Is Still Asking The Deep Questions

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

At the age of 94, director and author Peter Brook¹ can genuinely be called a living legend. His career has stretched for over seven decades, from groundbreaking productions of Shakespeare to his nine-hour adaptation of the Sanskrit epic² "The Mahabharata."

His latest work is now onstage in Brooklyn. It's called "Why?" And as Jeff Lunden reports, it asks that question about the very profession Peter Brook has spent his life exploring.

JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE³: Peter Brook has been in love with theater for as long as he can remember. As a boy in London, his Russian-born parents took him to plays. And he even staged "Hamlet" for them in a toy theater with cut-out figures when he was 10.

PETER BROOK: And the poor things sat there for about two hours while I read, with one hand, the text. And with the other hand, I did these maneuvers⁴. I can't imagine the torture - this tiny voice reading badly and saying, to be or not to be, that is - (laughter).

LUNDEN: By the time he was in his 20s, he was staging Shakespeare in Stratford with the finest actors of the day - John Gielgud, Vivien Leigh, Paul Scofield.

(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "HAMLET")

PAUL SCOFIELD: (As Hamlet) To be or not to be, that is the question.

LUNDEN: But even back then, Peter Brook found himself asking why there wasn't another way to create theater. He wrote a book in 1968 called "The Empty Space," which begins, quote, "I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage."

BROOK: When you talk about "The Empty Space," like I sometimes say to people, you know, don't bother to read the book. Read the title 'cause if one really thinks of it, this is a call to a question, to say why and, bit by bit, get rid of all the established trappings of scenery, of costume, of music. All that has to be questioned.

LUNDEN: And true to that aesthetic⁵ in Brook's latest work, the stage is bare, save for a large carpet, some chairs and three actors all dressed in black.

(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "WHY?")

MARCELLO MAGNI: (As character) Why do we do theater?

HAYLEY CARMICHAEL: (As character) Why do we do it?

KATHRYN HUNTER: (As character) Why? What is it all about? What's it for?

LUNDEN: Brook's ceaseless questioning led him to establish the International Center for Theatre Research in Paris, where he and his principal collaborator⁶ Marie-Helene Estienne have been reinvestigating classics and devising new works with actors from around the globe for over 40 years.

BROOK: As Shakespeare says always, there is a world elsewhere. And in seeing that, I found that a mixture going beyond racial barriers and then going beyond national barriers, language barriers, cultural barriers - something opens. So this is a never-ending process.

LUNDEN: Brook uses that approach to ask who we are and why we do things to each other. In 1975, he staged "The Ik" about an African tribe that starved to death because it was forced from its land.

KAREN BROOKS⁷ HOPKINS: He took on this issue in the most profound, deepest way imaginable.

LUNDEN: Karen Brooks Hopkins saw it in grad school. She's executive producer of Peter Brook/NY, which is sponsoring events across the city exploring the 94-year-old director's work.

BROOKS HOPKINS: And I never thought or understood that theater could be so essential, so powerful and just so right on in terms of getting straight to the heart of something.

LUNDEN: In his latest piece, Peter Brook investigates the questioning work of some of his predecessors⁸, notably⁹ director Vsevolod Meyerhold, who was swept up in the Russian Revolution but ultimately denounced, imprisoned¹⁰ and murdered by Stalin's regime.

BROOK: And he was sitting there in his cell - it's terrifying to think of - saying, have I made mistakes? Is this all my fault? His honesty means that he's also saying, but why? Why are they saying that I'm an enemy of the revolution? Why do they want to get rid of me? Why am I in prison? Bang.

LUNDEN: In "Why?," actress Kathryn Hunter quotes Meyerhold, answering those questions.

(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "WHY?")

HUNTER: (As character) Theater is a very dangerous weapon. Imagine you are prescribed 0.005 milligrams of strychnine to take a day, and you swallow the whole bottle in one mouthful. Theater is dynamite¹¹, more dangerous than fire, more dangerous than bombs.

LUNDEN: Because, says actor Marcello Magni, who's worked on several of Brook's pieces, theater can shine a light on the world we live in.

MAGNI: In the theater, there is a world. But Peter is constantly doing left and right, looks and up and down and behind and sideways to life in order to look at theater.

LUNDEN: At 94, Peter Brook is growing increasingly frail¹², yet he continues to explore.

BROOK: If life has brought you to this, you have an obligation to try to carry on as long as you can find the energy.

LUNDEN: And that is not in question.

For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.

(SOUNDBITE OF LARRY BELL'S "PERSICHETTI: PIANO SONATINA NO. 3 (WARMLY)")

1 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

2 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 maneuvers   

n.策略，谋略，花招( maneuver的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He suspected at once that she had been spying upon his maneuvers. 他立刻猜想到，她已经侦察到他的行动。 来自辞典例句
• Maneuvers in Guizhou occupied the Reds for four months. 贵州境内的作战占了红军四个月的时间。 来自辞典例句

5 aesthetic   

adj.美学的，审美的，有美感

参考例句：

• My aesthetic standards are quite different from his.我的审美标准与他的大不相同。
• The professor advanced a new aesthetic theory.那位教授提出了新的美学理论。

6 collaborator   

n.合作者，协作者

参考例句：

• I need a collaborator to help me. 我需要个人跟我合作，帮我的忙。
• His collaborator, Hooke, was of a different opinion. 他的合作者霍克持有不同的看法。

7 brooks   

n.小溪( brook的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Brooks gave the business when Haas caught him with his watch. 哈斯抓到偷他的手表的布鲁克斯时，狠狠地揍了他一顿。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ade and Brooks exchanged blows yesterday and they were severely punished today. 艾德和布鲁克斯昨天打起来了，今天他们受到严厉的惩罚。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 predecessors   

n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身

参考例句：

• The new government set about dismantling their predecessors' legislation. 新政府正着手废除其前任所制定的法律。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Will new plan be any more acceptable than its predecessors? 新计划比原先的计划更能令人满意吗？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 notably   

adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地

参考例句：

• Many students were absent,notably the monitor.许多学生缺席，特别是连班长也没来。
• A notably short,silver-haired man,he plays basketball with his staff several times a week.他个子明显较为矮小，一头银发，每周都会和他的员工一起打几次篮球。

10 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

11 dynamite   

n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破)

参考例句：

• The workmen detonated the dynamite.工人们把炸药引爆了。
• The philosopher was still political dynamite.那位哲学家仍旧是政治上的爆炸性人物。

12 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。