London: Peter Brook, the British-born director who won Tonys and Emmys, and was conferred the Padma Shri last year, passed away at the age of 97, on Monday. He is best known for his theatre work ranging from Broadway’s ‘Marat/Sade’ and ‘Irma La Douce’ to experimental productions such as ‘The Mahabharata’.
Brook’s death was confirmed by his long-time publisher, and later the BBC, on Sunday. He died in Paris, where he has lived since the 1970s, on Saturday. In a statement released on Sunday, Brook’s publisher, Nick Hern Books, noted that he ‘leaves behind an incredible artistic legacy’.
Brook, who was born in London in 1925, later attended Oxford University to study and, while still a youngster, directed his first production in London, Doctor Faustus. After acting as the Royal Opera House’s production director, he went on to become well-known for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, or RSC, which included the Laurence Olivier-starring play Titus Andronicus.
He received a Tony Award for best direction in 1966 for his staging of Peter Weiss’ Marat/Sade and in 1970 for the staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. Throughout his seven-decade career, Brook also won an Olivier Award, an Emmy, and an International Emmy. The director established the International Center for Theater Research after relocating to Paris in the 1970s. It was for this organisation that he would revitalise the dilapidated Bouffes du Nord theatre in the French capital. He is best known in India for his production of the French play ‘Le Mahabharata’ (‘The Mahabharata’), which was based on the Sanskrit epic, by Jean-Claude Carriere. The masterpiece was first staged in 1985 by Brook, who later translated it into English in 1987, in a quarry just outside Avignon in France.
In addition to being recognised internationally, he received numerous art awards, most recently the Princess of Asturias in Spain and the Praemium Imperiale in Japan, Italy, and 2019, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. Adrian Lester, a British actor who collaborated with Brook on several RSC Hamlet productions, tweeted that Brook was a ‘giant in our business. One of Brook’s final works, at 92 years old, was ‘The Prisoner’, which he wrote and staged in Paris as well as at the Edinburgh festival and London’s National Theatre. Just this year, he staged and directed ‘The Tempest Project’ with Marie-Helane Estienne, his long-time collaborator.
Natasha Parry, an actress, was Brook’s wife from 1951 until her death in 2015 due to a stroke. Irina and Simon, their two surviving children, are both directors.
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