I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space, whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.
Peter BrookRead
The purpose of theatre is... making an event in which a group of fragments are sudde nly brought together... in a community which, by the natural laws that make every community, gradually breaks up... At certain moments this fragmented world comes together and for a certain time it can rediscover the marvel of organic life ... The marvel of being one.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Theatre creates moments of unity amidst fragmentation, allowing a community to experience a sense of oneness.
Peter Brook's quote suggests that theatre serves the vital purpose of uniting diverse individuals into a temporary community, where they can collectively experience the wonder of life and unity. Despite the inherent fragmentation of society, these theatrical moments allow people to reconnect with the essence of being alive and the joy of togetherness, albeit briefly.
Themes
TheatreCommunityUnityArtLifeExperience
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a speech about the importance of community in the arts.
More from Peter Brook
All quotes →The meaning of a theater event is that none of us could see something so clearly as with the new energy that is brought with the meeting of a theme, actors living it, and an audience gradually entering it to live it with them. At that moment, a certain light appears, revealing what we would never have thought of on our own.
Peter BrookRead
It's easy to give up, and that's the one thing we cannot do. That's what gives me a reason for working: to leave people with a little more courage, with a little hope that has been nourished. Even if, of course, it's going to disappear, whatever touches one isn't lost forever.
Peter BrookRead
Drama is exposure; it is confrontation; it is contradiction and it leads to analysis, construction, recognition and eventually to an awakening of understanding.
Peter BrookRead
Through a shared aim, shared needs, shared love of a shared result in theatre, from the creation of space... the coming-together of an endlessly repeated climax of shared performance, again and again, something special can appear.
Peter BrookRead
Every form of theatre has something in common with a visit to the doctor. On the way out, one should always feel better than on the way in.
Peter BrookRead
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