The Shifting Point: 1946-1987

For the ordinary theatergoer, Shakespeare has become a bit of a bore, Brook maintains. Yet the Bard's ""cubism of the theater,'' his curious splicing of verse and prose, ought to resonate with meaning for us today. Here the well-known director explains the rationale behind his controversial productions of King Lear and Romeo and Juliet. This tapestry of essays, notes and manifestos includes a section on the international, multicultural theater group Brook organized in Paris to reinvent the sounds, gestures and scripts that he feels should animate true theater. He relives the group's three-month journey in Africa, which led to his mounting The Conference of the Birds. Another play in which ceremony and performance fuse, Brook's re-creation of the Indian epic Mahabharata, is also discussed. Several pieces on opera explore ways to revive what he considers an artificial, stagnant form. With its far-reaching perspective on avant-garde and classical theater, this journal will reward even readers who are not familiar with the works discussed. (October)