About the Book:

HARD TO FIND BOOK, only a very limited number of copies are still available.

The Shifting Point is a major collection of essays – the culmination of forty years' work by one of the most thoughtful directors in contemporary theatre. With the bravura and insight of a great practitioner and explorer Peter Brook reveals some of the inspiration behind his extraordinary career.

Legendary Director Peter Brook has helped to define modern theatre with his visionary stagings and provocative dramatic theory. His first book, The Empty Space, has long since been required reading for serious students of western drama. Among his much-praised productions, the Tony Award-winning rendition of German dramatist Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade, and the commedia dell'arte interpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream are considered landmarks of 20th-century theater. His mammoth adaptation of India's great epic poem, The Mahabharata, played to ecstatic audiences worldwide and was hailed as "the theatrical event of this century" (Sunday Times).

The Shifting Point spans Peter Brook's unique career – starting with his brilliant debut with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford in the 1940s, through the West End in the 1960s, to his international theatre experiments of the 1980s, including the triumphant success of The Mahabharata. These engrossing, witty essays include commentaries on avante-garde and classic theatre, anecdotes about opera and film work (including his Lord of the Rings), and a series of explorations of Shakespeare's plays, which have commanded Brook's attention from first to last. With more than 30 photographs to provide a visual tour, The Shifting Point, like all of his work, evokes the essential theatre.

What people say:

"Brook is a wonderful writer." — Boston Globe

"Peter Brook is one of the artistic geniuses of our time." — The San Francisco Chronicle

"The great thing about Brook is that, in a medium where others provide answers, he keeps asking questions. This sage and stimulating book shows that, inside a sophisticated adult mind, lurks the intemperate curiosity of a child; which is the mark of genius." — Michael Billington for Listener

About the Author:

Peter Brook CH CBE (1925-2022) was a highly influential British theatrical producer and director. During the 1950s he worked on many productions in Britain, Europe, and the USA, and in 1962 returned to Stratford-upon-Avon to join the newly established Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). Throughout the next the 1960's he directed many ground breaking productions for the RSC before in 1970 forming The International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris.