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The Empty Space: A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate |
Author: Peter Brook
Published: 1995-12-01 |
List price: $11.95
Our price: $9.56
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As of: December 01st, 2008 07:46:00 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 An innovator's ideas about Theatre
I am not very knowledgeable about Theatre and certainly not about Theory of Theatre. I found this book quite abstract and difficult to understand. Its opening sentences sets the tone for the whole work.
"I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. An actor moves across this space while someone is watching and a piece of theatre is engaged."
This would seem to detach Theatre from local trappings and customs.
The book consists in an effort to define four kinds of Theatre, the Deadly or Conventional commercial theatre: the Holy Theatre based on sacred repetition , the Rough Theatre that of people in the steet, and the Immediate Theatre, the flowing transformative Theatre which Brook himself is trying to do.
As the author is considered one of the most revolutionary and important of modern Theatre directors I believe the book might be of value to those actually involved in 'doing Theatre' more than it is to the general reader.
 Required Reading
Before you read anything else on theatre, you should read The Empty Space.
Brook's Genius
What is great about the empty space is that Peter Brook's theory is relevant to all art forms. The four theatres he describes are basically categories in which all art falls into. This seems odd at first until you see what he is describing. What turns most people off is the idea of over-categorizing art. But Brook's theatres tend to be more or less critiques of individual performances, or what the effect of that performance is on the audience. This is also easy to read. Too much theatre philosophy gets bogged down by either melodramatic thespian writers, or rambling philosophies from those who have not trained themselves to ge good writers. With Brook, it is pretty straightforawrd, not always easy to understand mind you, but straightforward. If you are at all interested in the arts then this is a must read.
Peter Brook
This book, along with Uta Hagen's "Respect for Acting" and any Stanaslavski, is the motherload of theater expertise.
Take heed
This is an essential read for anyone interested in the creative and performing arts
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