Revolutionary British theater director Peter Brook dies in France at the age of 97

Peter Brook, the British theater director who works in France and who revolutionized 20th century theater, died in Paris at the age of 97.

The director, a pioneer of theater outside traditional theaters, staging productions in unexpected places such as gyms, abandoned factories and old gas plants, was known for his experimental, no-nonsense approach to staging both classical and classical operas. new.

He was born in West London to Lithuanian Jewish parents on March 21, 1925. Doctor Faust 1943 at the Torch Theater in London.

At the age of 20 he was appointed director of productions of the Royal Opera House, where he excelled in Richard Strauss’s experimental productions. Salome Scenes by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí.

In the 1950s he began working for the Royal Shakespeare Company, headed by Sir Laurence Olivier. Titus Andronicus in Stratford in 1955.

Brooke spent the late 1950s and late 1960s working between London and New York. His best-known works from this period include the Tony Award-winning production Marathi / Sade by the German playwright Peter Weiss, who was considered bold at the time for his use of nudity and violence.

He moved permanently to France in the early 1970s to found the International Theater Research Center (ICTR) in the French capital.

In the early days of ICTR, he took his troupe, which included British actress Helen Mirren and Japanese actor Yoshi Oida, on tour in the Middle East and Africa to test their ideas on theater.

Upon his return, he restored the dilapidated Bouffe du Nord variety theater as the center’s permanent home. It opened in October 1974 with a Shakespeare production. Helm of Athens Adapted by the late French playwright and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière.

The later historical productions of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda include 1985 mahabharat, A nine-hour version of the Hindu epic adapted from Carrière and 2005 Tender Bocari A brief account of the Sufi, which became the basis of a broad worldwide discussion of his life and message of religious tolerance.