Peter Brook dies at 97 and leaves a giant legacy to the world of theater and the arts

The most influential theater director of the 20th century, Peter Brook, passed away this Saturday, July 2 at the age of 97, leaving a great legacy for the world of theater, cinema and all the arts that can find inspiration in his work.

“I can take any empty space and call it a stage. Someone walks through this empty space while someone else watches, and that is enough for the theatrical act to begin.”, he pointed out in his most widely read book, ‘The empty space’.

As he remembers it, the newspaper El País, his career that extends from the middle of the 20th century to the present. He has left behind extraordinary works such as Shakespeare’s stagings, of course, ‘Hamlet’, ‘Lear’, ‘The Tempest’, ‘Timon of Athens’, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, or his staging of ‘Marat / Sade by Peter Weiss’ in 1964. Not to mention his interpretation of Mahabharata, in his 9-hour version of the Hindu poem.

“I do not believe in cultural colonialism. As a white society we do not have an art or a theater superior to that of places in the world such as Africa and the Middle East, simply our speech is a fragment of this art. In Japan and Africa they express themselves in a different way, with great clarity and freedom, I could even say that there are actors there superior to the English or French. The important thing is to share”, said Peter Brook, winner of the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts, in an interview with France Press.

Great achievements

He was also an essay writer, film director with filming of his plays and productions purely for the screen such as ‘Moderato cantabile’ (1960), ‘Lord of the Flies’ (1963), ‘Encounters with Remarkable Men’ (1979), and collaborated with the writer Jean-Claude Carrière, on many projects.

But that was not all. The most influential theater director of the 20th century and born in London in 1925, he was also director of productions at the Royal Opera House, he was part of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), from where he managed to direct various plays with great actors such as John Gielgud , Laurence Olivier, Glenda Jackson and Jean-Louis Barrault.

In his outstanding career he won the ‘Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Director’ in 1966; the ‘Drama Desk Award for Best Director’ in 1971; ‘Shakspeare Award’ in 1973, ‘Tony Award’ for Best Direction in Play in 1966 and 1971; the ‘Obie Award’ for Best Direction in 1988; the Moliere Awared’ For Best Director Award; ‘Moliere Aware’ For Best Musical in 2011; ‘UNITER Senate Award – Award for Excellence’ in 2015; ‘Princess of Austria Award for the Arts’ in 2019 and the Padmma Shri Award in 2021.