Prospero's "true Preservers": Peter Brook, Yukio Ninagawa, and Giorgio Strehler--twentieth-century Directors Approach Shakespeare's The TempestAt the same time, it documents how Brook, Ninagawa, and Strehler adapted and applied African storytelling techniques, textual deconstruction, traditional Japanese art and theatrical forms, and Italian stage tradition to the performance of Shakespeare and investigates how these three directors' diverse applications to the same canonical work have contributed to the development of the modern stage director."--Jacket. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
1948 production acting actors adaptation Alonzo Antonio Ariel attempt audience became began Brecht Brook wrote Brook's production Caliban Cambridge character CICT clown commedia dell'arte contemporary costume created critic Croyden cultural danced directed director downstage Dream dressed duction elements English Festival film Gielgud Giorgio Strehler Gonzalo Grassi Hirst hut/stage improvisations interview island Italian Italy Jan Kott Japanese June Kabuki King Lear Kott Kurosawa light London Macbeth magic mask masque scene metatheatrical Milan Miranda and Ferdinand mirror modern November observed offstage onstage opening opera Othello Paris performance history pero's Peter Brook Piccolo Teatro play's playing area production's Pros Prospero Quasimoto rehearsal process robes role Royal Shakespeare Royal Shakespeare Company Sebastian Shake Shakespeare productions ship space speare speare's spirit stage left style Tempest Tempest experiment theater theatrical themes Throne of Blood tion tradition translations Trewin Trinculo University Press upstage visual Western Yoshi Oida Yukio Ninagawa Zeami
Popular passages
Page 82 - You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse : The red plague rid you, For learning me your language ! Pro.
Page 16 - Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground ; long heath, brown furze, any thing : The wills above be done ! but I would fain die a dry death.
Page 149 - Primitives are like children, the tropes say. Primitives are our untamed selves, our id forces - libidinous, irrational, violent, dangerous. Primitives are mystics, in tune with nature, part of its harmonies. Primitives are free. Primitives exist at the "lowest cultural levels"; we occupy the "highest", in the metaphors of stratification and hierarchy commonly used by Malinowski and others like him.
Page 111 - Shakespearian dramas are constructed not on the principle of unity of action, but on the principle of analogy, comprising a double, treble, or quadruple plot, which repeats the same basic theme; they are a system of mirrors, as it were, both concave and convex, which reflect, magnify and parody the same...
Page 17 - This is something that we, the mestizo inhabitants of these same isles where Caliban lived, see with particular clarity: Prospero invaded the islands, killed our ancestors, enslaved Caliban, and taught him his language to make himself understood.
Page 17 - Prospero invaded the islands, killed our ancestors, enslaved Caliban, and taught him his language to make himself understood. ... I know no other metaphor more expressive of our cultural situation, of our reality
Page 150 - ... theatre, my personal experience over the last few years was very revealing. The core of our work at the International Centre of Theatre Research was to bring together actors from many different backgrounds and cultures, and help them work together to make theatrical events for other people. First, we found that popular cliches about each person's culture were often shared by the person himself. He came to us believing that he was part of a specific culture, and gradually through work discovered...
Page 55 - But when we see how nothing in the play is what it seems, how it takes place on an island and not on an island, during a day and not during a day, with a tempest that sets off a series of events that are still within a tempest even then the storm is done, that the charming pastoral for children naturally encompasses rape, murder, conspiracy and violence...
Page 45 - It seemed to me that the distinctive mark of this type of the comic was violence. I propose to prove it with a few samples from my memories. First of all, Pierrot was not the figure to which the late-lamented Deburau had accustomed us — that figure pale as the moon, mysterious as silence, supple and mute as the serpent, long and straight as the gibbet — that artificial man activated by eccentric springs.
Page 52 - ... contrived, stylized costumes that do not belong to any period; on the other hand, their costumes must not be accurate museum copies. They must be Romans as seen and painted by the Renaissance. This is the way chosen by Mr. Brook. Like a true artist, he does not copy, or impose an artificial unity. He has freely taken a full range of yellows from Titian, dressed his priests in the irritating greens of Veronese. The Moor, in his black-blue-and-gold costume, is derived from Rubens.