Suzuki is Japan's best-known director. He has been internationally acclaimed for his postmodern adaptations of classics by Nanboku, Euripides, Shakespeare and Chekhov since the 1970s, including The Trojan Women, King Lear and Three Sisters and, equally, for his powerful actor training system, which combines elements of Noh and Kabuki with Western realism. Inviting artists from around the world to perform at his Toga and Shizuoka International Festivals, Suzuki has fostered productive exchanges with Jean-Louis Barrault, Robert Wilson, Kanze Hisao, Ashikawa Yoko and numerous others. This 2004 book traces Suzuki's rise from Little Theatre director to international festival celebrity, links his unique Surrealist dramaturgy with his intercultural training system, and gives in-depth descriptions of his most acclaimed productions.
This is an assessment of the work and influence as a director of Jacques Copeau (1879–1949), who has long been regarded as one of the fathers of twentieth-century French theatre. Along with Antoine and his own pupils Dullin and Jouvet, Copeau is known to have been instrumental in restoring the traditional values of theatre at the same time as seeking, through training and experiment, a vital contemporary function. The work of Brook's company and research centre in Paris today is, for example, in direct descent from that of Copeau. John Rudlin examines the course of Copeau's directorial career, concentrating on his techniques in rehearsal and performance, charting his relationships with those who collaborated and worked with him, and elucidating his ideas of theatre. This book will interest all scholars and students of twentieth-century drama, and will also be of use to theatre practitioners.
Max Reinhardt (1873–1943), one of the major theatre figures of the twentieth century, was among the first to establish the importance of the director in modern theatre. His fame outside Germany rests somewhat unfairly on his distorted image as producer of giant, Gothic spectacles staged in vast auditoria or cathedral squares. In this book Professor Styan is concerned to illustrate Reinhardt's astonishing versatility as director of more than six hundred productions, which together cover almost all the dramatic genres and all the major theatrical movements of the time. Professor Styan explains Reinhardt's place in the history of Austrian and German culture and world theatrical movements. Using contemporary reviews and the Regiebuch, or director's promptbook, he describes in detail the organization, performance and impact of some of the director's major productions: his symbolist interpretation of Ghosts and Salome; the expressionist experiment with plays by Wedekind, Strindberg, Sorge
First published in 1981, Michael Patterson's was the first book in any language to be devoted to the work of Germany's leading theatre director. Peter Stein's thoughtful and critical approach to a variety of dramatic texts – from Irish comedy to German classics, where his reputation largely rests – has resulted in a range of different acting and formal styles and some major textual adaptations. The rehearsing, performance and reception of these are thoroughly and vividly recreated here from interviews and archives and in the first-hand account of the workings of the theatre Stein made his own, the Schaubühne in West Berlin. Patterson discusses the apparent contradictions between the Schaubühne's original ideals as a model of socialist theatre and its present situation as one of the most highly subsidizes stages in Western Europe. Many productions are illustrated by photographs and imaginative reconstructions of particular scenes.
For at least the last half-century, Strehler has been an influential and integral part of European theatrical life; today he is most closely associated with the Teatro Piccolo in Milan, Italy's foremost repertory theatre. Outside Italy, Strehler is best known through his directorship of the Paris-based Théâtre de l'Europe, his opera productions, and the plays in the Piccolo repertoire which have toured widely. In this detailed study, David Hirst evaluates the particular qualities which typify Strehler's work: the lyrical realism which has become the hallmark of his mature style, the fusion of naturalism, epic theatre, commedia dell'arte and lyric opera, and the gift of interpretation and production. Hirst traces this unique style through Strehler's development from the foundation of the Piccolo to the present day and analyses his productions of Goldoni, Shakespeare, Brecht and Verdi among others.
Andrzej Wajda stands as one of the leading film-makers in contemporary European cinema, although his equally important theatrical achievements have remained less well-known. This book provides the first account and critical evaluation of this Polish director's work for the theatre. Maciej Karpinski examines Wajda's theatrical career focusing especially on such milestone productions as his internationally acclaimed adaptations of Dostoyevsky. Through an analysis of Wajda's aesthetic views and resultant productions, the study also reveals the vital link between his art and contemporary Polish culture. Karpinski is in a unique position to present a study of Wajda. Since 1974 he has collaborated with the director on a number of productions including The Affair, The Emigrants, and Nastasya Filippovna. As the most complete study of Wajda in the theatre, this book will enable students and teachers to have a fuller knowledge of this important twentieth-century director. The book also contains
This is the first full-length study in any language of Bertolt Brecht's day-to-day work as a theatre director. Professor Fuegi has researched his subject extensively over many years, and this book is the result of interviews with Brecht's closest associates (including Helene Weigel, Angelika Hurwicz, Elisabeth Hauptmann and Hans Bunge), inspection of the unpublished typescripts recording several years of Brecht rehearsals at the Berlin Ensemble, and consultation of archival materials in Moscow, Berlin and Harvard University. Although Brecht is acknowledged worldwide as having changed our whole conception of playwriting, acting and directing, virtually nothing has been previously published which tells how he worked and reacted with actors, and how his productions were actually put together in rehearsal. John Fuegi now tells the story, evoking the excitement and controversy which surrounded Brecht's work on the stage. He examines the way Brecht applied his manic but brilliant character,
Peter Brook is regarded as one of the most important and influential directors today. In this fascinating study, Albert Hunt and Geoffrey Reeves chronicle Brook's development beginning with his earliest productions and concluding with some of his most recent and innovative work. The authors trace the director's work from the Birmingham Repertory Theatre to the Royal Shakespeare Company, the establishment of his own company and theatre at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris, and the creation of his unique theatrical style. Reeves and Hunt also focus on Brook outside the theatre including the film version of Mahabharata and his work for the opera house. The book will be of interest to theatre practitioners, students and scholars as well as to the general reader. It includes a chronology of Brook's theatre career and is illustrated with photographs from key productions.
For at least the last half-century, Strehler has been an influential and integral part of European theatrical life; today he is most closely associated with the Teatro Piccolo in Milan, Italy's foremost repertory theatre. Outside Italy, Strehler is best known through his directorship of the Paris-based Théâtre de l'Europe, his opera productions, and the plays in the Piccolo repertoire which have toured widely. In this detailed study, David Hirst evaluates the particular qualities which typify Strehler's work: the lyrical realism which has become the hallmark of his mature style, the fusion of naturalism, epic theatre, commedia dell'arte and lyric opera, and the gift of interpretation and production. Hirst traces this unique style through Strehler's development from the foundation of the Piccolo to the present day and analyses his productions of Goldoni, Shakespeare, Brecht and Verdi among others.
This book traces the career of the Russian revolutionary theatre director, Vsevolod Meyerhold, from his early years as a founding member of the Moscow Art Theatre with Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, through his Symbolist period, his experiments with commedia dell'arte and other popular forms, to his demise in the Stalin era. Leach describes in detail Meyerhold's 'system' of theatre: his attitude to the audience, the place of the fore stage, 'biomechanics' and actor training, and the importance of the mise-en-scène. Finally, Leach explores Meyerhold's legacy, which can be detected in the work of Brecht, Eisenstein, Peter Brook and others.
From her own knowledge of Blin's rigorous working habits, from interviews with close associates, and Blin's own rare statements, production notes and drawings, Odette Aslan has pieced together the history of Blin's work as actor, critic, and director, his relationship with playwrights and actors, and how he struggled against obstacles to stage works by then unknown authors and bring out the peculiar qualities of the plays he chose.
Robert Wilson, the leading American avant-garde theatre director, revolutionised the stage by making visual communication more important than words. His productions cut across the boundaries that traditionally have defined theatre, dance, opera and the visual arts to create a total work of art. This book, the first comprehensive study of Wilson, traces the evolution of the director's astonishing career as well as his complex relationship to language and his visual rhetoric. It explains how he renovated the stage and describes in detail major productions such as: Deafman Glance, Einstein on the Beach, and the Civil Wars. Arthur Holmberg's numerous personal interviews and first-hand observations of Wilson's creative process, provide an intimate, behind-the-scenes view of one of our most original directors. Photographs and sketches from Wilson's private collection are included, along with a chronology of his work.
This book is a revised and expanded version of Ingmar Bergman: Four Decades in the Theatre, by the same authors, published more than ten years ago. The developments that have occurred in the interim, clustered around Bergman's triumphant return to the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm after years of self-imposed exile, have profoundly altered the course of this extraordinary career. Still the only book of its kind in English, this amply illustrated study uses detailed and comprehensive analyses of a range of Bergman's productions to chart the full scope and depth of his achievement in the theatre, from the early Macbeth in 1944 to his new, widely acclaimed performance of Ibsen's Peer Gynt in 1991.
