In-Depth Dissection Of Peters Brook's The Empty Space

The following in-depth dissection of peters brook’s chapter on deadly theatre within his published book titled The Empty Space will give us a greater insight into not only Brook himself but perhaps his methodology. Deadly theatre is only one of four types of theatre brook describes in vivid detail within the book. Of the four deadly theatre is an entire chapter dedicated on what not to do and why as it is more often classified as boring and otherwise not engaging to the audience, even predictable. Directors, writers and actors all fall back on safe methods of cliché’s and tropes in order to stay safe or perhaps out of sheer laziness. Deadly theatre, being the most common type, avoids exploring other new and interesting avenues. An acceptable assumption is that deadly …show more content…
On the other hand the same audience will dismiss original productions on the grounds being different or they simply do not understand it. On similar note critics have an equally similar influence as an audience does but reaches a wider net; they have the ability to sway an audience one way or another. Brook describes a predicament regarding the audience in that the audience may think deadly theatre is in fact cultured when they are in fact their own worse enemy believing what they have viewed benefited them, regardless of if they enjoyed or understood it. When an audience attends a play they are looking for a form of escapism, something more than life or reality, something deadly theatre falls far short of resulting in an anticlimactic experience. Writers often fall into the trap of deadly theatre by constantly relying on things they know work well based on previous experience regarding the subject matter they are working with. The fault with this is that it leaves little for actors and directors to work