First published in 1991, Peter Brook and the Mahabharata is a collection of essays which contextualizes the production of Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata. Written by both scholars and collaborators on Brook’s production, these essays seek not only to discuss such issues as the politics of theatre interculturalism, but to describe the nature of the working process, and detail the technical problems engendered by touring a production of this size and complexity. Furnished with a new preface by the editor, the book continues to be crucial research work devoted to unravelling the mesmerising as well as the polarising enigma known as Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata. Thoroughly heterogenous and controversially irreverent, this book will be of interest to students of theatre, performance art, literature, South Asian studies and media studies.
Author(s): David Williams
Series: Routledge Revivals
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 358
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Original Title
Original Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I Introduction
1 THEATRE OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE: PETER BROOK’S INTERNATIONAL CENTRE - AN INTRODUCTION
2 A NARRATIVE SYNOPSIS OF THE MAHABHARATA
Part II Practitioners’ accounts
3 THE PRESENCE OF INDIA: AN INTRODUCTION
4 THE LANGUAGE OF STORIES
5 THEATRE, POPULAR AND SPECIAL, AND THE PERILS OF CULTURAL PIRACY
6 WHAT IS NOT IN THE MAHABHARATA IS NOWHERE
7 THE BRIDGE OF SAND
8 FLUIDITY AND OPENNESS
9 SENSITIVITY AND LISTENING
10 MUSICAL BRICOLAGE
11 MALLEABILITY AND VISIBILITY
12 ENERGY AND THE ENSEMBLE: ACTORS’ PERSPECTIVES
Part III Production - Scenography
13 THE GREAT POEM OF THE WORLD: A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS
The Game of Dice
Exile in the Forest
The War
Postscript: Brook’s scenography
Part IV Production - Critical perspectives
14 THE GREAT INDIAN EPIC AND PETER BROOK
15 INTERACTION-INTERPRETATION: THE MAHABHARATA FROM A SOCIO-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
16 A VIEW FROM INDIA
17 SOMETHING MORE VOLCANIC
18 PETER BROOK’S ‘ORIENTALISM’
19 BROOK’S SIX DAYS: THEATRE AS THE MEETING PLACE BETWEEN THE VISIBLE AND THE INVISIBLE
Part V Staging an epic: The Mahabharata in production
20 MAHABHARATA PRODUCTION DETAILS
21 THE WORLD TOUR: LOGISTICS AND ECONOMICS
Bibliography
Index
