Peter Brook: everything in the universe can be extraordinary.

In the early 1990s, I am sitting in a small auditorium at The National Theatre in London. Before the performance starts, someone on stage asks if you want to greet the visitors next to you. This immediately creates a different, more intimate dynamic in the auditorium. On a sleek stage with only a few props are four actors and an Arab musician. Yoshi Oida from Japan, Sotegui Kouyaté from Burkina Faso, Maurice Benichou from Algeria and David Bennent from Switzerland. The play is about patients with neurological disorders. The actors take turns playing the patients and the doctors, taking the white doctor's coats from each other. After finishing this breathtaking performance, I feel uplifted and happy.

The Man Who

The play is called 'The Man Who' by Peter Brook, based on the book 'The man who mistook his wife for a hat' by Oliver Sacks. Since that extraordinary experience, I started following Peter Brook. Also saw his plays The Suit, Une Flute Enchantée ( Mozart) and The Valley of Astonishment. All impressive productions with great subtlety, intensity and depth.

Peter Brook (92), also called the "greatest living theatre maker" by British newspaper The Independent, is an extraordinary director. He himself sees what he does more as distilling than directing. Every theatre and film maker of any significance knows his work. In November, he was visiting for an interview with Ruth MacKenzie, director of the Holland Festival, on the stage of the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam. He proved to be an excellent storyteller, as the audience hung on his every word. Remarkable are Brook's light, bright eyes, which look through you, so to speak. A true explorer.

Shakespeare

That exceptional talent was already evident when Peter Brook directed Bernard Shaw's 'Man and Superman' at the age of 21. Thereafter, he directed more than 70 performances in the UK, USA and Europe. In 1962, Brook was asked to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. King Lear with Paul Scofield, Marat de Sade by Peter Weiss and Midsummer Night's Dream with Ben Kingsley are among the highlights. In 1970, he opened the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris with producer Micheline Rozan. Since then, Brook has travelled with his ensemble to the Middle East, Africa and India in search of the essence of acting.

CINEMA

He seeks that core in contact with people in distant lands and other cultures. In 1974, he settled in Paris in the old boulevard theatre 'Bouffes du Nord'. It is an old but atmospheric vaudeville theatre. He strips it down to its rough bricks and starts his centre for research and production. Too many worthwhile performances to mention are born here. Like 'The Man Who', 'The Tragedy of Hamlet' and 'Conference of Birds' about a Persian Suffi poem. In between, Brook directs several operas like Salomé, Faust and Carmen.

Besides theatre and opera, he makes several films. Cinema is actually his great passion; in theatre, he ends up more or less by accident. That perhaps explains why his theatre is often extremely visual. His best-known films are The Mahabharata, which was a registration of his marathon performance in Avignon. It was a nine-hour epic based on the oldest surviving work of literature in history. Another film, Lord of the Flies, based on a book by William Golding, is about power and powerlessness between survivors of a plane crash. Meeting with Remarkable Men is a film about the philosopher, mystic and writer Gurdjieff's search for truth.

Core

Brook can also write, with several books to his credit as Threads of Time, The Shifting Point and the much-quoted The Empty Space from 1968. In the latter book, he opposes the 'deadly' stage of the time with expensive costumes and imposing sets. For Brook, it is mainly about the actors, whom he wants to play as alert and lively as possible. Theatre should be raw and direct, without too many distractions. What makes Peter Brook special is that he lets the people on stage be as unique and authentic as possible and knows how to push them to great heights. As time goes by, he starts making increasingly simple performances: he strips away all the superfluous so that the core emerges.

Peter Brook on the essence of acting. 'What I have observed is that an actor, like any human being, has a small arsenal that he uses again and again. That part he thinks of as himself. Then there is a very deep part of himself that he does not know. This is not just the subconscious, but something much bigger than that. An unknown territory.'

'If the actor addresses too quickly what he considers to be himself, he never goes beyond that area. But through all kinds of ways of working and exploring, you can create a climate of self-confidence, certainty and trust. Not only between the actor and director or the actors themselves, but also within the actor himself. Through his feelings and intuition, he can experiment and take risks. Then a new process begins. The challenge of the role opens some drawers in himself, as one actor put it, that he never opened before.'

DOUCHE

Japanese actor Yoshi Oida, a veteran in Brook's ensemble, compares working with the Brit like taking a shower. 'You feel mentally clean after it'.

Often theatre and film makers have asked to come and watch when Peter Brook is at work with his actors. Brook is never much for that. It interferes with the fragile creative process. So in 2014, his son Simon made a documentary, 'The Tightrope', about Brook's working methods. Here, we see all kinds of fascinating actors from all over the world improvising on a theme. They have to imagine themselves walking on a tightrope. Decided but very subtle and empathetic, Brook goes about his work. He demands the utmost concentration and dedication from himself and the actors.

Kouyate

Dedicated Sotegui Kouyaté certainly was, sadly he was no longer around during the film. He was a tall, skinny African with dreadlocks and deep vivid eyes, who played unforgettably well in The Man Who. A true spiritual presence. He also played the first black Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest and had a remarkable role in The Suit. He died in 2010 at the age of 73.

Silence

Brook has been fascinated by silence all his life. In his biography 'Threads of Time', he describes a visit to the desert the Sahara. 'When I reach the bottom of a sand dune, I experience absolute silence for the first time. There are two kinds of silence, one is absence of sound. The other is a 'nothingness' that is infinitely alive. Every cell in the body is penetrated and called to life by this silence.'

Peter Brook knows how to encourage his actors to play deeper, appealing to all the senses. He says the trick is to give the audience exactly what the actors need a year and a half of research for within 90 minutes.

Finer

Brook on the essence of the theatrical work process: 'It's about giving something special to everyone who comes together in the theatre at that moment, players and audience. So that during the performance they become finer in their feelings, see more clearly and understand more deeply than in their daily isolation and loneliness.'

I experience exactly that on that night in 1994 in London after seeing Brook's The Man Who. I realise I have experienced something extraordinary, the performance makes me feel happy to be alive.