NET NEUTRALITY blog

At the age of 97, the London-based author, who definitively consecrated himself to Paris between the 1950s and 1960s, left an unbridgeable void

————————————————– ———
CINEMA SCHOOL OF WILD TRAILS: REGISTRATION OPEN YEAR 2022-23


————————————————– ———

Taking up one of the fundamental texts of theatrical theory, “The empty space”, there is no doubt that that same empty space from today probably empties, empties because to fill it, or rather, to liberalize it, remove it from unnecessary trappings more Peter Brook. At the age of 97, the London author, who definitively consecrated himself in Paris between the 50s and 60s, leaves an unbridgeable void, because with Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba, among others, he represented the theater of the second half of the twentieth century, he was the milestone of the avant-garde. To hell with the masterpieces, the theater is conceived in the form of life with greater intensity. Almost unmatched in stage practice and theoretical approach. Theater as life, space must be filled because any space can be considered theater. Then the appeal against the “mortal theater” rises, the theater of boredom, of pure entertainment, the bourgeois one, so to speak. The deadly theater is boredom, only in the theater can we find the deep root of humanity, the most daring stories, crossing the various traditions, such as the Indian one, the African one, to which the author is particularly indebted. In the theater, however, it is necessary to find together the essentiality, the deepest trace of all the stories to make the theater become a place in which to gather in great simplicity, chasing a thought. A multicultural idea, an idea of ​​space that is transformed simply thanks to the bodies of the actors. The space to be filled is a carpet resting on the ground, a circle drawn with a piece of chalk. Here we do theater. All conventional apparatuses jump. In “The Tempest” by the tutelary deity Shakespeare, the spectators entered any place, in Rome it was held in a garage. With an Indian reed the sound of the storm was simulated, a vessel indicated the distance, the distance. There was only the strength of the story, sitting on the ground, being around the actors, already in the 60s. Hamlet was a Jamaican boy with dreadlock hair, Ofelia an Indian dancer: all this passed without disturbances because the story took over, essentiality dominated. Al Pacino himself asked Peter Brook directly, in a scene from the film, how to shoot Richard III. Meanwhile Prospero at the end laid down the weapons of magic, an emblematic swan song. But are today’s authors fully aware of how massive the influence of this giant is? In his blue eyes one plunged in search of spirituality without emphasis, but always at the center of his representations. When, from sunset to dawn the next day, Mahabharata was witnessed for the first time at the Avignon Festival in 1985, one of his masterpieces, the spectators were asked to live, question themselves, test themselves, accept a ritual that broke the rules of everyday life. Hindu epic work lasting 9 hours, on tour for four years around the world, also followed by the film version and a TV series, featuring the actor Vittorio Mezzogiorno. Here, sometimes even the cinema appears, or at least its essence. About ten films, collaborating mainly with Jean-Claude Carrière, inspired by works by Marguerite Duras (Moderato cantabilefrom 1959, with Jeanne Moreau and Jean Paul Belmondo), William Golding (Lord of the Flies, of 1963), Georges Gurdieff, another fundamental author as a source of inspiration. Then reworking theatrical experiences on the big screen from works by Shakespeare, Weiss, John Gay, Bizet, Mérimée. The theater, however, is the mirror of life, but in the mirror life is constantly in motion, precisely … the theatrical truth is not on the stage, it is not in the audience, it is precisely in that movement between the stage and the audience, in a sort of Lotmanian semiosphere, which incorporates the signals of satellites such as the verses of poets and the cries of humanity. All this is not a metaphor, but reality. At the Opera he dealt with the “Don Giovanni”, one of the most complex works of all and above all full of remarkable interpretative stratifications. Also in this case the miracle is accomplished, Peter Brook pursues and finds the essential, with simple costumes, a practically empty stage, only benches. How could the commentator killed by Don Giovanni at the beginning leave the scene? He does this by simply standing up on his own legs after dying and disappearing to the back of the stage. And how could he reappear dead? Simple, reappearing from the same point from which he had disappeared, with his face a little paler this time to better convey the idea of ​​a body that has passed away. So here we are in the world of the reform of the scenic language, at the same time of the impoverishment of the purely visual decoration and the enrichment to the nth degree of humanity, of poetry. The work on the actor returns, the human and political theater returns, with a necessary and felt transport towards young people, the new generations, in the hope that the creative community will find itself more and more motivated and combative than before. The empty space apparently empties without Peter Brook, but if these new generations of authors continue to work with and through the actors, that same space will open up once again, it will express more and more freedom. The research will not pass from conventions but from the heart of the viewer, binding itself to an ethics, transmitting profound values. And we will look deeper and deeper into things. Just when all is lost, or it seems, to find strength in “The quality of forgiveness”, another overflowing text, starting again from the works of Shakespeare, illuminating every impulse or feeling for which being able to forgive transcends and enlivens our every possibility of understanding.

—————————-
15 SCHOOL SCHOLARSHIPS WILD TRAILS

—————————-

————————————————– ————
The Summer Cinema Arenas in Rome

————————————————– ————

NET NEUTRALITY blog – Peter Brook, space empties – SentieriSelvaggi