Peter Brook's 'Empty Space'

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NOT NOTHINGNESS:

PETER BROOK’S ‘EMPTY SPACE’ AND ITS ARCHITECTURE

Negin Djavaherian

School of Architecture McGill University, Montreal, Canada August 2012

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Negin Djavaherian, 2012

To my parents, Parvaneh and Hassan, and to Alois

ABSTRACT

The thesis explores architectural potential and experience in the theatre of Peter Brook (1925-). The importance of his thought, writings and theatrical creation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries reaches far beyond the question of theatre. It prepares a ground for exploring the ethical and poetic dimensions of architecture. Refusing to reduce the role of theatre to making ‘pictures,’ Brook’s theatre strives to offer us ephemeral experience in space and to engage us with the power of individual and communal imagination. What is explored and can be learned from Brook’s theatre cannot be considered as a ‘practical prescription’ or methodology, but rather as a call to an incessant quest. It offers an entry to rethinking the role of architecture not as a finished design, but as a phenomenon that emerges through an ‘event’ and engages its inhabitants and their being in the world.

The dissertation, seen through the lens of an architect, embarks on a journey into Brook’s theatre in which it unravels crucial concepts from his discourse and theatrical experiments offering insights of great value to architects and architectural creation alike. The idea of “empty space,” the relationship between visible and invisible, and the notion of ‘Immediate Theatre’ resonate throughout the investigation. Along the way, I study three theatrical plays: Orghast at the tombs of the Persian kings at Persepolis and Naqsh-e-Rustam (Iran, 1971); The Mahabharata at the Callet Quarry in Boulbon (France, 1985); and Eleven and Twelve at the theatre of Bouffes du Nord (Paris, 2009). The investigation reveals the unusual approach toward places of performance, the exploratory process of creation, and the audience’s involvement in space/time. In the view of this thesis, Brook’s theatrical creation invokes an architecture that temporalizes space and recognizes the ‘present moment,’ immersing its participants in a wholeness of narrative, play and place.

RÉSUMÉ

Cette thèse explore le potentiel offert à l'architecture par le théâtre de Peter Brook (1925-). L'importance de sa pensée, ses écrits et sa création théâtrale dans les vingtième et vingt-et-unième siècles atteint bien au-delà de la question du théâtre. Son travail nous donne un terrain fertile pour explorer les dimensions éthique et poétique de l'architecture. Refusant de réduire le rôle du théâtre à faire des images, le théâtre de Brook s'efforce de nous offrir une expérience éphémère dans l'espace et nous engage par le pouvoir de l'imagination individuelle et collective. Ce qui est exploré et qui peut être compris du théâtre de Brook ne peut pas être considéré comme une « recette » ou méthodologie, mais doit plutôt être perçu comme un appel à une quête incessante. Cette approche permet de repenser le rôle de l'architecture non pas comme une maquette, mais comme un phénomène qui émerge à travers un « événement » et engage ses habitants et leurs questions existentielles les plus fondamentales.

Vu à travers de la lentille d'un architecte, la thèse examine les concepts cruciaux dans le théâtre de Brook, particulièrement les notions d'« espace vide », la relation entre le visible et l'invisible, et la notion de « théâtre immédiat ». Pour ce faire, j'étudie trois pièces de théâtre : Orghast, sur les tombes des rois de Perse de Persépolis et de Naqsh-e Rustam (Iran, 1971); Le Mahabharata, à la carrière Callet à Boulbon (France, 1985), et Onze et Douze, au théâtre de Bouffes du Nord (Paris, 2009). La recherche révèle l'approche inhabituelle vers les lieux de performance, le processus d'exploration de la création et la participation du public dans l'espace/temps. La création théâtrale de Brook apparaît comme une architecture qui induit le temps à l'espace et reconnaît le « moment présent », plongeant ses participants dans une plénitude du récit, du jeu et du lieu.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When I look back at these years of my life, I feel profoundly happy and privileged that I had the opportunity to meet Professor Alberto Peréz-Goméz and be one of his students. I am eternally grateful for his discerning suggestions and critical comments that made this dissertation steadily evolve. Without his help and advice I would not have been able to find my way. He patiently and kindly allowed me to find my own connection with this thesis. I am forever indebted to him for his teachings and writings which are immeasurably crucial to us here and now. I would like to greatly thank Professor Louise Pelletier, who, with her intimate knowledge of theatre, guided me safely across all the stages until the very end. Through her thoughts and writings, I learned the expressive relation between architecture and theatre which immensely helped me to lead and direct my own thoughts. Her careful reading and suggestions throughout the length of my work were essential in shaping the content and the structure of the dissertation. Over the years, her boundless kindness, support and caring were always present; for this I cannot thank her enough. I would like to dearly thank Professor Ricardo L. Castro for deepening my interest in Peter Brook’s theatre. Our conversations always inspired me and provided me with many important bibliographic references. He was always willing and open to listen when I needed advice.

Through the course of my explorations, I have come to appreciate enormously the theatre of Peter Brook and what it means for architects. I am deeply thankful for the magical chance of meeting with and talking to him. I feel honoured to have had the opportunity to learn from a man whose footsteps have left imprints in the history of the 20th century and the new millennium. All these explorations have had a profound influence on my life. Appreciation and gratitude will stay with me forever. Words cannot begin to express my gratitude to Nina Soufy. All her kindness and her presence brought many blessings to my exploration. Meeting her for the first time, I had feeling that I had known her for a thousand years. The time spent with Nina will stay with me as one of the most cherished memories I carry in my heart. Through listening to and learning from Arby Ovanessian, I have started to feel why Peter Brook mentioned: “Arby is exceptional.” I will be forever grateful for the long hours Arby patiently spent leading me through the mysteries of Orghast and sharing his experience and otherwise untold stories with me. Jean-Claude Carrière provided me with the key that opened the gate to my deepest understanding of the very core of Peter Brook’s theatre. Meeting him was invaluable for developing my investigation, for which I am filled with gratitude. His eloquence and passion for theatre painted the most vivid images in my mind.

I am very grateful to Professor Kamran Safamanesh for the years of his support and guidance. The memory of his atelier, an old house in the north of Tehran, is very close and clear to me. In retrospect, I now recognize it as the place where I first explored the possibilities of moving between poetry and architecture. I would like to thank Professor Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani, one of the most influential Persian poets and literary critics, for his poignant ideas and words in the first year of my project that penetrated my later explorations. One of the most prominent Iranian philosophers, Professor Dariush Shayegan, gave me an insight into the world of imaginative creation and shared with me his experience of Peter Brook’s theatre, for which I am greatly thankful. Meeting with Babak Ahmadi, whose contemporary thoughts on Persian mystical poetry, particularly Attar’s poems are invaluable, were very important for me in the early stages of my research.

I am especially grateful to Professor David Williams for discussing the project with me several times over the past few years and giving me wonderful ideas that were essential to my research. His comments and suggestions were instrumental in weaving the network of propositions about Brook’s theatre. Jean-Guy Lecat generously shared his knowledge and experience of the essential qualities of ‘found spaces’ he explored for so many years with Peter Brook. I am greatly thankful for the conversations we had in Paris. Andrew Todd, an architect constantly involved with theatre, taught me a great deal about Brook’s theatrical creation. I greatly benefited from his ideas crafted from the architectural point of view. Parviz Pour Hosseini, one of the most acclaimed actors who took part in Orghast, enabled me to relive parts of the play by reciting passages and helped me to feel the expressive power of sound. His excitement about the performance felt as intense as it was forty years ago. The time I spent listening to Keyvan Mahjoor’s stories and recollections of Orghast provided me with the first-hand experience of a spectator during the performance and for this I am particularly grateful. I appreciate the exiting, vivid stories that Malek Jahan Khazai revealed to me about the time of her collaboration with Peter Brook.

Special thanks also go to guest critics in PhD reviews: I am very grateful to Professor David Leatherbarrow for his insightful suggestions. His perceptive questions led me to direct and concentrate my research. I would also like to thank Professor Marco Frascari, Roger Conover and Louis Brillant for guiding and helping me navigate through a labyrinth of ideas. I benefited a great deal from Juhani Pallasmaa’s compelling lectures and discussions. I would like to express my appreciation to Professor Michael Jemtrud for his support. I would also like to acknowledge Professor Robert Mellin for his help in the early stages of my project. Sincere thanks to Aydin Aghdashloo, Alireza Sami Azar, Mohammad Charmshir, Farhad Mohandespoor and Bavand Behpoor who contributed to my project.

I would express my deepest gratitude to Lawrence Bird for reading my dissertation and all his suggestions and comments from beginning to end. My thesis would not have been possible without his great help. My dear friend Angeliki Sioli, with her dynamic character and perpetual happiness, made me move constantly forward, and her unrelenting encouragement allowed me to pass through many difficulties. My close friend Maria Elisa Navarro Morales helped me constantly with her ideas and helpful suggestions. Her invigorating approach and kind personality provided me with enormous support during my PhD. All those cafés in Montreal and empty coffee cups recall my discussions with Ron Jelaco that led me to progress my dissertation in critical moments. I am truly indebted to him for his generous help and knowledge. His seminars with their engaging atmosphere provided me with many enjoyable moments. I am also very thankful to Courtney Jelaco for her warmth and kindness. I will always appreciate the many years of selfless help, generosity and kindness of Rafico Ruiz. I greatly value his input and ideas about my research. Many thanks to Jason Crow for stimulating conversations and provoking thoughts. My long-time friends Pari Riahi and Yahya Modarres-Sadeghi helped me during my first years in Canada with the warmth of their friendship. Pari’s kindness and thoughtfulness has always brought me peace and happiness. I appreciate the friendship of Gül Kale and Dana Margalith, on whom I could rely during the times of difficulties and with whom I shared many happy moments. Lisa Landrum, a kind friend, provided me with invaluable comments and inspiring discussions and for this I am grateful. Many thanks to Jonathan Powers, Jennifer Carter, Christina Contandriopoulos and Lian Chang for their support. I would like to sincerely thank Mohsen Azarm for years of his constant help. The valuable discussions and help of my friend Reza Asgari will not be forgotten. When I think of the years of my PhD, there are many friends who come to my mind in moments near and far: Mehran Khatibi, Paul Holmquist, Shahrad Khorazanizadeh, Hesam Nourani, Peter Olshavsky, Asghar Dashti, Majid Lashkari, Ehsan Daneshyar, Zubin Singh, Orlando Barone, Francoise Forel, Masoud Razavi, Monica Bubenik, Chakameh Dadpay, Hajar Anvar, Kazem Shahbazi, Ali Sanjabi, Samar Saremi, Annabele Beachamp, Sergio Clavijo, Reza Assasi, Renata Vyhnálková and Khosrow Hassani. I would like to thank all of them for their presence.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to visit the Bouffes du Nord several times and I would like to show my gratitude to all the wonderful people I have met there. I would like to acknowledge my appreciation to all great people at the School of Architecture at McGill University whom I met throughout my studies. I would never have been able to get through the administrative work without the help and friendly attitude of Marcia King and Wambui Kinyanjui. As a recipient of a McGill-CCA grant, I would like to thank both McGill University and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) for their financial support and the opportunity to work in the engaging environment of the Study Centre at the CCA. Special thanks to Alexis Sornin and all the people who helped me during my stay. I also benefited from the Graduate Research Enhancement and Travel Awards from McGill School of Architecture. I would also like to express appreciation to the staff of the Humanities & Social Sciences Library, Blackader-Lauterman Library and Islamic Library at McGill, CCA library, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the National Library of Iran and the Archive Institute of Tehran. My thanks also go to all people of the Rare Books Stores in Tehran, who allowed me to access rare books, newspapers and other material.

Finally, I would like to dedicate my dissertation to my parents, in whose presence I feel nothing in the world is impossible. Every step in my quest, I carried them in my heart. To my father Hassan, who has always believed in me, has given me strength when I faltered, motivated me when I felt lost: thank you. His faith, hope and spirit; his power and immediacy; and years of architectural practice have always inspired me. Pains, he keeps inside, sharing limitless happiness and life with others. To my mother, Parvaneh, who, with her purity, has nurtured all my understanding of beauty. With her tremendous vitality and love for others, with her calmness and active silence, she constantly gave me the ability to explore and progress towards the completion of this endeavour. Alois, my husband, my companion, supported me during this exploration. Through his unconditional and wholehearted help and meticulous caring, he taught me love, selflessness and the true meaning of sacrifice. Without him, all would have been simply impossible. My sister Nazanin lived the joy and the pain with me, being born on the same day four years earlier and having just the same feelings as me. The ties between us have been as intense as they were in our childhood. Negar, my younger sister, an actress, opened our home constantly to the world of theatre and cinema. Her acting and her writing helped me to feel the power of theatre to move, transform and lead us into a better world. The threads of her suggestions and invaluable insights are woven throughout this dissertation. My nephew Bardia gave me the joy of watching him growing from a little boy into a handsome, wonderful young man. I am also indebted to Farhad, a relative, for his limitless help in the early stages. My warmest thanks to my grandparents and the joy of spending time with them and reliving childhood memories. I would like to thank my extended family in the Czech Republic for their moral support and for their relentless effort to make me feel happy. I always think of beautiful summers and happiness with tatíček Lojzi, mamička Růženka, Šárka, Kaji, Míra, Tadeáš, Niky, Matyášek and Karolínka. I have been carrying the warmth of their presence within me ever since I have met them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 2 Between Visible and Invisible, Rough and Holy

PART I: ‘THEORY – ‘NON-THEORY’ 1.1. Interview with Peter Brook 31 1.2. Carpet in the Desert 46 1.3. The Bouffes du Nord Theatre 58 1.4. ‘Found Spaces’ 67 1.5. Dynamic Propositions 76 1.5.1. Process: ‘A Formless Hunch’ 76 1.5.2. Imaginative Complicity 81 1.5.3. Present Moment 86 1.5.4. Expression of Silence 89

Part II: DEVELOPING A PRACTICE: ORGHAST 2.1. Shiraz Arts Festival 95 2.2. The Flesh of Sound 104 2.2.1. Avesta 106 2.2.2. Orghast 110 2.3. Nested Myths 115 2.3.1. The Chained One 117 2.3.2. Physiology of Orghast 123 2.3.3. Sound and Light; Creation and Destruction 127 2.3.4. The Myth of Creation 129 2.3.5. Zoroastrianism 131 2.4. Discovering the Places of Performance 134

PART III: PLACING THREE PLAYS 3.1 Orghast 145 3.1.1. The Play – ‘Non-Referential’ and ‘Non-Intellectual’ 145 Orghast I – The Tomb of Artaxerxes at Persepolis 149 Orghast II - Tombs of Persian Kings at Naqsh-e-Rustam 156 3.1.2. Place and Play: An Immediate and Intimate Relationship 166 3.1.3. Reciprocities and Means of Engagement 170 Engaging Lives 170

From Seeing Eyes to Enthralled Bodies 172 Astonishment, Ambiguity and the Broken Line 173 Language, the Raw Ear, Babel 178 Timelessness and Myth 183 3.2. The Mahabharata 187 3.2.1. Script Writing for The Mahabharata 190 3.2.2. The Callet Quarry: Discovery, Observation and Transformation 193 3.2.3. The Play: The Mahabharata 197 A Place Apart 199 ‘Elemental Opera’ under Open Sky 202 Durational Experience – Imagination in the Stone Quarry 211 3.3. Eleven and Twelve 214 3.3.1. The Narrative of Eleven and Twelve 215 3.3.2. The Play at the Bouffes du Nord 217 Threads of Silence, Poverty, Destruction and Life 219 Ephemeral Place Creation – Events and ‘Lines of Force’ 226 Thickness and Depth Created Through an Event 233 Shadows, Surfaces and Sand 236

CONCLUDING REMARKS The Present Moment: Chora, Creation 238 Interviews with Jean-Claude Carrière 246

APPENDIX A Personal Account of the Play Eleven and Twelve at the Bouffes du Nord 267

BIBLIOGRAPHY 302

LIST OF FIGURES 315

INTRODUCTION

Between Visible and Invisible, Rough and Holy

‘Deadly’, ‘Holy’, ‘Rough’ and ‘Immediate’. Perhaps these were the words that first provoked my interest in the theatre of Peter Brook (1925-present). These four words, taken from the subtitle of the book The Empty Space1 written by Brook in 1968, have, in my view, architectural implications. What is ‘Holy’ or ‘Rough’ or ‘Deadly’ architecture? Is there an ‘Immediate’ architecture? If we share Brook’s view that everything is potentially theatrical, theatre is about life, and life about theatre, then there is no boundary between them.2 Can we say the same about architecture? Architecture too is about life…

Architecture and theatre have developed a close relationship since before the time of Vitruvius.3 As a paradigmatic place of public involvement and emblematical revelation, theatre has always served as a suggestive source of inspiration for architects and played a role in relation to architectural theories and ideas.4 Both theatre and architecture are “arts of situation”, of creating worlds that position people in “meaningful spatial relationships”5 both individually and collectively. Throughout the twentieth century, significant changes transpired in the essence and nature of theatrical space; these can be studied in relation to architecture. The extraordinary writings of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) on the ‘Theatre of Cruelty’6 opened the floodgates to new areas of exploration. Jerzy Grotowski’s

1 It is the first and one of the most recognized books written by Peter Brook. The title of the book also refers to the main idea of his theatre: the concept of an empty space. See Peter Brook, The Empty Space. A Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate (London, UK: Granada Publishing, 1977). 2 Carol Rozen, "Following a Formless Hunch; The Method of Peter Brook," Theatre Week, Mar. 27, 1992. 3 See Alberto Pérez-Gómez, "Chora: The Space of Architectural Representation," in Chora 1: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture, ed. Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Stephen Parcell, (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994). See also Lisa Landrum, "Architectural Acts: Architect-Figures in Athenian Drama and Their Prefigurations" (Ph.D. Dissertation, McGill University, 2010). 4 In Architecture in Words Louise Pelletier underlines the close development of theatre and architecture theories. She examines the expressive role of architecture and the importance of theatre “as a model for creating sensuous space in architecture,” addressing the temporality of human experience. See Louise Pelletier, Architecture in Words: Theatre, Language and the Sensuous Space of Architecture (London and New York: Routledge, 2006). 5 Gray Read, "Theatre of Public Space: Architectural experimentation in the Théâtre de l’Espace (Theatre of Space), Paris 1937," Journal of Architectural Education 58, no. 4, (2005), 53. 6 ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ is a theatre proposed by Artaud in which, as he points out, “violent physical images crush and hypnotize the sensibility of the spectator seized by the theatre as by a whirlwind of higher forces.” It is a theatre that ‘wakes up nerves and heart’, a theatre in which cruelty

2 (1933-1999) ‘Poor Theatre’7, dubbed a ‘centre of research’8, explored areas of the acting phenomenon, its meaning and “the nature and science of its mental- physical-emotional processes.”9

Peter Stephen Paul Brook, director, filmmaker, writer, painter and pianist, is undoubtedly one of the greatest theatre experimentalists and innovators of the 20th century and 21st centuries. Brook, alongside Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938), George Gurdjieff (1866–1949), 10 Gordon Craig (1872–1966), Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940), Antonin Artaud (1896–1948), Bertolt Brecht (1898– 1956), Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) and Jerzy Grotowski (1933–1999), shaped the outlook of modern theatre. With his notion of ‘empty space’ Brook redefined the fundamental principles of theatrical space and laid down a path for discovering the invisible that leads to enhanced spectator experience.

Brook was born in 1925 to a well-to-do Russian-Jewish family who immigrated to England from Russia in fear of reprisals by the Bolsheviks. He was educated at Westminster Gresham's School and Oxford. At the age of 17, Brook produced The Tragedy of Dr Faustus and by the age of 20, he became the youngest-ever director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. At the age of 24, he directed Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost at Stratford and Godunov’s La Bohème, Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Sartre’s No Exit in London. He became the director of Covent Garden Opera when he was 26. He travelled and explored theatre in Russia, US, Mexico, and Germany along with studying languages; besides English, he speaks Russian, French, German, Spanish and Italian. Brook produced confronts us with all our possibilities. See Antonin Artaud, Theatre and Its Double, trans. Mary Caroline Richards (New York: Grove Press, 1958). 7 See Jerzy Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre, ed. Eugenio Barba (Holstebro, Denmark: Odin Theatre, 1982). 8 Peter Brook refers to the theatre of Grotowski as a ‘laboratory’, and as a ‘centre of research’. 9 Peter Brook, The Shifting Point; Theatre, Film, Opera 1946-1987 (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 37. 10 Brook refers to George Gurdjieff, a Greek-Armenian philosopher and a spiritual master of the early 20th century, as “one of the most powerful influences” in his life. Quoted from Margaret Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 1970-2000 (New York: Faber & Faber, 2003), 273. Brook’s film Meetings with Remarkable Men is based on life of Gurdjieff. See Peter Brook, Meetings with Remarkable Men, Directed by Peter Brook (1979), DVD.

3 thirty different theatrical plays and attempted film, television and opera before joining the newly-created Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at the age of 37. The mandate of RSC was to re-examine modern theatre and ‘modernize’ Shakespeare for the contemporary audience, which lead to his production of King Lear.11 In 1969 at the age of 44, Brook established an international centre whose aim was to focus on the fundamental questions of theatre: What is theatre? What is the role of theatre? Who is the theatre for?12 Between 1971 and 1973, Brook with a group of international actors embarked on a journey aimed at answering those questions; en route they visited Iran, Africa, and the United States. In 1974, Brook discovered the Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris which has become his home. To this date, Brook produced over 50 major theatre performances, directed 8 films and wrote 7 books.

This thesis investigates architectural experience in Peter Brook’s theatrical work. My research is not concerned with the theory of theatre or literary criticism, per se. Attempts to theorize and categorize Brook’s discourse on theatre in conventional terms are likely to fail since Brook’s theatrical discourse is rather a ‘practical philosophy’ in Aristotle’s sense. It cannot, and was not meant to be considered as a structured comprehensive theory in a term of a set of prescriptions. One could suggest that Brook encourages us to redefine the very nature of theory, not as an abstract construct, but as a repositioning of the spectator in relation to the spectacle. In my interview with Jean-Claude Carrière, he emphasized that very point: “Peter [Brook] is the contrary of the theoretical man. You must start with practice and try to reach some elements of theory, but the moment you try to be faithful to a certain idea of theatre, you are lost. And I suppose it is the same for architecture. The theory – when you are a group of people working together –

11 In his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 1955, Brook examined the tragedy through the viewpoint of the twentieth century’s most prominent dramatic theorists: Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Craig, Brecht and Artaud. Brook explains that Stanislavsky, Meyerhold and Craig were pioneers who established a new point of view of the theatre director with Brecht and Artaud considered as their successors. “They were all visionaries, but Stanislavky, Meyerhold and Brecht were also very practical. Their contradictory views are like spotlights illuminating the stage from different sides.” See Alan Riding, "For Peter Brook, ‘Hamlet’ as a Starting Point," New York Times, Jan. 16, 1996. 12 Margaret Croyden, Lovers and Poets; The Contemporary Experimental Theatre (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), 245.

4 always divides, and practice always puts together. ‘La théorie divise, la pratique unit’.”13 Brook’s discourse is rather a journey, an impulse which prepares the ground for further exploration. The last lines of Brook’s book The Empty Space declare: “As you read this book, it is already out of date. It is for me an exercise, now frozen on the page.”14 Brook continues: “In everyday life, ‘if’ is a fiction, in the theatre ‘if’ is an experiment. In everyday life, ‘if’ is an evasion, in the theatre ‘if’ is the truth. When we are persuaded to believe in this truth, then the theatre and life are one. This is a high aim. It sounds like hard work. To play needs much work. But when we experience the work as play, then it is not work anymore. A play is play.”15 In my interview with Peter Book, he reiterated that he refuses to theorize about his theatrical work. For him, “it is living.”16 Every idea or theory must be rediscovered through practice; theatre comes to truth through real experience.17 The theatre is about life and to make theatre about life can never be accomplished through theory.18

This thesis is based on the premise that Brook’s approach to theatre not only contributed to the transformation of theatrical creation in the twentieth century, but also opened possibilities for rethinking and exploring it in the context of the spatial and temporal experiences of architecture. By studying Brook’s ‘non-theory’ and his theatrical creation, this dissertation aims to uncover and explore their meanings and qualities that matter for architectural theory and practice.

One of the thought-provoking notions that constantly permeate Brook’s writings is his belief in our ability to create a relationship with the invisible. For him, theatre is about making a connection between our ordinary lives in our everyday world and an invisible world that can be revealed only “when the normal inadequacy of perception is replaced by an infinitely more acute quality of

13 Jean-Claude Carrière, Interviews by Negin Djavaherian, Paris, June 2009 and May 2011. 14 Brook, The Empty Space, 140,141. 15 Ibid. 16 Peter Brook, Interview by Negin Djavaherian, Paris, December 7, 2009. 17 Susannah Herbert, "No Brook with Conventional Interview," Telegraph, May 2, 1998. 18 Jean-Claude Carrière and Peter Brook, The Conference of the Birds: Based on the Poem by Farid Uddi Attar (Chicago: The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1982).

5 awareness.”19 One must, in Brook’s view, allow energy to flow through hidden passages of the human body; by doing so, limitless possibilities will emerge and one could then really “start to listen to the invisible.”20 Brook postulates that the act of theatre should explore and reveal “the hidden mysteries of the cosmos” and, at the same time, it must bring together as though into the light all human beings and provide them with a play that addresses social conditions, love, or even pure entertainment and comfort to the lonely man. This, according to Brook, is supposed to happen all at once.21

“We need a poetic theatre,”22 Brook believes, a theatre that proposes an image beyond our comfortable, ordinary, everyday lives, a theatre that can transcend all references and move beyond them into something pure.23 It is a region that requires an extensive esoteric and sincere exploration of hidden and unknown qualities in order to access the poetic dimension; it is a region where theatre deals with ‘poetry’, ‘tragedy’, ‘catharsis’…24 Paradoxically, Brook refers to impurity as the basis and essence of the theatre.25 For him, the theatre cannot be entirely pure,26 and he suggests that “[w]hen our theatre is serious, it is never very serious.” 27 Georges Banu likens this characteristic of Brook’s theatre to an alliance between sky and ‘dung’.28 He believes that for Brook there is a need for both qualities, and authentic experience requires the presence of both of them. In The Shifting Points, Brook suggests that “our only hope is in extremes – in marrying opposites – so that the smashing of the conventions that cozy out the terrors and the pains be accompanied by laughter – so that explorations of time

19 Peter Brook, There Are No Secrets: Thoughts on Acting and Theatre (London: Mathuen Drama, 1993), 85. 20 Georges Banu, "Brook’s Six Days; Theatre as the Meeting Place Between the Visible and the Invisible," in Peter Brook and the Mahabharata: Critical Perspectives, ed. David Williams, (New York: Routledge, 1991), 271. 21 Peter Brook, (Extracts from Peter Brook's Speech at Epson Awards, Oslo, Norway, September 1, 2008. Peter Brook's private copy), CD. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Brook, The Shifting Point, 60. 25 Georges Banu, Peter Brook; Vers un Théâtre Premier (Paris: Flammarion, 2005), 263. 26 Brook, The Shifting Point, 60. 27 Ibid. 28 Banu, Vers un Théâtre Premier, 262.

6 and consciousness, of rituals of love and death be accompanied by the coarse grain of life and living.”29 He views the theatre as a stomach which churns the ‘food’ into two opposite equalities: “excrement and dreams.”30 In theatre history, Brook emphasizes, no theatre expresses this paradox better than Shakespeare’s.31 His theatre is inherently religious. It creates a connection between the spiritual world and the secular, visible world of identifiable forms and actions. Shakespeare “makes no concessions at either end of the human scale.”32 To Brook, “Shakespeare is unique because he felt strongly and intuitively the need to capture all of this at once. He set out on an incredible technical journey which was to find the devices that enable you to get all this at once.”33

With respect to the notion of the visible and the invisible, Georges Banu refers to the question of intuition and intelligence in Brook’s theatre in which both entities are required to create moments or events that are ‘true’ and ‘really’ alive. Intuition can seize the invisible quality, but it has to constantly ready itself in preparation for that; one must not only rely on intelligence, because it would destroy everything.34 The notion of the visible and the invisible brings forth the discussion of ‘Holy Theatre’ and ‘Rough Theatre’. The world of appearance is crust, Brook writes in The Empty Space, and beneath this crust is “the boiling matter we see if we peer into a volcano.”35 In ‘Holy Theatre’ – The Theatre of the Invisible-Made- Visible – the stage is a place where the invisible can emerge and can exert an influence over our thoughts.36 It is connected to an invisible zone that is beyond formal manifestation, but which embodies a compelling energy.37 It is a theatre in which the spectators can experience the invisible and through it can transcend their everyday experience.38 For Brook, ‘Holy Theatre’ implies “that there is

29 Brook, The Shifting Point, 60. 30 Ibid. 31 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 85. 32 Ibid. 33 Rozen, "Following a Formless Hunch." 34 Banu, Vers un Théâtre Premier, 227. 35 Brook, The Empty Space, 52. 36 Ibid., 42. 37 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 58. 38 Brook, The Empty Space, 42.

7 something else in existence, below, around and above, another zone even more invisible, even farther from forms,” that contain enormously potent energy.39 This zone with its regions of energy generates impulses that lead us towards a ‘quality’40 that Brook refers to as ‘sacred’. It is crucial to reveal what Brook means by ‘holiness’ or ‘sacredness’. For him, ‘sacredness’ is not a form. The decadence of religions originates from one’s confusion between, on the one hand, formless phenomena such as current or light and, on the other, dogmatic ceremonies and rituals – forms – that rapidly lose their meaning and importance. He points out that certain ceremonies and rituals, perfectly acceptable for certain societies in a certain period of history, are still being defended with respect. Brook asks: “But of what respect are we speaking?”41 He believes in the necessity to capture the invisible in our arts, but he reminds us “our vision is locked to the dark end of the spectrum.”42 Religion for him is something that one can recognize as a core activity and a reality that one cannot deny. It is hidden inside of oneself and one can respect it, but the moment religion turns into fixed words, images and ideas, it becomes disconnected from us. He asserts that in order to connect to religion, we always need a mediator that words, images and ideas imposed upon us by religious approaches do not portray.43

If theatre had in its origins rituals that made the invisible incarnate, Brook suggests, these rituals vanished or fell dormant over time, except for certain Oriental theatres.44 Brook raises the question of how a common man today can rediscover a ‘true ritual’. He provides a cautionary example: a new cathedral built in Coventry by the best artists in an attempt to create architecture that would celebrate God, man and culture. Once it was finished, although the appearance was fine, the ritual was dead. The new place, Brook emphasizes, “crie[d] out for a

39 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 58. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 59. 42 Brook, The Empty Space, 45. 43 Brook, Extracts from Peter Brook's Speech at Epson Awards. 44 Brook, The Empty Space, 45.

8 new ceremony.”45 The ceremonies should have been developed first and their meanings would, in turn, determine the shape and the quality of the space, as was the case in all grand churches, mosques or temples. Brook warns that repeating rituals from the past does not lead to the ‘invisible’. This comes only through awareness of the present moment in which the ‘invisible’ may appear.46

“Today,” Brook writes in The Empty Space, “as at all times we need to stage true rituals.”47 He suggests to the reader that the true sense of rituals and ceremonies has been lost – whether it is connected to Christmas, birthdays or funerals.48 He completely disagrees with the remaking of the old, sacred rituals because they are unlikely to evoke in us the invisible.49 Nothing is, for Brook, more terrible than ‘cultivating idolatry’. The ‘sacredness’ for him is either present at all times, or it does not exist at all. Therefore, it would be “ridiculous to think that the sacred [is] at the top of the mountain and not in the valley, or on a Sunday or the Sabbath and not the other days of the week.”50

Brook alludes to Antonin Artaud as a prophet in the desert, who raised his voice against the sterile theatre of pre-World-War-II France. Artaud, a true genius and pioneer, envisioned and wrote tracts describing a new form of theatre based on his imagination and intuition – ‘Holy Theatre’. “A theatre working like the plague, by intoxication, by infection, by analogy, by magic; a theatre in which the play, the event itself, stands in place of a text,”51 Aratud’s search for ‘holiness’, Brook underlines, was absolute. Brook believes that the whole avant-garde movement in France carried the stamp of Artaud. Profoundly impressed by Artaud’s thought, Brook aimed to explore his ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ in order to discover new forms of expression. Brook points out that Artaud envisioned a theatre that would come close to being perceived as a holy place. He imagined a theatre that would be

45 Ibid. 46 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 59. 47 Brook, The Empty Space, 45. 48 Ibid., 45,46. 49 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 59. 50 Ibid. 51 Brook, The Empty Space, 49.

9 serviced by a group of devoted actors and directors, whose own nature would fabricate an unending stream of violent stage images. Artaud aimed to overwhelm the audience with “immediate explosions of human matter” 52 and gruesome images that are not uncommon in crimes and wars. He hoped to disarm the audience’s defence and prepare a condition under which the audience “would allow itself to be perforated, shocked, startled, and raped, so that at the same time, [they] could be filled with powerful new charge.”53 After a display of mortifying violence, Artaud believed, the spectators would never return to a traditional theatre of anecdotes and dialogues.

“A totem, a cry from the womb: these can crack through walls of prejudice in any man: a howl can certainly reach through to the guts,” Brook postulates. He raises important questions: Is this theatre revealing? How can the goal of Artaud’s theatre be conveyed to unknown spectators? Is the confrontation of our own repressions creative or perhaps therapeutic? Is such theatre really holy? Although Brook acknowledges the power of Artaud’s vision, he also believes that at the end, Artaud never succeeded in accomplishing his own theatre. “Artaud himself was always speaking of a complete way of life, of a theatre in which the activity of the actor and the activity of the spectator were driven by the same desperate need.”54 Despite of all Artaud’s efforts, Brook questions whether Artaud’s theatre can ever be achieved. For Brook, Artaud was more a ‘stimulus’, not a ‘recipe’.55 Without attempting to re-create Artaud’s theatre, Brook used him as a gateway into new areas which he felt ought to be explored. Through Artaud he studied “immediacy and intensity of expression, a theatre of nerves and senses, of non-verbal, physical means of expression.”56

52 Ibid., 53. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., 54. 55 Dale Moffitt, ed., Between Two Silences: Talking with Peter Brook, Forwarded by Gregory Boyd (Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1999), xxviii. 56 John Courtenay Trewin, Peter Brook: A Biography (London: Macdonald & Co. Publishers Ltd., 1971), 140.

10 In 1964, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Gulbenkian Foundation sponsored a project on ‘Theatre of Cruelty’, paying tribute to Antonin Artaud’s work. Brook points out that Artaud “used the word ‘cruelty’ not to invoke sadism, but to call us towards a theatre more rigorous, or even, if we could follow him that far, pitiless to us all.”57 For a period of five weeks, a small experimental group, led by Charles Marowitz (Brook’s co-director) and Peter Brook, prepared, rehearsed and performed their creations during ‘Evenings of Cruelty’.58 Although the performances received a lukewarm reaction from the audience, they represented Brook’s first attempt at non-verbal theatre and set him on a path to radically change the direction of his work and to free himself from the proscenium theatre.59 Through these workshops dedicated to Artaud’s ‘Theatre of Cruelty,’ Brook explored new and “deliberately unsettling possibilities for theatre,” 60 aiming at a theatrical experience that would be truly participatory, as opposed to merely literary or optical, recovering certain lost dimensions of traditional ritual.

In Brook’s view, Grotowski’s theatre got as close to Artaud’s ideal as anyone was able to ever get. Brook writes about Jerzy Grotowski with a great respect. Grotowski, he believes, had “a sacred aim” to elucidate that the “theatre cannot be an end in itself: like dancing or music in certain dervish orders, the theatre is a vehicle, a means for self-study, self-exploration.”61 He had a deep friendship with Grotowski with an intimate mutual influence between the two of them.62 His theatre “makes poverty an ideal”63 Brook continues; he is like a monk, who finds a universe in a grain of sand.64 Brook believes that since Stanislavski and Brecht, no one has exerted a greater influence on theatre than Grotowski.65 In Grotowski’s

57 Brook, The Shifting Point, 56. 58 David Williams, ed., Peter Brook: A Theatrical Casebook (London: Methuen Drama, 1988), 28. 59 Croyden, Lovers and Poets, 235. 60 Anne Frances Hogan, "Peter Brook's Shakespeare: La Verite Humaine est Globale" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Brown University, 2001), 12. Brook’s experimental work on ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ led to a project for the Royal Shakespeare Company titled The Marat/Sade written by Peter Weiss. 61 Brook, The Empty Space, 59. 62 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, xxviii. 63 Brook, The Empty Space, 60. 64 Ibid., 96. 65 Georges Banu, Grzegorz Ziolkowski, and Paul Allain, eds., Peter Brook with Grotowski:

11 theatre, he describes, actors are continuously expanding their knowledge and understanding of themselves “through the painful, ever-changing circumstances of rehearsal and the tremendous punctuation points of performance.” 66 Passing through all obstacles and by constant work, the actor assumes control over his physical dispositions and psychic means that guide him to relate to his own body and mind and to open himself up to reveal his secrets. In Grotowski’s terminology, Brook describes, the actors are ‘penetrated by themselves. 67 The actors in Grotowski’s theatre sacrificed everything, save their bodies. Their bodies became a human instrument which made them feel that they were creating the “richest theatre in the world.”68

Brook explains that even though his theatre and Grotowski’s work shared some common characteristics and goals,69 their paths differed. Grotowski’s theatre exposed the spiritual process of the actor;70 as Brook explains, it guided one deep into the inner world of the actor, and as the action proceeded and gradually intensified, all the external elements disappeared until the audience, actor, and theatre all faded away. At the end, there was “only a solitary man playing out his ultimate drama alone.”71 The act of performance in Grotowski’s theatre, Brook writes, was “an act of sacrifice, of sacrificing what most men prefer to hide – this sacrifice [wa]s his gift to the spectator.”72 Thus, Brook suggests, the relationship between the actor and the spectator in Grotowski’s theatre resembled the relationship between the priest and the worshipper,73 albeit the spectators did not necessarily get involved in the ceremony and theatrical experience. Brook refers to Grotowski’s “abstract language as a sort of mirror of the body by which the actor creatively smashe[d] his repertoire of ordinary gestures, and, like an abstract

Theatre is Just a Form (Wroclaw, Poland: The Grotowski Institute, 2009), 27. 66 Brook, The Empty Space, 59. 67 Ibid., 110. 68 Ibid., 60. 69 Ibid., 10. 70 James Roose-Evans, Experimental Theatre: From Stanislavsky to Today (London, UK: Studio Vista Ltd., 1970), 63. 71 Banu, Ziolkowski, and Allain, Peter Brook with Grotowski, 26. 72 Brook, The Empty Space, 59,60. 73 Ibid., 60.

12 painter, invent[ed] new gestures which you can’t at any time relate to anything in everyday life experience.”74

Grotowski’s aim of theatre was holy; however theatre, Brook suggests, is holy in a different respect: it is more collaborative or equal between the actors and spectators. “It has a clearly defined place in the community and it responds to a need the churches can no longer fill.”75 His theatre suggested a totally new life for all its members (actors). Grotowski deliberately chose to play for as few as thirty spectators because he was convinced that the large audience would dilute their work. Brook states that acting was a vehicle in Grotowski’s theatre that, from time to time, would not even require an audience. Grotowski, himself, mentioned to Brook that his search was founded upon the director and the actor. He deemed it possible for Brook to build his theatre upon the director-actor-audience dynamics; but for Grotowski this approach was too indirect.76 Brook questions Grotowski’s position77 because, for Brook, theatre and the theatrical process are based on human relationships:78 relations with each other, with material, and with audience, which lead to ‘participation’ by actors and audience members in a ‘communion’.79 Brook believes in a theatre that forms close relationships and accentuates the presence of actors and audience, creating ‘a circle of unique intensity’, in which barriers are torn down and the ‘invisible’ becomes ‘visible’. Contrary to Grotowski, Brook believes that theatre should lead us “out of loneliness to a perception that is heightened because it is shared.”80 Brook’s theatre, in contrast, is looking for a new Elizabethan relationship that combines the ‘private and the

74 Rozen, "Following a Formless Hunch." 75 Brook, The Empty Space, 60. Brook reasons that through the visible – the life of a human being – the invisible can emerge. But we must not stray from common sense. Brook alludes to the fact if the language is too esoteric, the spectators cannot closely connect to the play. See ibid., p.61. 76 Banu, Ziolkowski, and Allain, Peter Brook with Grotowski, 13. 77 Brook, The Empty Space, 60,61. 78 Mary Blume, "Peter Brook: Searching Is the Only Answer to Total Passivity," International Herald Tribune, Oct. 30, 1979. 79 Paul Bernard Cohen, "Peter Brook's 'Communion'" (Master's Thesis, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 1988), 1. 80 Banu, Ziolkowski, and Allain, Peter Brook with Grotowski, 26.

13 public, the intimate and the crowd’ which precipitates into ‘a collective experience’ between the actors and spectators.81

Brook’s discussion of ‘Rough Theatre’ opens up another potential of theatrical experience. It is a popular theatre that has appeared throughout history in different forms, but which in the end could all be recognized through a common quality: ‘roughness’. This popular theatre recognized the crudeness and roughness of life and tried to implement it: “[s]alt, sweet, noise, smell…”82 It was the dirt, filth, vulgarities and obscenities that, more than anything else, created edges for the ‘roughness’. The role of the ‘Rough Theatre’ was to liberate the audience from social conventions and restrictions.83 According to Brook, it was not theatre inside a theatre: it was theatre on carts and trestles where the audience stood or sat, drinking, talking and laughing. 84 ‘Rough Theatre’, Brook points out, had a complicated language and was “the celebration of all sorts of ‘available means’ and carrie[d] with it the destruction of everything that ha[d] to do with aesthetics,”85 and yet it enabled spectators to follow the main storyline. It was a theatre that used crude elements “as part of the natural soil” of theatre86 where the bare noise behind each note intended for violin or clarinet – the “actual scraping or the mixture of heavy breathing with wind on wood,”87 – was more human than the sounds conventionally made by those instruments.88 Brook refers to the energy embedded in ‘Rough Theatre’ where: “[l]ightheartedness and gaiety feed it, but so does the same energy that produces rebellion and opposition. This is a militant energy: it is the energy of anger, sometimes the energy of hate.”89

81 Ibid., 10,11. 82 Brook, The Empty Space, 65,66. 83 Ibid., 68. 84 Ibid., 65. 85 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 60. 86 Brook, The Empty Space, 66. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Basarb Nicolescu, "Peter Brook and Traditional Thought," in Contemporary Theatre Review, trans. David Williams vol. 7, Part 1, (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997).

14 Although ‘Rough Theatre’ has been taken less seriously, Brook cautions that at the core of every effort to revitalize theatre is the same basic, popular source.90

Brook refers to Elizabethan theatre as the greatest ‘Rough Theatre’91 which summed up everything in life, including dirt and abject poverty.92 ‘Rough Theatre’ is often recognized by the absence of what is called style.93 Surrealism, for Brook, was ‘rough’, and so was Alfred Jarry and the ‘Theatre of the Absurd.94 Within the same context, he also refers to Gordon Craig, who had an influence over European theatres for half of a century.”95 Jean Genet with his play The Blacks was for Brook a paragon of ‘Rough Theatre’ with its “visual inventions [and] beautiful, grotesque and ridiculous elements.”96 In Brook’s view, Genet captured full meaning in the actor-spectator relationship by changing its dynamics.97 Brook succinctly summarized both theatres, “if the holy is the yearning for the invisible through its visible incarnation, the rough also is a dynamic stab at a certain ideal.”98 In the end, he believed that both theatres strove to attain certain ideals, both aspired to involve the audience, both utilized potent, albeit different, energies, but both created confines within which certain things were not accepted.

The concepts of ‘holiness’ and ‘roughness’ led Brook to suggest a new theatre: ‘Immediate Theatre’ – while he cautioned that there is no complete formula, no ultimate method – that goes beyond the limitations of ‘Holy’, ‘Rough’ or any

90 Brook, The Empty Space, 68. In There Are No Secrets Brook writes the ‘rough’ are those who believe: “We have no outside means, not a penny, no draftsmanship, we can pay neither for beautiful costumes nor for sets, we have no stage, we have nothing other than our bodies, our imagination and the means at hand.” Brook refers to their experiments on Carpet in Africa (The Carpet Show), or their performances with Inuit, the Balinese, the Koreans which were carried out with any available means, as the essence of ‘Rough Theatre’. See Brook, There Are No Secrets, 60,61. 91 Brook, The Empty Space, 68. 92 Ibid., 96. 93 Ibid., 66. 94 Ibid., 69. 95 Ibid., 66. 96 Ibid., 74. 97 Ibid. 98 Ibid., 71.

15 other form.99 ‘Immediate Theatre’ opens up an arena in which the means of ‘Holy Theatre’ and ‘Rough Theatre’ could coexist – the means of one was as available as the other100. For him, ‘Immediate Theatre’ has the capacity to bring together ‘Holy Theatre’ that deals with the ‘invisible’ and its hidden impulses and ‘Rough Theatre’ that focuses on the actions of human beings, despite their occasional ‘antagonism’. “The fundamental double nature of theatre is that everything that one presents must be both far and near at the same time.”101 According to Brook, in real life, all is mingled: near and far; high and low; comedy and tragedy. If theatre is the reflection of real life, then it should include all.102 Thus, a delicate balance needs to be preserved and Brook emphasizes that we must move constantly. “Staying too long in the depths can become boring. Staying too long in the superficial soon becomes boring. Staying too long on the heights may be intolerable.”103 After exerting much effort in a pursuit of the invisible, Brook accepts, “we have to face defeat, drop down to earth, then start up again.”104 He alludes to what Ted Hughes calls “a ‘negotiation’ between our ordinary level and the hidden level of myth.”105 The archetype of such theatre has, for Brook, always been Shakespeare. It is through its “unreconciled opposition of Rough and Holy, through an atonal screech of absolutely unsympathetic keys that we get the disturbing and the unforgettable impressions of his plays.”106 His purpose, Brook explains, is constantly ‘holy’, metaphysical. However, Shakespeare refrained from keeping the audience constantly on the highest plane. He was well aware that achieving and maintaining the absolute was impossible, and hence he brought

99 In the beginning of The Empty Space Brook refers to ‘Deadly Theatre’. This theatre, in Brook’s view, represents a bad theatre, ultimately linked to a commercial theatre (p.9). Brook profoundly disagrees with a theatre that approaches the classics from a rigid perspective; the idea that someone somewhere has determined and defined how the play should be ‘done’. For Brook, deadliness is deceptive and can appear everywhere. “Deadliness always brings us back to repetition, […] it brings us to old formulae, old methods, old jokes, old effect.” Margaret Croyden points out that although Brook was a product of Western commercialism, he recognized that the conventional theatre (which he later called ‘deadly’) showed signs of decay, and he intensified his search for new form. See Croyden, Lovers and Poets, 235. 100 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 61. 101 Rozen, "Following a Formless Hunch." 102 Carrière and Brook, The Conference of the Birds. 103 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 62. 104 Brook, The Empty Space, 62. 105 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 86. 106 Nicolescu, "Peter Brook and Traditional Thought," 42.

16 the audience at the right moment back to earth.107 The concept of opposites plays an essential role in Shakespeare’s work, inciting spectators’ unconsciousness and what enabled him to succeed technically was a “roughness of texture and a conscious mingling of opposites…”108

It is of utmost importance to note that Shakespeare has always been a model and an inspiration for Brook. “He made Shakespeare alive again”, claims Erika Munk.109 Michael Billington opines: “The essence of Peter Brook’s theatrical philosophy is a return to a popular, classless Elizabethan theatre that blends the rough and holy. As Brook himself admits, all theatre is written on the wind, but it is amazing how much of this great director’s work stays in the memory…”110 In The Empty Space, Brook reveals to readers, as he was writing those words in the second half of the twenty-century, that “Shakespeare is still our model”.111 Brook believes that no one has been superior to Shakespeare, whose work is constantly relevant and contemporary.112 Shakespeare remains the ultimate and ineffaceable reference point for any new form of theatre. 113 Brook calls Shakespeare euphemistically a ‘strange phenomenon’, somebody who captures in great depth many aspects of reality.114 Brook appreciates the form of Shakespeare’s theatrical place and the Elizabethan playhouse that was “based on a platform that allowed imagery to come and go, as there was no scenery.”115 He admires Shakespeare’s scripts and writings that embody a mystery because of their ‘inexhaustible openness’ and phrases that portray an ‘infinity of meaning’.116

107 Brook, The Empty Space, 62. 108 Nicolescu, "Peter Brook and Traditional Thought," 42. 109 Erika Munk, "The Way's the Thing," Village Voice, New York, May 12, 1980. 110 Michael Billington, "Written on the Wind - The Dramatic Art of Peter Brook," The Listener, Dec. 21 and 28, 1978. 111 Brook, The Empty Space, 95. 112 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 102. 113 Nicolescu, "Peter Brook and Traditional Thought," 43. 114 "Conversation between Peter Brook and Peter Stein," (Peter Brook's private copy). 115 Peter Brook, Evoking (and Forgetting!) Shakespeare (London: Nik Hern Books Limited, 2002), 17. 116 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, 151.

17 Shakespeare went beyond Brecht and Beckett, and Brook advocates a need to return to Shakespeare in the post-Brecht and post-Beckett era because the marriage and reconciliation of the opposites of ‘Holy’ and ‘Rough’ are extraordinarily powerful.117 His theatre, Brook points out, “slides effortlessly between the two, moment by moment, while in its grand forward thrust it intensifies the developing experience until all resistance explodes and the audience is awakened to an instant of deep insight to the fabric of reality.”118 However, he cautions an actor about to study Shakespeare’s roles: “Forget Shakespeare. Forget that there ever was such a man. Forget that these plays had an author. Remember only that your responsibility, as an actor is to bring human beings to life…”119 Only then can a true Shakespearean theatre re-appear. Brook believes that “it is only when we forget Shakespeare that we can begin to find him.”120 This particular approach to Shakespeare portrays a special perspective towards history which relates to the question of architecture. It is about forgetting as well as remembering; it is about studying and learning history in order not to imitate forms, but rather to understand life and its embedded qualities in order to create a new condition in the present moment.

Looking back at the history of Brook’s theatre, one can distinguish an important era during which he started a movement that addressed fundamental questions of theatre. This period is inseparably linked to an environment that helped Brook to conceive, nurture and develop the idea of ‘Immediate Theatre’ and the notion of empty space. In 1960s, besides experimentation on ‘modernizing’ Shakespeare and re-experiencing the ‘Theatre of Cruelty’, Brook was looking for opportunities to explore the fundamental relationships and qualities in theatre. In 1968, the French actor and director Jean-Louis Barrault (1910-1994) invited Peter Brook to establish a multicultural workshop of actors, writers and directors for the Théâtre des Nations in Paris. By working with artists from different cultures during the

117 Brook, The Empty Space, 86. 118 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 86. 119 Brook, Evoking Shakespeare, 41. 120 Ibid., 47.

18 workshop, Brook realized the limitless opportunities for researching these basic theatrical questions. Two years later Peter Brook along with Micheline Rozan co- founded the International Centre for Theatre Research (ICTR)121 and “at the height of a career marked by the most shocking, ravishing and inventive theatre,”122 he exchanged London for Paris and embarked on a life-long adventure that would influence the twentieth-century and contemporary theatre. The main objective of the ICTR was to explore and research the question of theatre removed from the ‘tyranny’ of ‘commercial deadliness’,123 establishing “a form of research much closer to that of the scientists in an experimental laboratory: the search for processes, combinations, causes and effects hitherto unknown.”124 Brook and the ICTR were committed to elucidate how theatre can make the invisible aspects of human experience visible on stage.125 Rather than exchanging technical tricks among the members, the aim of the ICTR was to explore what provides different forms of culture with life and energy.126 The new, multinational, multidisciplinary centre was open to actors, designers, directors and musicians with different viewpoints and abilities. According to Brook, the human is by nature incomplete and what he needs from the fellow human is not only a feeling of fellowship, but also the sense that other people appreciate what he brings in. And that is the principle of the ICTR.127 Their work strove to reveal the potential of theatre to “transcend cultural boundaries.”128 Brook describes in The Shifting Point that theatre companies bring together people of the same backgrounds, class and views, while the ICTR is composed of people with nothing in common, no shared

121 In French it is referred to as the Centre International de Recherche Théâtrale (CIRT). In 1974, the ICTR was changed to the International Center for Theater Creations (ICTC) or the Centre International de Créations Théâtrales (CICT). Currently, both names are used. In this dissertation, I will only use ICTR. 122 Michael Kustow, "Why Peter Brook Needed a Bigger Stage," Evening Standard, Jan. 25, 2005. 123 Cohen, "Peter Brook's 'Communion'," 3. 124 Anthony Charles H. Smith, Orghast at Persepolis: An Account of the Experiment in Theatre Directed by Peter Brook and Written by Ted Hughes (London: Eyre Methuen, 1972), 15. 125 Carrière and Brook, The Conference of the Birds. 126 Brook, The Shifting Point, 160. 127 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, 143,144. 128 Andrew Todd, "Rinascite quotidiane - Eeveryday Resuscitations," Spazio e Società 18, no. 76, (1996), 10.

19 languages, no mutual point of views, no common jokes.129 He frowns at the suggestion of the ICTR as intercultural and interracial. “There is something too racial and too cultural in even talking about being interracial and intercultural. That is not what it is about.” 130 In the multinational and multidisciplinary environment, “there [is] an oscillation between home and away, between near and far, the one affecting the other in a continual reciprocal process.”131

One can appreciate Brook’s quest for the poetic, invisible world that can emerge out of the rough, everyday world and can lead us in other directions and toward higher levels that touch us and help us perceive something of the meaning of the cosmos.132 “Theatre is an external ally of the spiritual way, and it exists to offer glimpses, inevitably of short duration, of an invisible world that interpenetrates the daily world and is normally ignored by our senses.”133 Theatre, for him, is a mediator between us and ‘holiness’; its role is merely to suggest. Theatre offers a story through which something can be created and that is why myth has been present through all history. For Brook, all myths are instruments for suggesting what in ordinary life cannot be conveyed and that is the reason why the myths have been imbedded in history.134 He refers to the story of Mahabharata, the classical Indian epic poem that would be the source of his major play, in which the language, events and imagery were in exactly the same symbolic language as in quantum mathematics calculations: resembling endless series of numbers and letters in an attempt to capture the invisible and the unknown.135 The moment of discerning the invisible, Brook suggests, is ephemeral and cannot endure. “Truth can never be defined, nor grasped, but the theatre is a machine which enables all

129 Brook, The Shifting Point, 129. 130 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, 143. 131 Andrew Todd and Jean-Guy Lecat, The Open Circle: Peter Brook’s Theatre Environments (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 41. 132 Brook, Extracts from Peter Brook's Speech at Epson Awards.. 133 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 87. 134 Brook, Extracts from Peter Brook's Speech at Epson Awards. 135 Ibid.

20 its participants to taste an aspect of truth within a moment; theatre is a machine for climbing and descending the scales of meaning.”136

The concept of ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ worlds that Brook explores in theatre can be extrapolated to works of architecture. Brook emphasizes that all techniques of art and craft have to situate us between these two worlds. These slippages and fluid movements between the everyday and the hidden worlds become a core part of the exploration of this dissertation. In its spatial and temporal experience, architecture has the potential to offer instants that for a short period of time bring an observer outside of the continuity of the ‘casual life’ and situate him within an ‘uncanny level’ of myth, hidden thoughts or silence. This transition relates to Gadamer’s definition of the ‘work of art’. In Truth and Method, he explains “the work of art would seem almost by definition to become an aesthetic experience: that means, however, that it suddenly takes the person experiencing it out of the context of his life, by the power of the work of art, and yet related him back to the whole of his existence.”137 Gadamer refers to the question of adventure in the experience of the ‘work of art’: the experience that erases conditions related to everyday life and shifts toward uncertainty. However uncertain, this condition is based on a return to everyday life.138 The transition between the ‘ordinary level’ of life and the ‘level of uncertainty’, a transition that involves danger, is analogous to the experience of the ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ in the work of both Peter Brook and Shakespeare.

Modern, conventional theatres, with their imposed, restrictive layouts were, according to Brook, based on preconceived scientific methods rather than the requirements of a life of theatrical creation. In a traditional proscenium-divided theatre, actors are supposed to play behind an ‘invisible wall’ separating them from the audience. Brook is opposed to the idea that the role of a theatre should be

136 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 86. 137 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Sheed and Ward Ltd. (New York: Crossroad, 1988), 63. 138 Ibid., 62.

21 reduced to ‘making pictures’ behind the proscenium. He is seeking a closer, more intimate relationship between the actors and the spectators. In essence, Brook’s theatre aims to emphasize the relationship between the observer, the actors and the theatrical work which is remote from the standard forms that identify theatre as a view to a world of illusion through a proscenium-framed stage.

For Brook, the essential architectural requirement for theatre is an empty space.139 In the opening sentence of The Empty Space, Brook writes: “I can take any ‘empty space’ and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this ‘empty space’ whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all I need for an act of theatre to be engaged.”140 Brook’s definition of ‘empty space’ is perhaps best revealed in his own words: “In order for something of quality to take place, an empty space needs to be created. An empty space makes it possible for a new phenomenon to come to life, for anything that touches on content, meaning, expression, language and music can exist only if the experience is fresh and new. However no fresh and new experience is possible if there isn’t a pure, virgin space ready to receive it.”141 In an empty space, everything can become an event.142

What we conventionally refer to as ‘theatre’ could not possibly offer an environment compatible with Brook’s idea of the ‘empty space’. Due to the shortcomings of conventional theatre buildings and because of dissatisfaction with their premeditated layouts, in the early seventies ICTR initiated experimental work away from these so-called ‘theatres’. In search for a place for theatre that makes possible the creation of a close relationship between actors and spectators, for the first three years they ventured out and played in public places such as parks, streets, cafés, hospitals, barracks, prisons, warehouses, ancient ruins, and so on, in different parts of the world. This movement marks a crucial transition in the

139 Robert Hewison, "The Empty Space and the Social Space," in Making Space for Theatre: British Architecture and Theatre since 1958, ed. Ronie Mulryne and Margret Shewring, (Stratford- on-Avon: Mulryne and Shewring Ltd., 1995), 52. 140 Brook, The Empty Space, 9. 141 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 4. 142 Banu, "Brook’s Six Days," 270.

22 history of twenty-century theatre: bringing theatre out of ‘theatres’. Those places that were discovered and chosen for a performance Brook referred to as ‘found spaces’.143 Often, a relentless and intensive search was required to discover a suitable ‘found space’. The search yielded unusual settings that included quarries, warehouses, depots, open land, ruins, etc., which were typically abandoned or marginalized. A ‘found space’ could not be just any space, but it was required to contain qualities for spatial transformation and had to possess a potential for becoming a ‘theatrical place’.

Brook and his team observed and meditated on the composition of the sites, attempting to envision, perceive and extricate various characteristics and potentials embedded in them. On occasion they carefully emptied the place, recognizing that the resultant emptiness was critical: it was to become the catalyst for the carving out of a qualitative ‘place’. They respectfully transformed these places, reincarnating dormant qualities of the sites, thereby shaping and moulding them to accommodate a theatrical creation. By so doing, they created a close-knit connection between the performance and the place. This process of discovery, preparation, transformation and inhabitation of places is a distinct characteristic of Brook’s approach to theatre and one of his principal contributions in the context of twentieth-century theatre.

This dissertation explores and discusses the processes of discovery, scrutiny (observation at the site) and transformation of these ‘found spaces’. It demonstrates that these processes possess architectural qualities and must be considered architectural phenomena. It is crucial to emphasize that these ‘found spaces’ were not just found. The intention was not to impose any preconceived forms upon these sites. Brook’s approach differed from “an architect finding a site and merely using it as a neutral canvas, as geometric space.”144 Rather these found

143 I adopted the term ‘found space’ from Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle. 144 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, "Architecture and Public Space," in Rites of Way: The Politcs and Poetics of Public Space, ed. Mark Kingwell and Patrick Turmel, (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfried Laurier University Press, 2009), 51.

23 spaces were considered “potentially participatory and pregnant with qualities.”145 Most of those ‘found spaces’ were abandoned sites where activity had ceased a long time ago, allowing the sites to drift into oblivion. The thesis discusses how a new meaning tends to emerge in these places in the wake of emptiness and the states of transition; how from these previously defunct areas, a new quest for human experience has begun. Discerning and recognizing Brook’s effort in uncovering the hidden qualities, and what one might term the persona, of these ‘found spaces’, leads us to a contemplation of an architect’s confrontation with a site and his or her attempt to unearth the potentials and possibilities inherent in the place. Preparing, emptying and appropriating a ‘found space’ in order to transform it into a theatrical place is an act respectful of the past and the present. One can consider it as an impulse for such spatial transformations and creations of architecture that is both faithful to the history of their place as well as the needs of the present.

The thesis argues that a relationship between the place of performance, the play and the narrative are closely interwoven in most of Brook’s theatrical creations set in these ‘found spaces,’ and there is a parallel to be drawn with architectural conditions. Brook’s theatre invigorates and heightens the ties between the qualities of the site and the play by understanding the character of the place, by uncovering hidden and latent qualities of ‘found spaces’ and the manifold parameters embedded in these places. There is an acute awareness of the physical presence of the place, its aural qualities, wind direction, sunrise and sunset, and so on, and their relationship to the narrative and plot of the play. Brook’s ability to establish a relationship between the characteristics and qualities of the place and the features of the play performed in that place is an exceptional talent that distinguishes him from other modern theatrical innovators; this is worthy of close examination. Investigating his approach will help us understand the connection between an architectural work and the character of its site. The study will suggest that an architect cannot succeed in his or her own work without considering the

145 Ibid.

24 relations, elements and aspects of the architectural site with the sensibility and intensity with which Peter Brook addressed place in theatre. In other words, contrary to the Cartesian assumption that meanings are in our minds, and that the creation of architecture depends on some act of subjective genius, Brook’s practice reveals how meanings are primarily “in the world,” and explores and demonstrates modes of engaging their awareness in the production of deeply moving works.

Through exploration of plays in the ‘found spaces’ the thesis also touches upon the notions of horizontality and verticality in Brook’s theatre and their potential to inform an architect’s understanding of them as forms of dimensionality. The thesis suggests that in Peter Brook’s work a fundamental relationship between a ground (whether a carpet, earth or sand demarcating a space) and a vertical surface (whether they be walls, sheer cliffs or even human forms) is established. In Brook’s places of performance, a vertical surface at the back of the stage is activated in a way that is seldom seen in conventional theatres, where the back wall is usually concealed.146 In his theatre these vertical surfaces, along with other vertical elements, are revealed and as such become pertinent to a harmonious relationship with horizontal surfaces within the space and the story which leads to the creation of the place. The horizontal and vertical elements become associated with one another in a non-permanent, temporal manner defined at that very moment through the narrative.

A crucial point in Brook’s work appears in his theatrical stagecraft and the way he creates a narrative world. His theatre exhibits a tendency and ability to evoke objects and things that are absent, a desire to project non-existent entities. This is one of the important features with architectural implications that address the role of the imagination. The notion of imagination penetrates deep in Brook’s thought on theatre and in particular in his discourse on an ‘invisible world’ that can be discovered at certain moments (through imagination). Brook prepares the

146 David Williams, Personal communication with Negin Djavaherian, February 23, 2010.

25 condition and provides the spectator with the means to imagine something that is invisible and to create an object or a place in his or her own imagination, whereas conventional scenography attempts to present a complete image. This thesis demonstrates how Brook’s theatre nourishes the observers with incomplete information and does not endeavour to fill in the gaps. It confronts the spectators with a well-thought out series of voids – emptiness which is not vacant, but where the presence of absence allows for limitless imaginative activation. Brook’s theatre does not strive to create well-defined, static images. Instead, Brook delivers incomplete images, allowing for the ‘mobility’ of images, their ‘fertility’ and their ‘life’.147 The imagination becomes a language of the play, a form of understanding the structural operation and dynamics of the play; it becomes a way of expressing thoughts and a “poetical inspiration and expiration of beings.”148 The play creates a constant interaction between the observer and the absent objects and beings, evoking, leading and transforming the imagination. It continuously offers a “relationship between the self and the other” and leads the spectator to imagination that is ethical because it accepts to “imagine otherwise”149 and one that is poetic because it embodies openness to different possibilities and “the pluri-dimensionality of meaning”.150

The question of imagination and the ‘invisible world’ in Brook’s theatre finds a correlation with his understanding of the concept of a myth. Brook describes in There Are No Secrets his first encounter with Taziyeh – a traditional Iranian theatre – in a remote village in Iran in 1970. The main themes of Taziyeh deal with the first twelve imams, of which the martyrdom of the prophet Imam Hossein is particularly endearing to the audience. The prophet rose against religious corruption, but his rebellion was suppressed and he was executed. The audience, standing or sitting, created a circle around the actors, musicians and

147 Gaston Bachelard, On Poetic Imagination and Reverie, trans. and introduction by Colette Gaudin (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1971), 20. 148 Richard Kearney, Poetics of Imagining: Modern to Post Modern (New York: Fordham University Press, 1998), 103. 149 Richard Kearney, The Wake of Imagination: Towards a postmodern culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 364. 150 Ibid., 369.

26 performers, who, through acting, singing, music and poetry, depicted the life events and the heroic death of the Imam in the distant past. The actors were in close contact with the audience participating in the performance.151 For the first time, Brook experienced the ‘ring of humanity’ and he became absorbed by its unity. Brook observed the story of Imam Hossein, realizing that the audience knew the entire plot, every scene, every next word, and the next verse to follow. And yet, the audience genuinely believed that this time the outcome of the tragedy could change. In a touching scene where Imam Hossein knowingly departs for a journey that would eventually lead to his demise, two small boys come to stop him six times. Brook realized that all the spectators around him, from the elderly down to children, sobbed and wept. To Brook’s greatest surprise, the historical tale was not represented as a story from the past, but the theatre made the event a living experience at the present moment. Brook describes the experience: “An event from the very distant past was in the process […] of becoming present; the past was happening here and now, the hero’s decision was for now, and his anguish was for now and the audience’s tears were for this very moment.”152 The audience read the story many times, they had seen the play many times, but this theatrical form created a living experience. As Brook describes it “…the past was not being described nor illustrated, time had been abolished. The village was participating directly and totally, here and now in the real death of a real figure who had died some thousand years ago.”153

Through a historical reality which has an implication here and now, and through a vibrant narrative that is of local significance, the event reoccurs. What transpires in the place is a ‘real’ event rather than a remnant or a historical residue confined to the archives or library. It has the ability to evoke phenomenally real events at that time and right there. This phenomenon, as David Williams suggests, appears

151 Unlike Arab countries that forbid representation of human form under the auspices of the Koran, the religious theatre Taziyeh has been very popular in Iran despite an almost fifty-year period when it was banned by the shah. Taziyeh was performed in public places such as street corners, squares, and markets. 152 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 41. 153 Ibid.

27 to be what Peter Brook is after in his work; Brook strives to make these ancient narratives take place here at the present moment; he tends to view a myth in his theatre as a narrative that is alive, full of ‘embodied flesh’ which can be reincarnated in the present moment.154 The connection and correspondence with myth seems to rouse and animate the human imagination.155 This is perhaps part of the concept of ‘making the invisible visible’ and connecting the ‘Holy’ and the ‘Rough’ in Brook’s theatre: allowing the myth to happen again through an event at the present time, transforming the myth of the past into a present event. It is about relating and reconfiguring the myth into new, present situations and forming a new and meaningful relationship for the contemporary, immediate moment which finds its relevance in architecture. Peter Brook’s strategy challenges the architect to rethink the nature of architectural programmes, i.e., the significant events that building must frame. The issue is perhaps to recast the same human questions that the old myths address; but this time, rather than as tales from the past, as architectural programmes truly appropriate to the present.

This discussion of myth’s re-imagination in the present moment becomes closely related to another central notion in Brook’s theatre – the aforementioned dimensions of horizontality and verticality. A horizontal surface, a line or a ground plane intersects with the vertical presence of a human form. Through this intersection, which temporarily marks a location on the ground, an event is created there and then in time.156 Through poetic imagination at that very location, the ‘invisible’ becomes present and a mythic condition can be re-experienced at the present time. At that particular place marked on the ground, the imagination leads toward a vertical transcendence, a moment of vertical connection; it is where the concept of height and vertical depth metaphorically reappear in Brook’s

154 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010. Brook used some ideas and spatial qualities from Taziyeh in The Midsummer’s Night Dream. The remarkable power of Taziyeh left a lasting impression on Brook. 155 Eleazar M. Meletinsky, The Poetics of Myth, trans. Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1988), 340. 156 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010. The relationship of a horizontal surface with respect to the vertical presence of a human form is described by Yoshi Oida. See Yoshi Oida and Lorna Marshall, An Actor Adrift (London: Methuen, 1992).

28 theatrical creation.157 It is where the poetic image “operates under the vertical sign of ever newer possibilities of being”158 and a poetical interaction – a ‘supreme moment of communication’ – takes place with a higher reality.

Over the journey through play and place, my dissertation alludes to the existence of a ‘cosmological’ relationship between horizontality and verticality in Brook’s theatre. I propose that a transition from the horizontal to vertical dimensions represents a passage from the terrestrial to celestial, a transition that is transcendent, even in our secular times. The thesis also suggests there is a metaphorical relationship between the horizontal and the vertical dimensions in Brook’s theatrical creation that relates to a narrative ‘dimension’. For instance, the presence of sky, earth, ground and human figures dominate the scenery while, in parallel, the narrative itself implicates verticality; the story can embody questions about aspiration, transcendence, and so on.

This discussion of Brook’s theatre sets up the question of the importance of horizontal and vertical relationships in architecture. In a world that is fascinated by sprawling, oblique buildings and strange, bizarre shapes, the work of Peter Brook celebrates horizontality and verticality, referring to a primordial human spatiality pregnant with meanings and standing for a fundamental metaphor: the reconciliation of life and death. Brook demonstrates that what really matters to human experience can be articulated through two simple dimensional qualities. The study suggests that relationships between horizontality and verticality are not merely compositional. They are not quantitative, but qualitative correlations that are often forgotten in contemporary architecture – it suggests the significance of the horizontal and vertical connections as a primary metaphor for the poetic image in our discipline. Up to this point, I have introduced the most important ideas and schematic propositions in Brook’s thoughts and theatre that have architectural implications

157 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010. 158 Kearney, Poetics of Imagining, 111,112.

29 and reinforce the main premise of this study – the importance of Brook’s theatre as a critical lens to study architecture. Before delving deeper into the main body of the dissertation, it is proper to restate the core question that can address the temporal and spatial experience of architecture and open up potentials for re- examining the processes of architectural creation. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how Brook prepares an arena for creation and human participation; a ground for both individual and collective experience; a region which enables us to ‘slip’ between our everyday being and myth. Here lie the core questions: Is it through what Brook terms ‘empty space’ that this transportation from visible to invisible is achieved? Does emptiness have the potential to activate our imaginative faculties where our imagination, as Brook suggests, fills the gap,159 leading us to encounter moments of a qualitative substance: to ‘slip’ between rough and holy?

159 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 27.

PART I

THEORY – ‘NON-THEORY’

1.1. Interview with Peter Brook Paris, December 7, 2009

In There Are No Secrets, Peter Brook reminds the reader: “Within us at every moment, like a giant musical instrument ready to be played, are strings whose tones and harmonies are our capacity to respond to vibrations from the invisible spiritual world which we often ignore, yet which we connect with every new breath.” 160 Waiting next to a simple, enigmatic, wooden table, I was contemplating these words just moments before I met Peter Brook at the Bouffes du Nord. At this table, I was told, Peter Brook had spent many hours writing. And now, I was waiting there to meet with him after years of exploring and being captivated by his theatre. Only four hours ago, I came on the flight from Montreal and landed in Paris. As I was reviewing my questions and unconsciously drawing lines on a piece of paper, I still was in utter disbelief to have heard the news just a few days before my departure that I would have the opportunity to meet Peter Brook. The mood and atmosphere in the room was strangely familiar. The room, the enigmatic table and the spirit, perhaps all, could infuse one’s body and mind with living moments lasting a lifetime.

A few moments later, I was introduced to Peter Brook. Suddenly, all I have known, read and explored about him and his theatre, all at once, became alive in his presence. Following him through corridors and passages inside the Bouffes du Nord, I admired his vitality and his decisive, yet fluid movement. A narrow staircase led unexpectedly up to Peter Brook’s office. The access to the room through the tiny stairs was engaging. As I entered, I again began to feel the familiarity and liveliness of the space, objects and images inside. Another simple wooden desk was stationed in the middle of the room. A large poster on the wall drew my attention. It was an image that I had seen in one of Brook’s books, and since that time it made me feel that it captured an important theme of his theatre. A group of people sitting in a circle within ambiguous darkness in a place with a

160 Ibid., 81,82.

31 ruined quality… The human circle encompasses a dynamic empty space, a void or even pure light. It brought to my mind the end of the epic journey in the poem The Conference of the Birds where the birds see their reflection on the surface of the water, feeling and recognizing themselves in the present.161 And now, I saw the image again here on the wall which made me immediately connected to the space of that room.

As soon as the conversation started, I could feel what was happening was like experiencing a spatial quality through his words and gestures, rather than a definite ‘question and answers’ interview. In each person’s life, there are moments that do not look like any other moments – as if time pauses – and when it resumes, all is renewed and reborn. For me, it was one of those moments, and, at the same time, this unusual moment felt very familiar and thoroughly connected to my life and my present condition in the world. I could sense the traces of history of more than six decades of experimenting on theatrical creation and human relationship emanating from his words and his presence. Listening to him reminded me of my impression when I enter his theatre, the Bouffes du Nord; it is a place where one becomes instantly aware of a completely unexpected, rare place, a place that does not feel or look like any other; and yet one feels utterly attuned to it. One could sense the past plays engraved in the walls, hear an imperceptible whisper in the space and perceive the arteries of the theatre throbbing with the past and the present.

What follows is a conversation with Peter Brook, but it cannot convey the experience of meeting him. And in the same way, I feel that it is impossible to take veritable pictures of the Bouffes du Nord. The living presence, temporality and one’s own participation in the space are, in a way, qualities that cannot be captured and revealed by any photographs. This interview was an event I cannot define, articulate or measure, but could only experience.

161 For The Conference of the Birds refer to this thesis, 49,50.

32 ND: I have always been interested in Persian mystical poetry, particularly The Conference of the Birds. I was captivated by the quality of the space in this poem, by the temporality of the narrative and the non-linearity of time and the story itself. I started to think whether contemporary architecture could be viewed through the space that is perceived within the poem. Later, my research became more focused on your theatre, the theatre of Peter Brook, exploring how the space and the quality of temporality was brought into being in your theatre and how it could touch and influence an architect with respect to contemporary architecture. Contrary to perceiving architecture as a building, or as only formal manifestation so to speak, I am interested in understanding how architecture can offer temporal and spatial experience to the observer; how it can challenge the observer to be involved in the space. As a person with Eastern roots, considering my experience in a desert city – Kashan in Iran, for me, the architecture of that city is architecture of voids that pull you in and move you through the narrow alleys and passages which makes one really participate in the space through one’s senses.

PB: Have you read the book about Orghast in Persepolis?

ND: Yes, I have. I am also going to visit and speak to actors and directors who were involved in Orghast. I have already met up with Jean-Claude Carrière and Jean-Guy Lecat. We mostly discussed The Mahabharata, but we also ventured to the topic of Maya and how the invisible becomes visible. From an architectural point of view, I am interested in the concept of ‘empty space’ that you explored and developed and its infinite potentials. I would like to explore the temporal process of encountering ‘found spaces’, discovering the qualities of those sites, the spatial transformation and how you inhabited the ‘found spaces’.

PB: There’s a French television film that was made before we opened the Bouffes that looks at the Bouffes (du Nord) in ruins when it was first discovered. I started with the camera right at the top of the ruined auditorium, and then coming all the way down to ground level. Then, in the ruins, we did scenes of Shakespeare, with

33 little scenes from The Tempest, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. This was the very, very beginning, before we made any transformations to make the space possible for use.

ND: It would be very interesting for me to see the experiments and scenes of plays in the ruins of the Bouffes du Nord when it was just first discovered. Was this before 1974?

PB: Well yes, that was when we discovered the Bouffes. You can see the crude space. Then we have some films of rehearsals of The Mahabharata which show The Mahabharata in this space. But there’s also a film which shows us travelling with the play The IK and I think also The Conference of the Birds in Australia. And in this documentary you can see us in different open-air spaces in Australia. It could be very interesting for you because it was the first time before The Mahabharata that we worked in a quarry… You’ve seen this picture? (Peter Brook points to a poster on his wall, see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: An image of a circle of actors in the Bouffes du Nord.

34 ND: Yes, I have seen it in one of your books…

PB: Do you know that it’s a fake? It is not true. It was a young would-be photographer, a 16-year old student from a school near here and we had just started work in our theatre. He asked: “Can I come and take photographs?” And I said: “Yes.” He then went up to the third floor and we were at ground level, sitting on the floor, like that. And when he looked down, he thought what a pity there isn’t a light shining in the middle of the circle. So with his finger he made one on the negative. And so this beautiful, white glow… It was just perfect on the black floor.

ND: The impression I got from the image suggested to me a sort of emptiness that is active and offers a space of participation and human interaction. It is a space that is in a transitional state of anticipation and potential: a space that suggests openness and encourages our qualitative and sensuous engagement. When I saw that picture in the book, I really thought there was a light, a void, in the middle of the circle.

PB: Yes, yes, exactly. Because he thought that’s how it should be, and so, simply, with his finger, he made it.

ND: This idea of an empty space in the middle of a circle of people sitting on a dark carpet… It is quite amazing. I did not know that.

PB: (Brook laughs). Well, nobody knows that! I am telling you something nobody knows.

As you talk about space, there’s something I think could interest you. There is a French architect, Pierre Louis Faloci, who built a house Quinta in Portugal – rich people’s house – where I was once invited to stay. It was a house on the sea with arches. A fine, but very simple construction. It was a big villa, with a second villa,

35 with a little arcade and some pillars. Sort of semi-classical, but very beautiful. And I thought this very interesting, and so I asked about the architect. What could be interesting for you is that there’s something about this house that is different from other constructions and I wondered what it was? I read an article by the architect and he said that his main interest was not only architecture but cinema. He thought that architecture, for an architect, should never be looked at in a static way. And so for him, all the time as he tried to make something, he was thinking of a tracking shot with a camera. And so as you walk through it, at least to me if I go into an apartment, the test of a good looking space is the movement. And here it’s quite extraordinary that in this house if you really walked through it, it’s absolutely conceived so that as you come here, just here, the view through this door leads to the shape of the next. And as you come here, what you see here is just a dead wall. But, you see, look, here (Peter Brook stands up and walks to explain the idea) – if you stand in the right place, with this door like that, then that is properly framed. But if you move here, what you see is of no interest; it’s just a dead wall. His view of architecture is that, all the time, this needs to be leading to this and then that needs to be leading to that. It’s extraordinary! So the models he made are never static, they are all so that every plane is in movement. I don’t know of any other architect who works like that. I thought it’s something that would interest you. I have never heard of any architect thinking this way, thinking that he is like a camera on the move.

ND: The camera shot in movement and the idea of the non-static character of the place are essential in terms of spatial quality of architecture. The necessity of movement in order to discover the space is also connected to the concept of time. One of the qualities that has always intrigued me in your theatre and is crucial in architecture is the temporality which appears at different levels of your work. One can discern this concept in your book Evoking and Forgetting Shakespeare. It talks about forgetting as the means of remembering, which points out the importance of the presence. It is the idea of present moment…

36 PB: Because the present moment, the real present moment isn’t a moment. It’s when you come through the movement of time into something which is where there is no time. In the present moment it’s an opening onto a total empty space and eternity. Eternity is not in the future, it’s not in the past. Eternity is that, just as the empty space is not something that you do here. We have to live. The brain is made from the moment a child is born and the neuronic structure of the brain makes it necessary for the baby at once to learn that there’s this and then something comes after: ‘tuk’ … ‘tuk’. The first ‘tuk’ is the first thing the brain begins to record. But it’s not a total reality, it is a method of the brain for living. But every great religion says exactly the same thing. In The Conference of the Birds, after saying: “All this was no journey” – there is no journey and all this is a story to help you to understand that. In fact, at the same time when one talks about the ‘present moment’, the word ‘moment’ is a trap. You really mean the ‘present’. And the present is not a moment. And that is why in the theatre one works toward these moments which are moments of suspension. Moments of suspension... when you say ‘Ahh’! And you’ll see in this play (Eleven and Twelve), there are moments when you can feel that the audience is not thinking about themselves anymore. There is silence – like that. When you go in front of a great, great building, whether it’s in Persepolis or Egypt, you stand and you see the pyramids. For a moment, you don’t think for a second about yourself. You’re taken away. And that is always amazement. Ahh! That is the only expression of it. And one of the aims in theatre is, bit by bit like in The Conference of the Birds, to go through those different stages, because valleys really mean stages, steps, different levels, to a point when …There is an Indian story that you need a ladder, or a rope rather, and with that you go up, and up, and up, and up until you come to a level when you look down and there has never been a rope. (Brook laughs). And that is the relation between form, time and non-form and non-time. That is the relation. And so architecture is like playwriting. It has to try to find the basic laws that enable you to make forms that draw you, as you said yourself, into what is beyond form. And the decadence of the last thousand years of architecture, the decadence is bit

37 by bit thinking that the form is the end. And all contemporary architecture except, … have you been to La Défence?

ND: No, I have not been there yet.

PB: If you take the Line 1, at the end is La Défence. If you get out at the station before the end, which is called the Grande Esplanade de La Défence, ideally on a day when it isn‘t raining, and you go up you’ll see what is the great thing of La Défence is just a big rectangle, which is meant to be, when you are in front of the Arc de Triomphe, a sort of reflection – there’s that - and here you’ve got something that is very simple. It’s a Danish architect (Johann Otto von Spreckelsen) that just did a rectangle. But if you stand under it, I haven’t been there for many years, maybe it has been spoiled and it’s got some stupid wires and things in it - but all the same, when you stand there in the right point, you feel something. You just feel something. You can’t describe it, but you feel that because of the rightness of proportion. And if you’ve read my Threads of Time, for me, the most important experience when I was very young was discovering the laws of proportion, the law of the Golden Section. The golden proportion which is pure geometry. To me, when I first encountered a man called Matila Ghyka, this for me was the most important discovery. He was a Romanian prince who spent his life studying laws of proportion and he then found that this relationship, a certain relationship, is present every time you look at a face. You say that face is harmonious and you can analyse it. I have now a marvellous series of books of plates just like this, which show incredibly complex things of simple proportion. And then, how, out of that, you can go on making forms. And how all great classical architecture recognizes this, but it has been forgotten today. And what is interesting, and very few people know this, is that the great period of Renaissance and all Italian paintings, all the great masters like Raphael and Botticelli and all the great school of Leonardo da Vinci, what is interesting is that what gave the religious feeling to their paintings was not the vision of Virgin Mary. They started with simple geometries. And when they made hundreds of

38 different geometries, and when they have drawn it all in their minds, then they found that they would place the Christ there, and they put another head here, and that you would have a bird here, and suddenly, when you look at the picture, you see these story figments. But what touches you is because of these secret wires of tension and release which is the basis of architecture, but there in a fundamental way. But if you try to apply this today academically, people tried and said: “Oh, we work according to theory”, of course, it is no use. But if you go to the Bouffes now, and you look, you’ll feel the wires, as the Bouffes touches people in a special way. And you find it because - nobody knows why - the man who built this theatre (no one knows who he was, his architecture is unknown) and why he had a feeling for proportion which is not like any theatre. You will not find a single theatre in Europe or in Asia which has this proportion. (Brook starts to draw). It is because of proportion of this and the weight of that leads to that and there will be this, this and this; and all relation between that and that and that. If you really look at it and feel it, you’ll see that it is why people come here and say: “ahh” (sigh of surprise and wonder). It’s because of the secret which is that the proportions are not ordinary architectural proportions, but they have something …, and that’s when you come to the invisible.

ND: Regarding the question of invisible, for me, the Bouffes du Nord is an architectural space that suppresses our logical and quantitative thinking; a space that, the moment we try to rationally and systematically analyze it, eludes our ability to do so. In its presence, we become witness to a mystery which cannot be accessed objectively. The space does not appear as architecture in front of us; rather, it engulfs and embraces us. In my interview with Jean-Guy Lecat, we touched upon the idea that in the Bouffes du Nord the reference points are sometimes eliminated, which is very crucial with respect to our perception of virtual distance. The Bouffes du Nord is big, but at the same time, it is intimate.

39 PB: It is double. It’s very intimate, like television for the actor who knows that if he lies, it will show up like with a camera, and yet it’s like being in the open air or in the quarry because you can feel you can’t play weakly.

ND: The sheer cliffs in the quarries remind me of the back wall in the Bouffes du Nord. They seem significant in relation with the question of distance. The distance and depth between the spectators and the walls and elements on the stage are sometimes virtual. A person standing on the very same spot can be perceived, in one scene, very close, and in a very next scene, he can be perceived very far.

PB: Space can do anything you want. When we did Ubu a long time ago, there is a scene in Ubu where suddenly he stands on top of a hill. We found, at the end, that if we put one brick on the ground and he just stood on the brick that made him that much higher. That’s all you needed and saying: “Now from this hill...” So everything can be suggested in many, many different ways.

ND: The question of verticality is engaging in the Bouffes du Nord, as if there is no reference where the ceiling begins and ends. Last time I was in Bouffes du Nord, I felt as if the top, the ceiling, was like a carpet. More precisely, a reflection of a carpet.

PB: Have you been upstairs to the top? Perhaps you could go out now – just quietly go up and look from above because you’ll see it is a very special view you will get.

ND: Speaking of verticality and distance, it must be very interesting to experience the performance Eleven and Twelve at different levels, distances and angles.

PB: If you want to see the performance twice, you should see it once sitting in a good seat to get a full impression of it. And then, just come in the second time, standing, and you watch and then you quietly go up to the next floor and look, and

40 then you quietly go up one more and then you get to the very top and look down and you’ll get a view, for you, that is very interesting.

ND: It is always intriguing to think and learn about the present and the past in your theatre. For instance, the way you talk about Shakespeare is very different. One can feel the importance of the present…

PB: Yes, there are certain directors, who very carefully try to explore what it would be like in Elizabethan times. And they even go very far to reconstruct the full Elizabethan experience. To me, this is impossible, it’s like making the museum out of theatre. And as I’ve written and often said, as you know yourself, theatre only exists in the present. So if you take a play written yesterday or a hundred years ago or Shakespeare’s time or even Greek plays, when the audience is watching, they must feel “this is now”. So there you adapt. This isn’t a method. People misunderstand that and think that it means if you put on modern clothes, have a telephone, then that makes it modern. That is stupid. That is naïve. That is childish. It doesn’t. What makes it immediate, and for that you have to find, you need ordinary clothes, you sometimes need special clothes, these are all different all the time. But at the moment you are watching, you mustn’t think of anything but direct feeling. When we did The Conference of the Birds, I don’t like masks and I never liked masks because masks, to me, is something that today is unhealthy, grotesque. But in The Conference of the Birds, first time and last time, we found them absolutely necessary for certain characters in it, for them to be true, older than the actor or an actor playing a woman. And we found that just in Bali, where they have all these big, grotesque masks, there was also a tradition. We had a Balinese actor who told us, nobody knew about this, that there’s a tradition of beautifully, fine masks. And we ordered a complete selection, and these are of types of people, so pure that they don’t belong to Bali, they are not oriental, they are not in a tradition, they’re just fine, fine, a thing of an old man’s face, a young woman’s face. Just like that! So the actors could put this on, and at once there was something – Ahh! – that caught the imagination of the audience and that made the

41 audience more in the present than if they would have been just acting it. So that’s where everything can be useful for a moment. You can see that it’s useful. That’s really what matters. Empty space doesn’t mean nothing. It means respecting space, so that you put in it what is necessary, and so there can be space all the time present as well.

ND: The idea of ‘empty space’ is very important. For me, it is a question of being in a spatial experience where one does not feel separated from the space, but instead one is in an ‘immediate and fluid relationship’ with it. It is as though in that emptiness we feel a living presence: a moment of expectation and a sense of higher action or elevation that engender awareness and attentiveness in our body and senses. For instance, in Orghast the concept of ‘empty space’ can be perceived very vividly. The sound coming from near and far, the cliffs and the crags of the place challenge our senses. The play stimulates not only our visual perception, but also our auditory perception. The spectators become also auditors. And so, it is sometimes sound that makes space.

PB: Of course. But you know, when the Greeks built these auditoriums for thirty thousand, fifty thousand people, it was not just that the acoustics were good. When you got thirty thousand people and you are sitting high up, the actor looks very small. That’s what you are looking at. So for that, for practical reasons, they had to invent these masks just as a way of cutting through the distance. Shakespeare invented strong language in Elizabethan theatre to go through the distance, so that people from the back could be pulled in by a strong mask or a strong phrase that is vibrant. But if you go into a Greek theatre, you can see something even more extraordinary. While you can’t see like in a film a close-up, when you sit anywhere in these auditoriums, the acoustic is so extraordinary that it is really the same as today as when you see all the kids sitting in the metro with earphones, it is exactly as close to you as the sounds of the person speaking, even quietly, down there on the stage, you hear their voice as if they were just talking into your ear. And that’s what was more important than the mask or anything else

42 in the architecture. There, the architecture needed the art which they studied of pure acoustic, so the space could be both distant and intimate through the sound. The sound was the intimacy. It is amazing. When the guides show you around the Greek theatre today, they all have one trick. They take out a box of matches, and you go and sit right at the top, and you can hear the match striking the box and lighting up.

ND: This spatial quality of these auditoriums and their interrelation with sound is very significant. The production of Orghast reveals this crucial quality of sound and its reciprocal connection to a space and suggests how it communicates with the spectators. Since Orghast was shaped through and deeply connected to the sites at and near Persepolis, in your view, do you think it would have been possible to move Orghast somewhere else?

PB: No. No, that’s why we didn’t. That’s why we didn’t even think of moving it.

ND: Some other productions seemed to have a nomadic character and they could be moved to other places. In my interviews with Jean-Claude Carrière and Jean- Guy Lecat, we discussed the idea of creating a direction in your theatre that allows the play to move to different ‘found spaces’, provided that the places can be adapted to the play. This relationship between the nomadic quality of a play and a place is very engaging and it challenges understandings of how architecture can move and how its narrative could be intimately linked to a specific place.

PB: There were two different experiments. One was the year when we went to Africa. There, the architecture was the carpet. So that meant that wherever we went without the carpet, we couldn’t do anything. But we put our carpet down and that is our architecture, and we treat that like a building or other things. And then in between there’re lots of things that you see in Jean-Guy’s book and everything that one adapts. Today it is too expensive. We cannot, today, do what Jean-Guy could do because no city has the money anymore to rebuild the space just for us.

43 So now, we, with the play you’ll see, have to adapt it to existing theatres. But existing theatres through the influence of all this, now are much freer than they were fifty years ago when they were all curtains, footlights and proscenium. Now, all theatres are used to making many adaptations, and so, you are now more in a one-room theatre.

ND: Can I ask you another question? Am I right in understanding that the perspective in your theatre is multi-directional?

PB: Yes, and that, to me, is fundamental. The Italian theatre was really built for one viewpoint. The director is just sitting in the middle, and that’s the best viewpoint. While here (the Bouffes du Nord), it’s the same principle as the theatre in the round, so that any viewpoint is valid. And the next play to be done here will be by our talented French director Joël Pommerat. He is very influenced by the Bouffes du Nord and is creating for the first time in the Bouffes a complete circle. So he’s putting seats on all sides, to make a complete circle. That means, our productions like Hamlet for instance, were played within theatres where we brought the audience out and we put seats on the side. And sometimes, I watched it from the very, very farthest point on the side, and very often it’s the most interesting viewpoint. Stanislavsky wrote that when he does a scene, he looks at the scene, arranges it, and then goes and looks at it from behind, which is not what he prepared for it. And then he can see if it’s any good or not. If it does not look right from behind, then he knows something is wrong. Which is true because WHAT IS ‘SPACE’? Space is always, in this sense, a relationship so that if I put this object here (Peter Brook starts to move pencils on his table), in my point of view, if this relationship is right, and I could spend all day doing this, and when I find what is absolutely the right relation between these things, then wherever you go, it’ll be dynamic. (Peter Brook is experimenting with the pencils by rearranging them). You will see in the play we are doing now, in Eleven and Twelve, there’re just three trees. But through working and rehearsals, we are finding just that relationship. And when that is right, it does not have to be there,

44 or there, or there, or there. Because what is a good relation? Tensions, lines of force. So, for instance, if it’s a bad relation, wherever you look, there’s no relationship between these trees.

ND: But there may not be just one option?

PB: No, there are millions, and every one generates something. There was a famous French painter, who when he was old, he just spent all his days in his studio, just looking and moving some objects that he had, for hours and hours.

ND: The meaning of space and the relations of objects in it, the way you described it, seem fundamental for both theatre and architecture.

PB: Yes, of course. But I don’t theorize about it. It’s living. I’ll tell you one story you may find interesting. When the National Theatre in London was being built thirty or forty years ago, they decided to choose an architect, not by competition as usual, but by having a theatre panel of people who worked in theatre, I was one of them, to interview the architects. It had never been done before. So we sat there and the architects came from Germany, from Italy, all with models, with projections. And then a very great English architect, very respected, called Denys Lasdun, came in and he said: “Gentleman, you know my work. Either you have trust in what I might do or not. I’ve got nothing to say. Good bye.” Everyone was so impressed and then said: “That’s the man.” So then we took him and when he started work, he asked all the conventional questions. He said: “Now, you’re experts. I have never built a theatre before, and I want you to tell me” – and gave his list – “ideally, how many feet from the actor to the back wall would you want. For you, what is the ideal width? For you, how many circles should we have? Is it better for you to have the circles close or far apart?” And then when I was asked I said: “I don’t think any of those questions is of any use.” He said: “What do you mean?” And I said: “Can I tell what I think?” He replied: “Yes, please.” I said: “My advice to you, instead of doing this, is to spend three months going and

45 looking at living events. It can be theatre, it can be boxing, it can be people in a night club, a night club singer, it can be in a pit, it can be an enormous space in a political meeting. And go and sit yourself in every different position. Get close to the stage and see what it’s like to have to look up. And then, go and see what’s the different impression of the same thing if I am looking down. And what’s different if I am looking straight, and what’s different if I am looking sideways. And then go to tiny nightclubs and where you are sitting at a table, and just see what difference it makes if you are sitting there with a drink in an area with a proper seat. And then go to somewhere, perhaps a sporting event, where you are around something but you are standing. Do all these experiences for three months and digest them, and then start, yourself, feeling what is the best space. That’s important in terms of theatre architecture to me. Then you can begin to weigh this with the rules. These become very important, but not to start from the rules. If you start from this, you can’t make a great painting. But if you’ve studied all this, and you know what you’re trying to express, and then you see – ahh! this helps me, ah yes, this helps me to understand this relation… Then coming back to this incredibly precise theory is very valuable, but to do it the other way around it just does not work.

1.2. Carpet in the Desert

In the early seventies, Brook started a new approach with his International Centre of Theatre Research. He was interested in the idea of a ‘travelling laboratory,’ which prompted him to begin to work in an environment outside of theatres.162 The decision to carry out experiments outside of conventional theatrical spaces163 was one of the turning points in the history of twenty-century theatre. For Brook, the experiences gained outside standard rehearsal rooms were geared toward more

162 Simon Brook, Brook by Brook (An Intimate Portrait), Directed by Simon Brook (ARTE France, 2001), DVD. 163 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 5. This refers specifically to experimentation outside of conventional spaces, as opposed to simply performing outdoors.

46 essential exercises than ever took place inside a theatre.164 Brook points out that in order to work outside of theatres, he had to abandon “without hesitation or regret” everything he had learnt as a device for theatre. He provides an analogy to illustrate the gravity of his decision: “it’s like leaving a car to continue on foot.”165 For the first three years, the ICTR played indiscriminately in parks, streets, barracks, cafés, hospitals, ancient ruins at Persepolis, African villages…166 Their main approach was to improvise, without preliminaries or themes, going to places without really knowing what and how they would perform. On many occasions they would just find an object and they would build their improvisation around it. This approach turned out to be invaluable because it enabled them to discover how to enter into direct dialogue with people. The spectators’ reaction was often enough to guide them during their performances.167

This unusual approach was perhaps epitomized in December 1972 when a group of thirty people – Peter Brook, actors, technicians and auxiliaries – sponsored by the ICTR left France and embarked on a journey to Africa. This marked the beginning of a three-month journey168 of experimentation.169 Their expedition consisted of a fleet of six Land Rovers fully loaded with provisions and camping gear. Their preparation for this theatrical adventure resembled a military or archaeological undertaking.170 At the core of the trip was a fundamental question: “In what conditions is it possible for what happens in a theatre experience to originate from a group of actors and be received and shared by spectators without

164 Margaret Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 1970-2000 (New York: Faber & Faber, 2003), 90. 165 Brook, Brook by Brook. 166 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 5. 167 Brook, Brook by Brook. 168 Brook and his group landed in Algiers and travelled south throughout the Sahara desert to Niger, Nigeria and Benin. They returned via Niger and Mali back to Algeria, crossing the Sahara desert once again. 169 Brook, The Shifting Point, 114. The account of their trip has been documented in John Heilpern, The Conference of the Birds: The Story of Peter Brook in Africa (New York: Routledge, 1999). 170 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 47.

47 the help and hindrance of shared cultural signs and tokens?”171 The group was entering the uncharted territory172 of actor-spectator interrelationships which were at the core of Brook’s research. John Heilpern describes that no one, not even Peter Brook, knew what was going to happen on the journey.173 Heilpern writes “it would be an improvisation in the dark. Perhaps there would be light there. Brook likes to begin work in empty places and void: the Sahara Desert.”174

The relation with the spectator is one of the most essential concerns of Brook’s theatre. One of his principles is that “no theatre work can exist except through its relation with the people who are watching it – that the spectator is a participant.”175 This was the reason Brook chose Africa in the first place. He and his troupe could practice a true relationship with an audience in African villages where people had never experienced a conventional modern theatrical performance and, therefore, were not influenced by the European history of theatre forms. This did not mean they were ignorant of the fundamentals of dramatic presentation or engagement. They would actually have a sophisticated and intense tradition of theatricality of their own, even if it were not defined as theatre, but as dance, games, teaching, ritual, etc. In Brook’s own words they represented: “a highly prepared theatrical audience,”176 “an audience vivid in its responses and having a total openness to forms…” 177 Brook believed that imagination has remained inseparable from African life, and African people have developed an understanding of the “double nature of reality.”178 African cultures recognize and nurture what he terms shifts between the visible and invisible.179 In other words, they are aware of the “passages between two worlds – from a

171 Michael Gibson, "Brook’s Africa: An Interview by Michael Gibson," The Drama Review 17, (September 1973), 46,47. 172 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 47. 173 John Heilpern, Conference of the Birds: The Story of Peter Brook in Africa (New York: Routledge, 1999), 40. 174 Ibid., 40. 175 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 92. 176 Ibid., 92,93. 177 Brook, The Shifting Point, 127,128. 178 Ibid., 128. 179 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 93.

48 concrete world to the make-believe and back again – this coexistence of a visible and an invisible world.” He believed that Africa was a place where “the intertwining between the imaginary and the real is at its freest; where an imaginative experience is at its most open; where the human challenge is at its greatest.”180

The journey was in parallel with the group’s exploration of the poem The Conference of the Birds, which eventually led to a theatrical play (of the same name) by Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière.181 Exploring different parts of the world was essential to the ICTR, and Brook wanted to have one uniting piece they would work on and develop and which would be a testament to all the experiences they acquired and the places they visited. The Persian poem resonated with the objectives of the ‘travelling laboratory’, whether in Persia, Africa or Paris. Brook writes about The Conference of the Birds: “We come back to this material all the time and gradually build, and gradually change, and develop it so that, when it’s finished, it will be the summing up of all we’ve been through. It took us three years to go through all these experiences, but it can then be told back again in two hours. And that’s The Conference of the Birds.”182

Written by 12th century Sufi poet, Farid ud-Din Attar, the Persian classical mystical poem The Conference of the Birds 183 metaphorically illustrates the

180 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 200. 181 See Carrière and Brook, The Conference of the Birds. 182 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 93,94. 183 Manṭeq-Al-Ṭeyr (The Conference of the Birds) is a book-length poem written by the mystical poet Aṭār Neyšāburi (1145 or 46–1221). The book contains 4,458 verses. It is one of the most important poems of Islamic mysticism. It portrays a spiritual journey for understanding the mysteries of the world by crossing the seven valleys (also called ‘stages’ or ‘cities of love’): 1. Quest or search (Talab); 2. Love (ʿEšq); 3. Gnosis, understanding, knowledge or insight into mystery (Maʿrefat); 4. Independence and detachment (Esteḡnāʾ); 5. Unity (Toḥid); 6. Wonder, astonishment, amazement, bewilderment (Hayrat); and 7. Selflessness and oblivion, nothingness, fulfillment in annihilation (Fanā). These valleys, in the end, lead to Subsistence (Baqā), and ultimately to God. See Aṭār (Farid-Al-Din Moḥaṃad Ebn-e-Ebrāhim) Neyšāburi, Manṭeq-Al-Ṭeyr [The Conference of the Birds], Edited and Introduction by Moḥaṃad Reżā Šafiʿi Kadkani (Tehran: Sokan, 2006), text in Persian.

49 human quest for truth in the form of a journey of birds searching for their mythical king Simorgh. The leader of the birds guides them through seven valleys which represent the seven stages of spiritual maturity they must attain before they reach their goal.184 One by one, the birds lose their lives because of the hardship of the journey. The acme in the narrative comes at the end as the thirty remaining birds pass the last (seventh) valley, The Valley of Annihilation. They sense they are within reach of their goal, yet all they see is a reflection of themselves in a lake – the thirty surviving birds mirrored in the water. As they search in vain they come, in utter awe, to realize that they themselves – si morgh means thirty birds in Persian – were transformed and became the king Simorgh – the legendary bird in Sufi mythology. “In the whole universe none understood such a thing. All were sunk in amazement; they remained in a state of meditation outside of meditation.”185 In the last valley, the moments of death which transpired over the course of the poem were transformed into a new life represented by the reflection of the birds in the lake, symbolizing their rebirth and their becoming of the king they sought.

The last valley and the silent moments there represent another transitional passage, across the threshold between life and death, spanning the dichotomy of being and nothingness; a passage that occurs in moments when our understanding of time and space is non-linear. The birds embarked on an epic journey only to find out that what they sought was within them all along. However, without the journey,

See Farid ud-Din Attar Nishapuri, The Speech of the Birds: Concerning Migration to the Real, trans. Peter W. Avery (Cambridge: The Islamic Text Society, 1998). It represents one of the best English translations of Manṭeq-Al-Ṭeyr (The Conference of the Birds). See also Leonard Lewisohn and Christopher Shackle, eds., Attar and the Persian Sufi Tradition: The Art of Spiritual Flight (London: I.B.Tauris Publishers in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2006). See also Hellmut Ritter, The Ocean of the Soul: Men, the World and God in the Stories of Farid al-Din Attar, ed. Bernd Radtke, trans. John O’Kane (Leiden, Holland: Brill, 2003). 184 A concept of thresholds permeates the story as they cross these valleys; the end of one valley is the beginning of a new unknown, a new adventure, a new spiritual growth. During the transcendental journey, the liberation from the shackles of the secular world provides moments of detachment and selflessness as the birds draw closer to the end. The emptiness and silent moments permeate through the story dissolving dimensions and creating an infinite depth in the poem. 185 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality (Ipswich, Suffolk: Golgonooza Press, 1987), 110.

50 they would not have been able to realize that they had what they were looking for; that in fact, the journey was unnecessary.186 Brook succinctly summarizes it: “All this was no journey.”187

Although the poem is ancient, Brook explains, it is also profoundly modern.188 He points to the double nature – ‘Rough’ and ‘Holy’ – through which we can understand the meaning of the poem. “On one hand, it’s said in The Conference of the Birds, when you turn toward the impressions of life, you see life. But when you turn the other way, you see what is behind these illusions, and both the visible and the invisible worlds appear.”189 Instead of plunging his actors into a study of Attar’s poem, or committing them to an erudite analysis of Sufi texts, Brook led them off on an organic journey to Africa, which has proven to have an infinitely greater value for Brook than any theoretical, methodical or systematic study would have.190 He insisted: “We are looking for passages – passages that connect the inner and outer world.”191 The piece became a symbol of commitment to that quest, as well as a symbol of the difficulties and hardship suffered in pursuit of it. Discomfort, harsh conditions and destabilizing experiences increased the possibility of an understanding based on shared references.192 In the shared experience of the journey, Williams suggests, “an innocent celebration of life through collective creation” was created.193 What was important in this approach

186 Heilpern, Conference of the Birds, 41. 187 Brook, Interview with author. Brook himself describes that he experienced a similar revelation: after he had finally returned from the three-year long travels, he touched the handle of his car and realized that all he was seeking was in front of him: “This moment contains the whole of everything. There is nothing to look for, nothing to find.” See Andrew Billen, "I Refuse to Take Myself Seriously," Times, Feb., 2007. 188 Gérard Montassier, Le Fait Culturel (Paris: Fayard, 1980), 121. 189 Brook, The Shifting Point, 155. 190 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 90. 191 Carrière and Brook, The Conference of the Birds. 192 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 91. Communal life, setting up the camp and all food preparation became as important as the actual performance. 193 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 207. The trip touched upon most aspects of living and the group developed its own ‘travelling’ history, upon which they based their performances. See Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 92. Many of the actors had previously worked in large conventional theatres; finding themselves, all of a sudden, in direct contact with audiences in Africa where the floodlights were the sun or moon was a shock for them. See Brook, There Are No Secrets, 5.

51 was that through the expedition to the desert, through solitude and silence experienced on a journey, the actors experienced their own inner “silences” reminiscent of those in the poem. For Brook, this poem written in an ancient Persian language opened a passage to an inner state that allowed the experience of a human truth.

Brook recounts the trip to Africa: “with a simple pragmatism (which is the basis of everything), we would look around and see that in one place there are some nice trees, or a tree where the villagers normally gather; or there’d be another place that’s exposed, with a breeze. In one place the soil is bumpy; in another it’s flat. In one place there’s a little clearing with earth that rises to the sides in a natural amphitheatre, so more people can see. We played in a number of school courtyards where, because there were walls of different heights all around, the kids could scramble and sit on the walls, as well as in the front row. Spatially speaking, one is here touching on things that I would say every architect should experience for himself, which is finding what is conductive; this conducts and that doesn’t.”194 The troupe played in open spaces that had “no preconceptions, no recipes for success: it was as if Africa itself was a vast theatre, brimming with energies and forms…”195 They coalesced these energies and centered these spaces through a specific device or gesture, a kind of performance they named ‘the Carpet Show’. The performances began with actors sitting in a circle, surrounded by people, on a carpet that they carried everywhere. 196 Brook points out: “…wherever we went without the carpet, we couldn’t do anything. But we put our carpet down and that is our architecture, and we treat that like a building or other things.”197 They spread their carpet out as an opening ritual, and waited for an audience to gather.198 Anywhere they went, they were always surrounded by people, which was very valuable for Brook and his group.199 The carpet would

194 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 49,50. 195 Ibid., 46. 196 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 93-95. 197 Brook, Interview with author. 198 Philip Toynbee, "Theatrical Safari," Observer Review, Sep., 1977. 199 Brook, Brook by Brook.

52 define an area on which they would work;200 at other times, they would outline their performance area on the desert sand by creating a human ring.

Besides excerpts from The Conference of the Birds, their performances revolved around common daily items and activities, such as boxes, shoes or walking.201 They used minimal language and no actual script existed for the performances; they improvised.202 Working outside a specific language, the actors nevertheless performed before stunned audiences.203 Their first performance was in a little town in Algeria which, as Brook describes, turned out to be the most moving moment of the whole journey.204 They unrolled the carpet, sat on it and, before long, an audience gathered around them. They started with a fragmentary improvisation using a pair of shoes (see Figure 1.2). An actor took off his shoes and put them in the middle of the carpet. This was a centring action – “an intense moment”: a pair of big, heavy, dusty boots in the middle of the carpet. The actors began to improvise using the two shoes, each actor performing something different. The audience participated in the play and helped to explore and discover various meanings. A deep relationship between the actors and the audience was forged; without understanding one another, a ‘common language’ developed. It was striking that the whole play, with its complicated development, could transpire on an empty carpet with a pair of boots.205 These performances initiated an intimate contact between the actors and spectators. The carpet represented a stage where the line separating actors and spectators disappeared, encouraging audience involvement and their participation in the performance through an awakened presence. It offered a ground for “a meeting of innocents: a celebration.”206 Within the circle of African villagers, the group experienced a concentration and a relationship of direct contact with the spectators and

200 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 28. 201 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 48. 202 Irving Wardle, "The Magician’s Touch: Conference of the Birds, The story of Peter Brook in Africa by John Heilpern," Times, Oct. 1977. 203 John Heilpern, "In Search of the Miraculous," Observer Magazine, Sep. 18, 1977. 204 Gibson, "Brook’s Africa: An Interview by Michael Gibson," 38. 205 Brook, The Shifting Point, 115. See also Gibson, "Brook’s Africa: An Interview by Michael Gibson," 39. 206 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 211.

53 experienced “the joy of being alive.”207 The presence of the carpet in an empty space, a void, became a pivotal inspiration for future plays performed elsewhere. 208 This was one of the lessons learnt through their ‘travelling laboratory’: “emptiness is shared; it’s the same space for everyone who is present.”209 The essence of the journey and the experience gathered remained the group’s most central “collective experience” and has left the most profound influence on all Brook’s subsequent work.210 He recalls that their play in the African villages was one of the biggest and most important experiences that he has ever had in theatre.211

Figure 1.2: Improvisation with a pair of boots during Brook’s journey to Arica.

In Africa, they played in conditions very close, according to Brook, to Elizabethan theatre. Villagers – the elderly, the wise, the naïve, youths, even children of young age – crowded around the carpet.212 The carpet marked an ‘empty zone’ and acted

207 Brook, Brook by Brook. 208 Heilpern refers to “two supreme symbols” in the journey into Sahara Desert: the carpet and the desert sand. When they returned from Africa, they used the carpet without a set in different plays, namely The Cherry Orchard and The Mahabharata. See Heilpern, Conference of the Birds, Introduction, I. 209 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 6. 210 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 205. See also Heilpern, Conference of the Birds, 40. See also Heilpern, "In Search of the Miraculous." 211 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, 22. 212 Sarit Cofman, "Mnouchkine, Kantor, Brook: Spacetime Theatre Arts" (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1992), 147.

54 as an ‘open stage’ through which they re-discovered the tenets of the Elizabethan theatre.213 Brook emphasizes that it was through their experiment on the carpet that they experienced the “technical basis of Shakespearean theatre;” the improvisation on the carpet was the best way to truly explore Shakespeare, rather than trying to reconstruct Elizabethan theatres.214 On the carpet, it was possible “to begin a scene standing, end it by sitting down, and in standing up again find oneself in another country, at another time, without losing the tempo of the story.” 215 Elizabethan theatre exploited similar techniques to the same end. According to Brook, this is what happens in Shakespeare where, for instance, an actor may walk in an enclosed space, but then suddenly without any noticeable break in the play, he finds himself in an open space. The first part is indoors, the other outdoors, all happens “without any indication of the point at which the transition occurs.”216 This is an essential quality in Shakespeare that Brook greatly appreciates: “it is surely obvious that Shakespeare was writing theatre for an infinite space within undefined time.”217

The carpet, one could propose, was more than just a piece of scenery: it assumed the role of a place within a space; the carpet was, according to Brook, the architecture. 218 By unrolling and laying down the carpet, they established imaginary limits and boundaries on the ground and defined (created) a site within the vastness of the desert. Through this action, as if they nested, framed and thus concentrated the space and created a fictitious area, a meaningful place where a performance could take place. Once the actors inhabit the carpet, new energy and attentiveness were required form them to create a perpetual challenge.219 The concentration on the carpet provoked reciprocity: the energy and experience of the actors were shared by the audience, who acknowledged the existence of a shared mythical zone. The energy was also magnified by the proximity of the audience in

213 "Conversation between Peter Brook and Peter Stein," 3. 214 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 28. 215 Ibid. 216 Ibid., 28,29. 217 Ibid., 29. 218 Brook, Interview with author. 219 See Heilpern, Conference of the Birds.

55 this empty zone. The carpet gives a new meaning to actor-observer reciprocity. Although setting up the carpet defined boundaries on the ground, because it was bare, the emptiness extended the imaginative space. It was the unadorned nature of the space that stimulated the imagination. Brook writes: “Sitting around the carpet on the same ground as the actors in the same light and time is a form of reality, but the imaginative world jointly created on this basis has a different – virtual – quality, and both the real and the virtual qualities coexist.”220 The dichotomies between real and virtual qualities were thus bridged through the act of theatre on the carpet. Creation of a (theatrical) play on the carpet possessed ethical implications: the carpet involved a spatial definition, a separation that also united; it offered a ground, or a space that required fiction.

Each performance started from a ‘zero point’ around which spectators made a circle; and it returned to that ‘zero point’ at its conclusion.221 Each performance was made and existed for the people that were there at that time, “and as theatre should be, when it was over, it vanished without a trace.”222 It was as though the place created by the carpet was folded up along with it, and could be laid down again somewhere else. It came into existence but it was ephemeral and disappeared again. This temporality suggested a transient and a nomadic character. As if the plays, as Jean-Claude Carrière points out, “have an invisible direction that can move and go to any place. The real direction is the relationship between the actor and spectators.”223 The carpet is an allegory for the space in Brook’s theatre which is not permanent, but moves and expands in and through what he terms ‘empty space’, creating an endless search, shifting the observers outside their daily routine lives. It is essential to point out this ‘empty space’ is not just a passive volume; its condition is not simply that something happens ‘in’ it. Rather, it has agency or makes something possible; something happens ‘through’ it. For

220 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 52. 221 Brook, The Shifting Point, 118. 222 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 93-95. 223 Carrière, Interviews with author.

56 Brook “in an empty space, everything can become an event.”224 The architecture actually has a defined form: the carpet, though it is fluid and mobile. It is a matter of perception; but the carpet becomes architecture not through a perception “of” it. Instead, the perception “is” the architecture. While it is very specific, the architecture is non-specific; it creates a non-dimensional space, offering a temporary nature of space.

The exploratory journey and the creation of a place of participation, by the carpet – an architectural phenomenon – find a subtle relationship with poetics of the life of a handmade carpet. A carpet is a work of craft brought to life through the poetic process of weaving, a meditative interlacing of countless threads in which each thread has a life of its own. The process of carpet weaving does not end with the final thread. The life and the story of the carpet continue to be, metaphorically speaking, woven into the lives and events that happen upon it. So its life story carries on, the meditation that brought it into being continues unceasingly. The carpet becomes a metaphor for storytelling, plot and plotting, narrative and narrativity. The process of carpet weaving becomes an analogy for creating something meaningful with words, with space, creating text and texture. The carpet also becomes a metaphor for waiting, an unfinished narrative which attends to the reader or observer, inviting them to act and to be involved in the space. A carpet, in itself, is an architecture that is not fixed and permanent: a dynamic space which is open to the experience and the creative interpretation and participation of the observer.

The mystical secrets of time and space imbued in the carpet by the hands of a carpet weaver suggest that the carpet is a horizontal surface that has a depth, spatiality, even verticality. Although it appears as a two-dimensional surface, topography is woven into it, charted out in the pattern on the carpet: topography that activates and elicits the vertical dimension. Walking on the carpet, we literally feel it depress under our feet – as though a carpet yields to us however

224 Banu, "Brook’s Six Days," 270.

57 slightly, in parallel with the way it accommodates our presence by marking out a space. While flat, it frames a space which is deep, even high. Carpets can evoke many associations, one of which pertains to “cartographic quality”.225 The carpet creates a zone, a horizontal surface, within whose framework the action takes place accompanied by movements and rearrangements; it implies a horizontality upon which a verticality may happen; it is the actions of the actors or people using the carpet which take the carpet into the vertical dimension. This makes a dimension an ‘event’: the vertical dimension only emerges through an ‘event’. The thread becomes a surface with substance, a plane with ‘indefinable’ thickness which becomes the basis of Brook’s places of performance, each holding the potential of many spaces where the deep and the flat meet.

1.3. The Bouffes du Nord Theatre

After the three years of travelling (to Iran, Africa and US) in the early seventies, Brook recounts how his troupe needed a base in Paris, a centre for their theatre. A passage in The Open Circle describes in Brook’s own words the serendipitous event of discovering the Bouffes du Nord:

“One day, nearly thirty years ago Micheline Rozan suggested that we go and look at an abandoned theatre behind the Gare du Nord. We arrived at the Place de la Chapelle, but there was absolutely no evidence of the building: just a typical nineteenth-century Parisian façade turning the corner of the boulevard. We investigated further: there was some loose boarding covering a hole in the wall which we wrenched aside and then crawled into a dark tunnel. There was debris all around, and still no sign of the promised space. Suddenly a door opened and there was the Bouffes – a majestic volume with light streaming down through the dome and the dusty air on to what looked, at ground level, like a bomb site. There was a

225 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010.

58 heap of rubble in the middle of the space with wires hanging everywhere, evidence of destruction in progress.”226

The theatre was constructed in 1876 and it went through a volatile history of unsuccessful theatre directors. At the end of the chain of its misfortunes, the Bouffes du Nord was closed down in 1914. The abandoned building caught fire in 1952 and was long considered for demolition by its owner. When Peter Brook along with Micheline Rozan discovered the abandoned theatre in 1974, in its ruined state, it was very close to Brook’s ideal, and even today it still remains largely as it was found after the fire. 227 Situated in a resilient, ethnic neighbourhood in the North-East part of Paris,228 the Bouffes du Nord theatre has been home to Peter Brook and the ICTR and their theatrical creation for almost forty years.

226 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 6. See also Brook, The Shifting Point, 151. 227 Brook, The Shifting Point, 241. 228 The theatre location provides an air of magic or even strangeness: the bastion of multiculturalism and the beacon of experimental theatre. Shunning the glamour of the fashionable neighbourhoods of Paris with their cafés, restaurants, museums and opera houses, the Bouffes du Nord is humbly sited diagonally from the Metro station ‘La Chapelle’ at a clamorous corner, engulfed in cacophony of traffic going about in all directions (see Figure 1.3). The theatre is entirely inconspicuous to most bystanders; its exterior is non-descript. From the outside, the Bouffes du Nord is indistinguishable from tall apartment buildings that surround it. No flashy signs, no billboards, no picturesque posters forewarn people about the grand theatre. One does not expect to visit a theatre in such an ordinary and busy area. Frequently, first-time visitors stop by- passers to ask: “Do you know where the Bouffes du Nord theatre is? How do I get to the Bouffes du Nord? …” Only a simple sign above a plain, wooden gate that reads “THEATRE” gives the Bouffes du Nord away. The gate is the main entrance, next to which a small plaque on the right provides information about the opening hours. On the left of the main gate is a café operated by the Bouffes du Nord where actors and theatre personnel take refuge from demanding work. The atmosphere in the café/restaurant is cozy, intimate and genteel. For many, it is a last stop before and/or after a performance. The main entrance to the Bouffes du Nord and the side entrance through the Restaurant du Theatre lead to the main lobby. From the lobby, a hallway connects to the centre of a crescent-shaped corridor that has several entrances to the theatre auditorium. At either end of the corridors is a narrow, winding staircase that leads to the first-floor and the second-floor balconies. The third floor is reserved for the lighting crew and their equipment. Aged walls marked with stains emit energy that can be felt throughout the theatre, enhancing the feeling of being part of something extraordinary from the past. The wall on one side of the crescent- shaped corridor is made of concrete while the wall on the other side is made of red brick, creating a dramatic, optical contrast.

Figure 1.3: The Bouffes du Nord located inconspicuously at a busy intersection of Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis and Boulevard de la Chapelle.

They decided to renovate and revive the Bouffes du Nord, yet they intended to preserve the fire-scorched qualities of the space, keeping all the marks of history etched to the walls without erasing “a single trace of the hundred years of life that had passed through it.”229 At the same time, Brook made little attempt to conceal or remove the ‘remaining evidence’ of the theatre’s glory days.230 “Crumbling decorations and engravings, pockmarked and scarred dirty walls remained, with blotched and fire-blackened peeling surfaces.” 231 And even though some architectural transformation happened, the changes looked as if they have been there forever. The texture of the walls has not been changed; the small holes and cracks on the walls resemble, in Brook’s own words, “wrinkles in a face. They are very precious…”232 A theatre, Brook points out, “must have a soul,” which is something that is hard to explain.233 The ICTR discovered this quality in this

229 Brook, The Shifting Point, 151,152. Peter Brook and Micheline Rozan intended to make the theatre accessible to different groups of people and affordable for everybody, including people from suburbs and low-income families. They pushed down the price to half, or even a quarter, of boulevard prices and launched Saturday matinees. With workshops, improvisations and events for children, they intended to maintain the status of the Bouffes du Nord as a ‘centre’, rather than turning it into a repertory theatre. 230 David Williams, "A Place Marked by Life’: Brook at the Bouffes du Nord," New Theatre Quarterly 1, no. 1, (1985), 40. 231 Albert Hunt and Geoffrey Reeves, Directors in Perspective: Peter Brook, ed. Christopher Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 202. 232 Brook, Brook by Brook. 233 Ibid.

60 ruined, dilapidated theatre: “the magic and the poetry of a ruin,” 234 where imagination is let loose. Williams writes that this theatre “is above all a place marked by life,”235 and in accordance with the needs of the life of theatre.236 The seats, over a hundred and fifty years old, lack comfort, but they are part of the life that has been “marked on the walls.”237 The theatre, as Andrew Todd suggests, “can be retuned to appear young or old, vast or intimate, holy of profane. Near- ruined, pregnant with possibility, it was exactly the theatre he wanted.”238 This ruined theatre, for Brook, was not an imitation of an Elizabethan theatre, but something that could reveal the possibilities of “a place impregnated by life,”239 possibilities that are embedded in the Elizabethan theatre.

Influenced by the idea of a unified area for actors and audience acquired on his trips to Africa and Iran, Brook tried to emulate the same quality of the actor- audience relationship in the Bouffes du Nord. He eliminated the elevated stage and surrounded the acting area with a semi-circle of chairs,240 which is illustrated in Figure 1.4. By removing the stage, Brook created an empty, “Elizabethan” space.241 The ‘circle’ of chairs and balconies concentrate the space, promoting a direct relationship between the actors and the spectators, a relationship similar to that on the carpet within the circle of African villagers. 242 Instead of the conventional layout of a sharply defined area for the audience and the elevated stage framed by a proscenium for the actors, it was essential for Brook that the acting and the audience areas met at the same space and on the same level. His goal was to abolish the ‘two-room theatre’ characterized by one dark room for the

234 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 25. 235 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 241,242. 236 Ibid. 237 Brook, Brook by Brook. 238 Andrew Todd, "A stage of Mind: Peter Brook and the Bouffes du Nord Theatre," Guardian, Dec. 24, 2008. 239 Cofman, "Mnouchkine, Kantor, Brook," 147,148. 240 The chairs form, in fact, a semi-circle around the stage. 241 Cofman, "Mnouchkine, Kantor, Brook," 148. 242 Williams, "A Place Marked by Life," 40.

61 audience and one lit room for the actors and move toward the ‘one-room theatre’ where the actors and the spectators share the same place.243

Figure 1.4: The plan of the Bouffes du Nord.

The key character of the Bouffes du Nord theatre belongs to the nature and structure of the acting space itself,244 as shown in Figure 1.5. The first acting area in front of the proscenium arch is enclosed by a semi-circle of seats and the performance takes place within inches of the first row of seats.245 Brook believes that a circle has a natural force that brings everyone closer together.246 In The Open Circle, Andrew Todd and Jean-Guy Lecat further explain this form of theatre. Three-quarters of this zone is surrounded by spectators, and the other quarter opens to the space behind. “Contrary to the frontal, image-driven configuration of most ‘two room’ or proscenium theatres, this form opens itself to possibilities of chance interaction, inviting a subtle destabilization of the

243 Carrière, Interviews with author. 244 Brook intended to create two well-balanced acting areas. Initially, the classical layout of rows of seats in the Bouffes du Nord extended to the elevated stage. Once the stage was eliminated and brought to same ground level as the seats, there was not enough space for the acting area in front of the proscenium. As a result, a portion of the seating had to be removed to create an open space. 245 The semicircle of the seats is partly sheltered by the first-floor balconies and extends a full length to the two massive plain walls that are part of the proscenium. These walls rise uninterrupted from the ground to the third floor like ‘gigantic pillars’; these vertical features of the theatre draw the eye upwards. See Cofman, "Mnouchkine, Kantor, Brook," 155. Balconies are supported by columns that start at the ground level and end at the ceiling level where the neighbouring columns are connected by arches. Above these arches the ceiling expands to form an ellipse-shaped dome. 246 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, 159.

62 dichotomy of ‘us’ – audience – versus ‘them’ – performers.”247 The semi-circle of audience creates and heightens the intensity around the action. The second acting area beyond the proscenium arch has a rectangular foot-print. The fact that it is located beyond the proscenium arch creates the possibility of changing the dynamics of the play based on distance and perspective.

Figure 1.5: A view of the First acting area and the Second acting area in the Bouffes du Nord.

The volume and scalar proportions of the Bouffes du Nord have intriguing characteristics. Its proportions were found to correspond to “Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, to a small Noh stage and to the golden section.”248 The distance from the centre of the proscenium to the opposite wall is exactly the same as the distance from the ground to the arches below the dome. Hence, the auditorium is as deep as it is high (see Figure 1.6). In this regard, the proportions of the Bouffes du Nord are unique when compared to conventional theatres. Because of its equal height-to-depth proportions, the vertical dimension assumes a crucial importance in expanding the volume of the theatre. The vertical depth of the theatre makes the proportions appear more intimate and the spectators feel closer to the action.249

247 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, vii. 248 Mary Blume, "For Brook, Theatre Is Where You Find It," International Herald Tribune, Oct. 3, 2003. 249 Observers located at different levels may experience and perceive the space differently. Spectators who watch the performance from the ground floor may feel overwhelmed by the capacious, empty space. Deceived by the verticality, they perceive the performance to be much closer than it is in reality. The apparent immediacy and proximity of the action intensifies its emotional force and enhances the audience’s participation. The audience sitting on the second- floor balcony surveys the performance from an elevation, with a birds-eye perspective; looking down through a vast empty space. From such a vantage point, “formal shapes and choreographed

63 This creates a very engaging spatial relationship that feels very close to Elizabethan theatre.250

Figure 1.6: The sections of the Bouffes du Nord.

This depth is articulated, according to Brook, in the natural spatial structure of the theatre. The circle of the first acting area, curving around from one side of the proscenium to the other side is “no longer a picture frame but a flexible division, because as you go through it another space opens out.”251 Brook refers to the notion of “double-depth theatre space” in the Bouffes du Nord; this becomes very important from an architectural point of view. He cautions, it is not being invented “from a theoretical standpoint,” 252 yet it derives from a very well known conventions in staging traditions – from the 16th and 17th centuries. If the actor in the first acting area advances from the plane of the proscenium toward the audience by a mere two meters, the gain in intimacy is significant and the view resembles a close-up. As Brook points out, psychologically for the audience, there is a great difference between the actor at the back, the middle, or close to the spectators. In the second acting zone, wherever the actor stands, the impression of distance is greatly increased and the view resembles a zoom-out perspective. Brook describes that if one walks backward in the first zone, one passes from the

patterns of the action are emphasized.” See Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 243. Spectators sitting on the first-floor balcony seem to be suspended between the two extremes, benefiting from the elevation and the proximity to the play. 250 Brook, Brook by Brook. See also Brook, Interview with author. 251 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 26,27. 252 Ibid.

64 close-up to full-figure view; then, in the second acting zone beyond the proscenium, one suddenly enters a long-shot view.253

Entering the main auditorium of the theatre, one is pulled into a vast caldron of empty space (see Figure 1.7). “[I]t is only a cavernous pit where the stage used to be. There are no curtains, no backdrops – just a huge gaping space that yawns emptily, down, up, and into what is left of the wings. Apparently, this abyss has been left as it was – blotched, fire-blackened, with dirty white peeling surfaces…”254 The walls of the oval auditorium rise sharply towards the dome far above. The sheer volume of emptiness surrounded by the walls overwhelms each spectator from the very first moment he or she enters. In this empty arena, “there is no room to slouch or hide.”255 The theatre, as Michael Coveney, points out is “a crucible of different elements with a common purpose: the phenomenon of theatre.”256

Figure 1.7: The main auditorium of the Bouffes du Nord theatre.

253 Ibid., 27. 254 Bill Read, "Peter Brook: From Stratford-on-Avon to the Gare du Nord," Boston University Journal XXIV, no. 3, (1975), 64. 255 Todd, "A stage of Mind." 256 Michael Coveney, "Peter Brook," Financial Times, Jan. 22, 1982.

65 The architecture experienced in the Bouffes du Nord creates an emptiness that is active, and offers a space of participation and human interaction. Carrière refers to a ‘real’ contact between spectators and actors in the Bouffes du Nord, as there are “no fences, no barriers, no high stage and the audience down below, everything on the same level.”257 Never before, he emphasizes, had “I imagined or saw a perfect contact between the actors and the audience.”258 As if in an enclosed courtyard, Williams suggests, “performers and public are bathed in the same ‘open-air’ light throughout.”259 Carrière adds that “in other theaters, the actors and the audience are in the same room sometimes, but in the theatre of the Bouffes du Nord, they sleep in the same bed. […] They are all in the same bed, which is also a question of architecture…”260

It is a space that is in a transitional state of anticipation and potential, a space that, as Williams points out, appears to be “at an indeterminate mid-point between renovation and demolition.” 261 It suggests openness and encourages our qualitative and sensuous engagement; it is alive. Brook describes that there is no need for a set, “because we have a set without a set, something that’s able to respond to one’s imagination” without being specific.262 The theatre escapes definitions, “its essence is incertitude of spacetime.”263 There is a sense of uncertainty in the Bouffes du Nord. We, as spectators, “hesitate over the nature of the space that we just entered: Greek and medieval, perhaps, but above all, Elizabethan.”264

The acting area, Williams suggests, “forms an immense empty space, a tabula rasa impregnated with a heightened potential for creation. Non-specific, neutral and open, it possesses the freedom and infinite transformability of the non-

257 Carrière, Interviews with author. 258 Ibid. 259 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 242. 260 Carrière, Interviews with author. 261 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 242. 262 Brook, Brook by Brook. 263 Cofman, "Mnouchkine, Kantor, Brook," 146. 264 Ibid.

66 localized Elizabethan stage.”265 The theatre, as Brook emphasizes, is at once and the same time “both intimate and epic;”266 “it is double.”267 Brook describes that if they want the theatre to become something, for instance a Tibetan temple or a place of Sufi ceremonies and rituals, the space will comply. And the reason is more than just the atmosphere of the theatre. It is, according to Brook, due to the “rigorously mathematic rightness of the proportions.” 268 And that is, Brook suggests, a secret of the Bouffes du Nord. The proportions are not ordinary architectural proportions,269 what touches one in the Bouffes du Nord are the “secret wires of tension and release which is the basis of architecture.”270

1.4. ‘Found Spaces’

As had been his exploratory voyages and experiments, the discovery of the dilapidated theatre of the Bouffes du Nord was a turning point in Brook’s career. It transformed his perception of theatrical place and from that point onward initiated a new movement. After settling down in the new, permanent ‘centre,’ Brook and his group began to explore, discover and transform many other places – ‘found spaces’ – in different corners of the world for their theatrical performances. Brook has never considered the space of theatre and the experience of the audience as independent, isolated entities. Instead he pursued unconventional conditions for the performances to ensure the best relationship between the actor, spectator and the space.271 Brook and his group have continued to do this until the present time. They have performed in nearly two hundred different places around the world;272 they aspired to find unconventional places

265 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 242. 266 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 25. 267 Brook, Interview with author. 268 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 25,26. 269 Brook, Interview with author. 270 Ibid. 271 Neil Wallace, "Peter Brook, Theatre Space and The Tramway," in Making Space for Theatre: British Architecture and Theatre since 1958, ed. Ronnie Mulryne and Margret Shewring, (Stratford-on-Avon: Mulryne and Shewring Ltd., 1995), 61. 272 See Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle. A comprehensive documentation of many of the places of performance can be found in The Open Circle. The book is a narrative of these ‘found spaces’ and how they were discovered and transformed; it begins with the Bouffes du Nord, Brook’s

67 that would adequately suit the needs of a particular performance, rather than complacently relying on established theatres. These ‘found spaces’ have included abandoned industrial spaces, factories, depots, warehouses, silos, garages, train stations, boathouses, cloisters, monasteries, museums, amphitheatres and quarries – both indoor and outdoor places. Lecat273 explains that although the places were very different, they all had similar atmospheres because of the absence of a set; permanent relationships with natural materials (rocks, stones, red bricks, clay walls…) were preserved.274

The Ik was the first production that enjoyed significant international exposure as it went on a tour of Belgrade, Berlin, London, Venice, Vienna and the United States. Lecat, who joined the ICTR as a stage manager just before the tour, was tasked with finding places for the performance. He recalls when he came to see Brook for advice and guidance about what places he should be looking for, Brook replied: “I cannot say anything to you that would help you. You see on your own; you will recognize the spaces. What is important is that these spaces should be full of life.”275 Lecat quickly realized an important aspect in his search for the ‘found spaces’: “It wasn’t a question of making the space: it was rather a matter of recognizing the right one which, with the necessary transformation, would feel correct for the play…”276 For him, it is difficult to explain what kind of space he

theatre, and continues from then on chronologically. What makes the structure of the book important are documented encounters and observations by the authors, Andrew Todd and Jean- Guy Lecat, with Peter Brook’s own comments as well as those of his closest collaborators from the International Center for Theatre Research. The book is a very important source of information because it represents a ‘group activity’. What also makes this comprehensive book so invaluable is the enormous number of crucial points it raises: in essence, it points to a series of relevant questions that could, each on its own, represent the possible beginning of many research tangents. This book is one of a few comprehensive collections of Brook’s places of performance written from theatrical and architectural perspectives. These records have significantly contributed to the understanding of Brook’s unconventional approach as well as aided his collaborators in discovering and searching for possible performance spaces. 273 Jean-Guy Lecat, referred to by Brook as ‘Mr. Space’, has worked as a stage manager and space designer in Peter Brook’s theatre. He joined Brook’s theatre in 1976 and over a period of 25 years he has designed approximately 200 theatre stages worldwide. In 2000, Lecat left Brook’s theatre to work on creation and transformation of spaces for other directors and architects. He also organizes workshops on stage design. See Blume, "For Brook, Theatre Is Where You Find It." 274 Jean-Guy Lecat, Interview by Negin Djavaherian (unpublished), May 24, 2011. 275 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 60. 276 Ibid., 61.62.

68 was looking for, it is much easier to describe what relationship the space should possess with respect to the play. But it was not only the ‘found spaces’ that needed transformation or adjustment, it was also their surroundings. For instance, every single dwelling around the cloisters of San Pietro di Castello and campo Angelo Raffaele, in Venice, had to be visited and convinced not to watch television, listen to radio or speak loudly during the performance for the entire week because the noise would disturb the performance.277 As difficult as it was to convince the Italian inhabitants, it was worth it. Lecat describes that the presence of silence in these found spaces was essential. The theatre cannot play without silence and they have implemented extraordinary measures just to achieve that, not hesitating to reroute airplanes, delay trains or stop street traffic altogether.278

The premiere of the English version of The Mahabharata was staged in Zurich where the initial idea of performing it on the pier was dismissed because of the noise caused by boat traffic. The performance was moved into a boathouse, the pier was cleared and a company village was built on a hired pontoon. The overnight performance of The Mahabharata finished at sunrise; when the sun first appeared, the enormous door of the boathouse would open and the sun would directly participate in the performance. Carrière describes: “Peter [Brook] is always changing things, such as allowing the sunrise to participate in the action in such an unexpected way. […] This underlines that what counts is not a fixed number of steps to get to a point in relation to décor, but rather a relationship to the play. This relationship is constantly modified in terms of the very different spaces that we have played in, and one must make an effort to remain supple and free of preconceptions.”279

What they were looking for in these found spaces was a natural relationship with human beings, something that has been forgotten, according to Lecat, by the many

277 Ibid., 62. 278 Lecat, Interview by the author, May 2011 (unpublished). Some places, however, had to be turned down just because they were too noisy. 279 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 170.

69 architects who are building theatres. An industrial space, for instance, could be more sensible to human relationships because it was built for workers and the questions of height, proportion and space have been considered. As a result, there could be a much closer relationship between a theatrical play and an industrial space chosen to frame it than the relationships one would find in many conventional theatres.280 The architecture, Lecat points out, depends on the quality of life and what happens in that space.281 Brook describes that the place needs to create warmth, not necessarily cosiness, a feeling that heightens the attention of the audience; it should also possess qualities of the ordinary and the extraordinary in the right proportion.282

In most of those places – very clearly seen in quarries – there is a sense of detachment from everyday life though a journey, a kind of ‘gentle rapture’, displacement and invitation outside of one’s usual cartography of the city. There are always undertones of the arrival at a place of performance after a long journey which creates a sense of ‘collective displacement’ from everyday routine: travelling and arrival produce the feeling of being both connected and separated.283 In effect, a ritual bridge takes the audience from everyday reality to other places. It offers a way “from the center to the margins, an act of literal and metaphorical displacement as well as disorientation.”284 Williams emphasizes this importance of ritual not in a religious sense, but in terms of organizing an action to displace a rhythm, shifting the sense of place from a location on a city map into a new orientation more closely aligned with a destination of pilgrimage.285 Arrival at the place then is a process: people hike, climb, ride a boat, a bus or a car for kilometres to reach remote destinations. One might suggest the essential notion of path and procession to reach these ‘found spaces’ resonates with the emphasis Ricardo Castro places on the poetic dimension of the act of moving in the creative

280 Lecat, Interview by the author, May 2011 (unpublished). 281 "Peter Brook: Interview with Jean-Guy Lecat at Cottesloe Theatre," Platform Papers no. 6 (May 6, 1994), 19. 282 Andrew Todd, "Interview with Peter Brook," Spazio e Società 19, no. 77, (1997), 36. 283 David Williams, Personal communication with Negin Djavaherian, November 9, 2010. 284 David Williams, A Free Space Frees…: The Mahabharata in Australia, (unpublished work). 285 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010.

70 realms such as theatre and architecture. He points out the importance of a path that constitutes “one of the first and most basic communal manifestations of humankind.”286 The voyage to the place of performance – often embodying the beginning of a play – is entangled with the quality of the path “as a true living sacred entity,” one that sensuously engages the body of the traveller.287 On the part of the audience, it is a conscious decision to leave their daily life behind and venture on a journey to experience theatre. Lecat explains that it is a commitment, and people do not go to these theatres just to see a show. It is more and far beyond that; what happens is an encounter.288

Many of these ‘found spaces’, particularly in quarries, were abandoned, but the signs of previous human activities were still present. They possessed “a quality of weathered, textured humanity, the locations themselves literalising the passage of time – the “fourth dimension”.”289 The nature of Brook’s approach to the places of performance recalls, as Williams points out,290 Mohsen Mostafavi and David Leatherbarrow’s argument in Weathering: The Life of Building in Time where they suggest “not to see finishing as the final moment of construction but to see the unending deterioration of a finish that results from weathering, the continuous metamorphosis of the building itself, as part of its beginning(s) and its ever- changing “finish”.”291 Williams suggests that the authors “celebrate both the memory traces that remain of a building’s “pasts” and the “possible futures” created by weathering after construction.”292 Many of those places are former work places that are “worn and scarred, marked by life, or to borrow a phrase from a Shakespeare sonnet, places of “unswep’t stone besmear’d with sluttish

286 Ricardo L. Castro, "Sounding the Path: Dwelling and Dreaming," in Chora 3: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture, ed. Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Stephen Parcell, (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999), 26. 287 Ibid., 40. 288 Lecat, Interview by the author, May 2011 (unpublished). 289 Williams, A Free Space Frees. 290 Ibid. 291 Mohsen Mostafavi and David Leatherbarrow, Weathering: The Life of Building in Time (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 16. 292 Williams, A Free Space Frees.

71 time”.”293 Abandoned quarries can be recognized as industrial spaces in a state of obsolescence; they no longer possess their functionality, and yet a whole set of relations exist with respect to their past activities that cast a veil of ambiguity over them. Once full of solid rock, the places were gradually voided, treated as resources, their stone taken for architectural structures.294 The activity of stone blasting, fragmenting, cutting and hauling away rock and gravel ended once the rock supply was exhausted or the construction finished, after which the hollowed- out quarry within the mountain was forsaken and left for nature to overrun. By discovering and transforming the neglected quarry into a place of performance, Brook wrestled it from oblivion, bringing new life and new qualities to a place that had been disused and forlorn.

As Williams suggests, there is an ecological perspective or mode of attention in Brook’s work, to look at things that are abandoned, that are overlooked, that are now redundant or in a way have become waste matter.295 One can see this in the Bouffes du Nord: it was abandoned and in the process of destruction to make way for a parking lot when Brook adopted it. Such places carry traces of the past; quarries still carry the marks of explosions, quarrying, mining and labouring bodies. Brook sees the abandoned and the ruined as possibilities for futurity. Through intervention and inhabitation in these sites, these abandoned and wasted lands are recuperated; their latent capacities are discovered. There is a sense of ethics in this ecology that pays attention to what has been forgotten, overlooked or abandoned.296 And in the wake of devastation and abandonment, through the catalyst of theatre, new meanings emerge. This approach generates a fresh set of limitless possibilities. Through the discovery and recognition of ruins and abandoned or marginalized sites, Brook confronts the emptiness of the loss and instils vital qualities in the sites through a theatrical work. Lecat points out that some of these ‘found spaces’ were absolutely abandoned and destined for

293 Ibid.. 294 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010. 295 Ibid. 296 Ibid.

72 imminent destruction by the city. Brook’s transformation of the places and the performance of theatre there created new relationships with the public; it presented the public with the potential of those ‘found spaces’. This action in most cases reversed the decisions made by politicians to destroy the places and led to their preservation.297

One might suggest the palpable presence of a dichotomy between destruction and re-creation. In the shadows of the state between repair and disrepair, hope lingers for renaissance and rejuvenation. The relentless search, the ritualistic scrutiny, the sacramental effort to find a place, the desire and the need to transform a place to host a play, are the hallmarks of a poetic journey toward creation, an expedition to empathy, and the beginning of a shared experience in disremembered territories. This quest brings life to a place that is in a state of decline and dilapidation, yet it still carries the set of relations with human endeavour which seems to be a central theme in Brook’s creations. It accentuates the fundamental metaphor at play in Brook’s poetic images, always made possible by architecture: the concurrence of life and death, decay and rebirth in the incandescent moment of performance that is the very purpose of the poetic world and the poetic artefact.

We might be reminded of our earlier consideration of a carpet. The carpet, years of narrative sometimes woven into it literally as well as metaphorically, displays artisanal knowledge and laborious endeavour. The carpet and weaving represent a kind of artisanal craft with a historiographical trace; that trace corresponds, at some levels, to similar traces in quarries (and quarrying): places which, although inactive, still bear all the signs of human endeavour. Like the woven carpet, the surface of the quarry displays a history of laborious engagement, hidden knowledge, and temporality. Williams suggests that it is about making places that are ephemeral and have a kind of concrete statute in an ephemeral way and then can be let go off.298 And a carpet has a social dimension: it is a shared space,

297 Lecat, Interview by the author, May 2011 (unpublished). 298 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010.

73 especially a carpet as Brook used it. One intention in searching out ‘found spaces’ is to prepare the ground for a performance as a kind of social practice; as a bringing together of different people. In one sense all the site discoveries, observations and transformations, are about place making and sharing. This quest creates temporary establishments and groundings; it creates the potential for relational alliances that are both architectural and social.

Discovery of performance sites, meditation and observation on the site, transformation and reincarnation of dormant qualities of place, and creation of theatrical performance: this confluence of processes remind us of Malpas’s observation that the identity of a place is defined not merely according to a “simple set of clearly defined parameters but rather by means of a complex of factors deriving from the elements encompassed by that place.”299 He explains that the identity of a place should be recognized with respect to a complicated concurrence of factors comprising “the natural landscape, the pattern of weather and of sky, the human ordering of spaces and resources, and also individual and communal narratives with which the place is imbued.” 300 Brook’s theatre establishes subtle, intimate interactions with the site and a set of relationships and possibilities within the space which become part of the identity of these places. The character of the sites cannot be identified outside of a relationship to the narrative and the ‘life’ of the play performed in those places.

One of the crucial characteristics of Brook’s theatre is that the vast majority of the performances have been on tour in different places around the world and thus, one could say they have a nomadic character (though one should note that a few performances, like Orghast, 301 were designed for a specific place and therefore belonged to a specific geography and could not be moved anywhere else).302 The puzzling question is how the plays can be nomadic when, once they move into a

299 J.E. Malpas, Place and Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 185. 300 Ibid. 301 For information on Orghast refer to this thesis, Part II and Part III. 302 Brook, Interview with author.

74 ‘found space’, they invariably become intrinsically linked with the location – as if they cannot be played anywhere else. On the one hand, Brook is so sensitive to the specifics of a place but on the other hand, he proposes an architecture which is fundamentally not about a local space: it can move to different places. This might suggest a paradox of placelessness and place-belongingness which continues to be a mystery in Brook’s work.303 These seemingly paradoxical phenomena relate to the modern call to abandon, as Flusser suggests in “Taking up Residence in Homelessness,” the narrow sense of ethnic “home” (heimat), embracing our nomadic condition in a global village while acknowledging our need to dwell poetically in “a home” (wohnung). 304 Brook’s dwelling in a ‘found space’ resonates with Flusser’s notion that immigrating to a new home does not mean cutting off all relationships with others, but instead, calls for integrating these relationships with the new home(s). One could suggest that in his journeys Brook explores what Flusser calls “the secret codes of home,”305 as he consciously learns the hidden qualities of a site. Brook and his group constantly carry in their subconscious the secrets of all their ‘found spaces,’ while never fixing any meanings, and resisting imposing those meanings onto new place. This is resonant with Heidegger's observation that home is unhomely: we come to ourselves through an openness to the strange, the foreign or unknown within ourselves.306 The ground we set up is also an ungrounding: this is the fundamentally

303 From this perspective the ephemeral nature of the carpet becomes an engaging metaphor, portraying this nomadic quality: the created, temporary place created by laying down the carpet could be folded up and laid down again. 304 Vilém Flusser, "Taking up Residence in Homelessness," in Writings, ed. Andreas Ströhl, trans. Erik Eisel vol. 6, (2002), 91,92. 305 Ibid., 95. 306 Heidegger points out: “Coming to be at home is thus a passage through the foreign. And if the becoming homely of a particular human-kind sustains the historiality of its history, then the law of the encounter between the foreign and one’s own is the fundamental truth of history, a truth from out of which the essence of history must unveil itself. For this reason, the poetic meditation on becoming homely must also for its part be of a historical nature and, as poetic, demand a historical dialogue with foreign poets.” See Martin Heidegger, Hölderlin's Hymn "The Ister" (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996). Keiji Nishitani writes about Heidegger’s speech Ansprache zum Heimatbend, in which he lays out the ideas that seem to be the basis of Flusser’s discussion, the relationship of the heimat and the unheimlich (uncanny) and the unheimische (un-home-like). We can find our place or origination in the midst of a homeless or nomadic condition. Nishitani then goes on to connect it with Buddhist notions which are very similar. See Graham Parkes, ed., Heidegger and Asian Thought (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1987), 148.

75 destabilizing nature of art – that it unsettles us even as it touches us to the depths of our soul. Recognizing and appreciating the mysteries of ‘a home’, for Brook, opens up the many possibilities and mysteries of the secret of being in place.307 While retaining the Bouffes du Nord as their “home” (heimat), Brook and his ensemble recognize and explore the possibilities of creating and being in other ‘homes’ for their performances. Placelessness becomes a potentiality, something that embodies all other places; and something that even perhaps coveys a message for the future: the nomadic character of humanity in the third millennium.

Carrière points out in his account of the nomadic character of Brook’s theatre that “Brook is trying to create a direction that can move from one place to another. When Brook works, he constantly thinks not only about the Bouffes du Nord, but also about all the possible places where he could play.”308 Carrière underlines that the dimension of the theatre will be different from place to place, but that difference does not change the theatre direction: “it does not change the deep feeling, the main feeling of the direction.”309 He emphasizes that the ‘real’ direction of theatre finds its meaning in the relation between the actors and spectators. It is “an invisible direction” that can move and go to any place.310

1.5. Dynamic Propositions

1.5.1. Process: ‘A Formless Hunch’ “I start with a deep, formless hunch which is like a smell, a color, a shadow.”311

In Shifting Points Brook writes about the process of creation: that ‘formless hunch’, which is “a certain powerful yet shadowy intuition that indicates the basic shape, the source from which the play is calling to him,”312 Brook continues his

307 An idea parallel to Flusser. 308 Carrière, Interviews with author. 309 Ibid. 310 Ibid. 311 Brook, The Shifting Point, 3. 312 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 119.

76 thought regarding his relationship with the play through all preparations and rehearsals. Rather than following any premeditated structure designed for the play, he emphasizes that he constantly follows what he calls “amorphous non-formed feeling”.313 There is a notion of uncertainties that, in Brook’s view, has to be exposed through the process.314 Brook’s ‘formless hunch’ recalls vividly the importance of the question of unconsciousness and ambiguity emphasized by Juhani Pallasmaa in his article “In Praise of Vagueness”. Referring to Anton Ehrenzweig (1908-1966), Pallasmaa points out that “creativity arises from vague, juxtaposed and diffusely interacting images, and unconscious perception and processes, not focused precepts, precision and logical non-ambiguity.” 315 Pallasmaa, like Brook, recognizes how essential uncertainty and insecurity are in the process of creation.316

By repeatedly making a set and then destroying it, by hesitating about the rightness of costumes, colors and etc., Brook tries to explore conditions and relationships through which he can make the ‘formless hunch’ a little more concrete.317 The director, while he cannot be free of responsibility, at the same time cannot be free of the process itself; but should become part of it.318 Through endless experiments, little by little, a form emerges. But it is “not a closed form;” it is only a platform, a base which will be tested and transformed again and again through preparation and rehearsals with actors.319 The preparation is open and non-restraining, particularly in the early stages, when the actors are free (or even encouraged) to bring things to the play in the ‘climate’ of rehearsal. Life, for Brook, is a chain of fortuitous events and happenings which can perhaps explain why he chose improvisation in creating his theatre.320 What is essential to develop

313 Brook, The Shifting Point, 3. 314 Brook, The Empty Space, 107. 315 Juhani Pallasmaa, In Praise of Vagueness – Diffuse Perception and Uncertain Thought, (unpublished work). 316 Juhani Pallasmaa, Encounters; Architectural Essays (Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 2005), 344. 317 Brook, The Shifting Point, 3. 318 Brook, The Empty Space, 108. 319 Brook, The Shifting Point, 3. 320 Riding, "For Peter Brook, ‘Hamlet’ as a Starting Point."

77 in the process, Brook suggests, is “a sense of listening,”321 listening to the “secret movement of the hidden process.”322

The ‘formless hunch’ begins to take shape through experiments which gradually reveal a core; from this core some features will be eliminated 323 as “[t]he indefinable stuff begins to flow.”324 The director, by continuous questioning, encouragement, and investigation with the group creates an open atmosphere through which he individually and with others ‘turns over’ “the whole fabric of the play.”325 It is at that point that the form starts to emerge, the inner form that has been waiting to appear. 326 The actor’s work is, in the last phases of rehearsals, led to a dark area, “the subterranean life of the play” to illuminate it.327 The whole process evolves through “brooding, making mistakes, going back, hesitating, starting again.”328 The process embodies what Pallasma refers to as “layeredness” and “polyphonic” texture; it is a process wherein the artistic expression that can insidiously creep in is beyond “conscious intentionality and control.” 329 Recognizing the necessity of “diffuse attention”330 and the role of the unconscious realm in the process, Brook does not start with any fixed ideas;331 rather things are gradually shaped along with their relationship with the ‘formless hunch’.332 Such a process promises a plethora of different rhythms and unexpected possibilities.333 This notion resonates with architectural work that Alberto Pérez-Gómez points to “as process, rather than as a neutral means towards an end, driven by

321 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 119. 322 Ibid. 323 Brook, The Shifting Point, 3. 324 Brook, The Empty Space, 109. 325 Ibid., 119. 326 Brook, The Shifting Point, 3. 327 Ibid. 328 Brook, The Empty Space, 107. 329 Pallasmaa, In Praise of Vagueness. 330 Ibid. 331 Brook, The Shifting Point, 3. 332 Ibid., 4. 333 Brook, The Empty Space, 107.

78 technological values.”334 Architecture, in this view, is not about imposing a pre- decided form but rather about an ethical process of ‘making’.

Brook points out that all the rehearsals and experiments, even the most constructive ones, are aimed at eliminating the tremendous number of boundaries that prevent the actor from being open and uninhibited.335 For Brook, ‘building a character’ requires a lot of research and happens through the act of elimination.336 He recalls the harrowing experience of their improvisations on madness for The Marat/Sade, which was a radical play strongly influenced by Brecht and Artaud.337 The actors, through a collective experience of shared difficulties, became open to one another; this enabled them to act in a completely different way.338 To persuade actors to open up their subconscious can lead to sudden and unexpected results.339 Lorna Marshall and David Williams refer to two closely related qualities that are essential for actors during creation in Brook’s theatre: “a state of openness and immediacy he [Brook] calls ‘transparency’; and a state of connectedness and responsiveness he calls ‘the invisible network’.”340 Personal growth arises from concurrent engagement with three “core centres of body, thought and feeling,” which Gurdjieff described in his system of ‘harmonious development’.341

Acting, for Brook, is not a question of “splashing about in self-indulgent euphoria,”342 but rather bringing one into contact with a deeper, imaginative

334 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, "Fast Forward towards Stillness or the Mobility of the Body " in INDESEM 2003, Fast Forward, a Driving Perception, (Delft, Netherlands: Technical University Delft, 2004). 335 Peter Brook, Compilation of Interviews with Peter Brook. Peter Brook's private copy, CD. See also Peter Brook, "Madness and the Theatre," Listener, Dec. 14, 1967. 336 Brook, The Empty Space, 114,115. 337 Aleks Sierz, "Memories of a Wizard Who Became a Philosopher-King," Morning Star, May 4, 1998. 338 Brook, The Empty Space, 105. 339 Ibid. 340 Alison Hodge, ed., "Peter Brook: Transparency and the Invisible Network," in Twentieth Century Actor Training, (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 174. 341 Ibid., 180. 342 Brook, The Empty Space, 112.

79 impulse.343 He refers to a young actor Paul Scofield, who was troubled by verses, but would create memorable verses out of prose. It was as if the act of speaking, “sent through him vibrations that echoed back meanings far more complex than his rational thinking could find.”344 Brook says of Scofield: “to rehearse a part, he lets his whole nature – a milliard of super-sensitive scanners – pass to and fro across the words.”345 Something breaks through established patterns and enables the artists to produce a work. 346 Thus besides experience and knowledge, something in the process that Brook calls “innocence” opens a way forward.347

Brook writes: “[W]hat remains is an organic form. Because the form is not ideas imposed on a play, it is the play illuminated, and the play illuminated is the form.” He emphasizes that if the outcome appears organic and unified, it is not at all because ‘a unified conception’ has been discovered from the outset and has been imposed on the play.348 What is essential, Brook explains, “is an incomplete design: a design that has clarity without rigidity, one that could be called ‘open’ as opposed to ‘shut’.” During the process of design things should be all the time in motion, in action, in relation to what the actor brings to a scene as it unfolds.349 In Brook’s view this constant engagement with the fourth dimension, the passage of time, is crucial – “not the stage picture, but the stage moving picture.”350 Brook’s aim is not “completeness at all, but process, a vision of life and theatre as a search, a quest and a complete surrender to the intensity of the immediate moment.”351 The significance of “openness” in the process of creation that Brook emphasizes recalls Umberto Eco’s thoughts in The Open Work, where he underlines the continuous potentiality of “openness”352 which offers an indefinite reserve of meanings. Eco reveals the importance of these hidden and mysterious features

343 Ibid., 113. 344 Ibid., 111. 345 Ibid. 346 Ibid. 347 Brook, The Empty Space, 111. 348 Brook, The Shifting Point, 4. 349 Brook, The Empty Space, 101,102. 350 Ibid. 351 Thomas Kilroy, "The Power of the Process," Irish Times, Mar. 15, 2005. 352 Umberto Eco, The Open Work (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 10.

80 with reference to various examples of “open” works. Such “works in movement” promise that they will be contentiously considered as “works” rather than a composition of random factors and elements deriving from the previously fixed and pre-assumed forms.353 Brook uses the word ‘growth’ or continuous ‘evolving’ to refer to what can happen in the process of preparation and rehearsal.354 Things start unfolding only by going through a process of development.355

1.5.2. Imaginative Complicity “All theatre is only a suggestion.”356

For Brook, theatre offers suggestion rather than illustration. A suggestion means “conjuring up, evoking in the lightest possible way,” where imagination fills the gaps and creates “the real act of participation.” In contrast, an illustration focuses on something in great detail, leaving nothing to the imagination.357 This closely resembles Eco’s observations in The Open Work where he discusses a work charged with limitless suggestive possibilities. 358 Rather than situating the audience in an entirely passive condition by imposing “a world apparently complete down to all its aesthetic details, a totality of information, a ‘real image’,” Brook believes in evoking, for instance, a forest by only a few pieces of wood or a river by a mere puddle. This suggestiveness makes possible, Brook indicates, “the immensely pleasurable work of allowing one’s circuits to complete the picture for oneself, in the moment.” It also strengthens “a sense of community in the audience” and an authentic participation in the play.359

Carrière concurs that Brook’s theatre does not show entire images, but it evokes. He refers to The Mahabharata where, for example, “Peter Brook created a chariot just by using a wheel. The rest of the chariot was left to the spectators’

353 Ibid., 20. 354 Brook, The Empty Space, 106. 355 Ibid. 356 Brook, Extracts from Peter Brook's Speech at Epson Awards. 357 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 182. 358 Eco, The Open Work, 9. 359 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 128.

81 imagination to complete or not.”360 The crucial point is to avoid imposing even a single sense at the very outset of the receptive process.361 It is essential to create a condition for imaginative complicity, a kind of agency in the imagination that is presented with incomplete information, or relational information that is ‘elliptical or partial’. This is, as Williams suggests, a shift in theatre scenography, as it does not fill in the gaps in a way that naturalistic scenographic approaches try to complete images. Instead, it intentionally leaves an enormous place for imaginative activation, as well as for sensitivity to the invisible and how the invisible can be evoked.362 As Carrière points out, for Brook, “the work is never finished; the capacity for discovery is endless.”363

This openness is a necessary condition to engage the audience. Participation, Brook believes, depends on “whether the imagination wishes it, and is stirred to the point of wishing to fill that void.”364 More complete acts of imagination can be attained if there is more scope for the spectator’s imagination to work, to fill in the void. Brook believes that the person is made active by the act of imagination which brings about an act of participation.365 One could argue that parallel to Eco’s idea of “open work,”366 this exploration of suggestiveness in Brook’s theatre is a meditative move to “open” the work to the free response and vital participation of the audience. Rather than being an external spectator of the play, for Brook, it is important that the spectator becomes a participant and takes part in the activity of plotting the play. This recalls Pérez-Gómez’s argument that “architecture communicates to us not a particular meaning, but rather the possibility of recognizing ourselves as complete, in order to dwell poetically on earth and thus be wholly human.”367 It is an architecture that allows us to dwell in our imagination and, rather than imposing “a” meaning, it “presents

360 Carrière, Interviews with author. 361 Eco, The Open Work, 8. 362 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010. 363 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 232. 364 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 182. 365 Ibid. 366 Eco, The Open Work, 9. 367 Pérez-Gómez, "Fast Forward towards Stillness.”

82 meaningfulness to our experience.”368 As spectators, Williams describes, we feel more mobilized in terms of our relationship with the action. Thus spatial fluidity and a multiplicity of perspectives become very significant.369 One of the most significant virtues of Shakespeare’s scripts, in Brook’s view, lies in their “inexhaustible openness:”370 the words constantly evoke new possibilities. Rather than having one specific meaning, the phrases are “open” and embody “an infinity of meanings.”371

Through imagination, Brook underlines, the sharing is momentary and invisible. It is a question of “the ephemeral creation of a common perspective” without the imposition of perspectival scenery.372 This power of evocation in Brook’s theatre becomes evident, for example, in the tragedy Bérénice where the Bouffes du Nord theatre was transformed to a Roman palace by placing a Roman mosaic and a few stones in the empty stage. In another example, the play Eleven and Twelve, we as spectators see a boat on a river that were not there. The boat and the river are evoked on the stage by a folded blanket and a carpet. Everybody sees the invisible boat and river. But we see them well only in our imagination and that is, as Carrière points out, “the real art of directing: it is to reach that perfect complicity, perfect unity between the audience and the actors.”373 Brook emphasizes that theatre is not about “making pictures” but it is about “making relationship(s).” However, Brook continues, “we can’t make relationships; we can let relationships, because that’s what any story, any play of any description, anything human, is about: relationship.”374

Carrière emphasizes that Brook never intends to fix the meaning and structure of a performance. Everything is open; even on the course of a tour one must remain

368 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Vision and Depth in Architecture: Phenomenological Approach (unpublished work). 369 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010. 370 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, 152. 371 Ibid., 151. 372 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 128. 373 Carrière, Interviews with author. 374 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, 121.

83 open to outside events, political changes, natural disasters which can change the sense of the play from one day to the next.375 Every work of art, Eco underlines, is effectively open to a “virtually unlimited range of possible readings, each of which causes the work to acquire new vitality.”376 Carrière points out one of the secrets of Brook’s theatre: that there is always an opening for the spectator to enter into or bring something to the play. There is sensitivity and selectivity about which elements of the story should be left to the audience. “Where shall we stop explaining? Demonstrating?” asks Carrière. 377 Eco also emphasizes the characteristics of an “open” work or a “work in movement,” open to an unceasing generation of internal relations which the observer must uncover in his “act of perceiving the totality of incoming stimuli.”378

Carrière describes the power of suggestion in Brook’s theatre: “When I think of The Mahabharata today, and when I try to remember some of the scenes and some of the images, I see a real forest and I see a real lake, which were not there. But the power of evocation was so strong that the scenes that were in the forest, I really see in the forest. I can really see mountains when I think of the scenes in the mountains. I see the mountains, but they were not there. I do not know how to explain it. That is the miracle of Peter’s directing.”379 The power of evocation emphasized by Carrière recalls Brook’s term ‘double vision” or ‘double image’.380 It is an image perceived not through “illustration” or by “suggestion,” it can only be acquired through the play. Brook suggests that all children’s plays are based upon the same idea. If the children, for instance, knowingly run in a playground, they could easily have the ‘double-image’ of being pirates, policemen or gangsters. For the children, “it’s evoked with a stick. It’s evoked with a twig. It’s evoked by a way of standing or of shouting.”381 This sense of suggestiveness emphasized by Brook – the question of the incompleteness of a work that

375 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 232. 376 Eco, The Open Work, 21. 377 Carrière, Interviews with author. 378 Eco, The Open Work, 21. 379 Carrière, Interviews with author. 380 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 175. 381 Ibid.

84 stimulates the observer382 – and the ‘openness’ of the work383 bring forth the notion of a ‘fragile architecture’ proposed by Pallasmaa. Rather than creating a remarkable singular image and a complete articulation of form, this architecture is responsive and “is concerned with sensory interaction instead of idealized and conceptual manifestations.”384

An essential quality in Brook’s theatre, as Carrière points out, lies in the complete non-existence of architectural sets or buildings.385 More precisely, the architecture is left to the spectators of Brook’s plays like The Mahabharata, The Tempest, Eleven and Twelve, The Conference of the Birds…386 Perhaps it could be best understood, as Todd has suggested, as a space that frees imagination without forming and stopping it at a particular image or precise association.387 No scenery in Brook’s theatre is designed to ‘trap the imagination’ of the observer. On the contrary, it provides opportunities for imaginative activation among the observers.388 The work embodies an ‘open’ mode because of its unceasing, deliberate intent to suggest. It associates with a true poetic work that can be performed with “the full emotional and imaginative resources of the interpreter.”389 Instead of closing down from concept to detail, it resonates with an architecture that “grows and opens up.”390 The closest way to describe this openness of the work of Brook’s theatre and its engagement with imagination is perhaps through Carrière’s words on The Mahabharata, pointing out that he could see a scene (for example, a scene of war) through a simple piece of fabric. Wool, silk, cotton…, the texture of the fabrics all could correspond, in his imagination, to different places and events in the story.391 Therein lies the “strength” in the

382 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 116. 383 Eco, The Open Work, 19. 384 Pallasmaa, Encounters, 327. 385 Carrière, Interviews with author. 386 Ibid. 387 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 239. 388 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010. 389 Eco, The Open Work, 9. 390 Pallasmaa, Encounters, 327. 391 Carrière, Interviews with author.

85 quality of ‘fragility’ and ‘openness’ which, as Pallasmaa suggests, art and architecture are capable of creating.392

The phenomena of imaginative activation, and theatre, not as “a static image” but as “a rhythmic structure” with a focus on the question of “human being,”393 correlate well with the remarkable spatial mobility of Brook’s theatre. In his performances, one can perceive close-ups or zooms and also experience a fluidity suggestive of wide views.394 While we might experience a panoramic view (for example, the scene of war in The Mahabharata) in one scene, Brook can halt the whole view for a moment as he allows us to eliminate all action and focus on a small and delicate motion like the shooting of an arrow. Contrary to cinema, it is challenging to create the experience of a close-up in theatre.395 But as Williams points out, it feels very light in Brook’s hands; it does not feel as though we are being manipulated as it does in many other theatres where we are locked into a position, a fixed perspectival relationship. Sometimes the back wall in the Bouffes du Nord or in the Avignon quarries or other places are materially very present, and at the other moments with a great dexterity and lightness our attention is drawn, for example, to a face in animated stillness. At this moment all of the objects in the wide shots dematerialize and there emerges an illusory extreme proximity and intimacy.396

1.5.3. Present Moment “The essence of theatre is within a mystery called ‘the present moment’.”397

“Like the fragment broken off a hologram,” Brook writes, the transparency of the ‘present moment’ is deceptive. When the tiniest “atom of time is split open,” it contains inside it the entire universe. It is an arena in which our relationships,

392 Pallasmaa, Encounters, 328. 393 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, xxvii. 394 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010. 395 Jean-Guy Lecat, Interview by Negin Djavaherian (unpublished), December 15, 2009. 396 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010. 397 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 81.

86 comedies, deep tragedies and our ‘entire living fabric’ all become present.398 It is not only the “casts of our personal dramas” that appear in this ‘present moment’. Also, similar to a chorus in an opera, “crowds of minor characters” are ready to enter and connect our private life with society and the outside world.399 It would amount to ‘a nuclear explosion’ if we could unexpectedly enter into the openness of this arena and discover our concealed motions and imageries, because “the chaotic whirlpool of impressions” that we would encounter would be too powerful for us to understand and absorb. 400 The mystery of the phenomenon of Shakespeare and the reason why he never gets out of date is, as Brook explains, in the quality of ‘the present’ in his writings. “Each line in Shakespeare is an atom. The energy that can be released is infinite – if we can split it open.”401

In discussing the meaning of ‘a moment’, Brook points out that “if we penetrate to the very core of a moment, we would find that there is no motion, each moment is the whole of all possible moments and what we call time will have disappeared.”402 At the very core of a ‘moment’, in my understanding of Brook, is the meaning of the ‘real present moment’, which actually is a ‘non-moment’. It is, as Brook calls it, “an opening to a totally empty space and eternity. Eternity is not in the future, it’s not in the past.”403 It is a ‘moment of suspension’ that theatre tries to reach; it is the ‘non-form’ – ‘non-time’404 When we come out of this ‘moment’, we realize that ‘moment’ in its relation to the moments before and after is “an ever unfolding chain.”405 Theatre that, as Brook suggests, explores its inherent nature in the mystery of the ‘present moment,’ both releases the secret of each individual and offers a shared experience where “the hidden collective potential of thought, image, feeling, myth and trauma” emerges.406 And this is

398 Ibid. 399 Ibid. 400 Ibid., 82. 401 Brook, Evoking Shakespeare, 25. 402 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 83. 403 Brook, Interview with author. 404 Ibid. 405 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 83. 406 Ibid., 82.

87 why politically oppressive governments have always feared the theatre the most.407

A theatrical performance, Brook points out, “is a flow, which has a rising and falling curve.”408 We require ‘a chain of moments’ which initiates from a simple level and then gradually “lead[s] us towards intensity” where we can experience and enter the core of ‘a moment’ before we are whisked away again.409 The fact that performances vary in nature and demands is of little importance because the goal of all forms of theatre is ultimately the same: “making theatre in the present tense.”410 One could ask: Can architecture offer this quality of ‘flow-with-time’ – in an ascending and descending curve – which leads us briefly to the core of the ‘present moment,’ the ‘moment of transparency,’ the moment of ‘non-form,’ the ‘non-time’ that Brook talks about and offers in his theatre, before we are dropped back to our mundane world?

The narrative, play and all the elements of theatre are there to suggest ‘a common ground’. Within its potentiality, the members of the audience find themselves and their own private stories united with others and their stories in a shared experience.411 For an instant, the spectator lives one collective experience412 as the performance calls up a response from each member of the audience.413 The experience is further enhanced because Brook is trying to create truly contemporary theatre that speaks to the audience in the present time, rather than in the historical past.414

407 Ibid. 408 Ibid., 83. 409 Ibid. 410 John Lahr, "Knowing What to Celebrate," Plays and Players, Mar. 1975. 411 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 82. 412 Ibid. 413 Ibid. 414 Read, "Peter Brook: From Stratford-on-Avon to the Gare du Nord," 68.

88 Theatre always asserts itself in the present.415 Brook points out that theatre is “a life in a concentrated form;” it “narrows life down.”416 He writes: “In the millisecond-long instant when actor and audience interrelate, as in a physical embrace, it is the density, the thickness, the multi-layeredness, the richness – in other words, the quality of the moment that counts.”417 This is a moment that is not ‘thin’ as Brook uses the word, but has thickness and is ‘deep in quality’;418 and this level of quality, as Brook points out, is the most important notion in the act of theatre.419

1.5.4. Expression of Silence “…there are two ends of the pole of silence. There is a dead silence, the silence of the dead, which doesn’t help any of us, and … there is the other silence, which is the supreme moment of communication – the moment when people normally divided from one another by every sort of natural human barrier suddenly find themselves truly together…”420

Near the end of the performance – Eleven and Twelve – the spectators can hear lucidly a mournful, sorrowful song that fills up the ‘entire volume’ of the Bouffes du Nord. The song is then followed by a long, profound, silence: an alive and interactive silence. This long-lasting, dramatic, moving silence seems to offer a moment of confrontation with one’s inner-self and with respect to others and with regard to what is happening in the world. Brook points out that “one can learn everything about a performance from the degree of silence it creates.”421 There are two kinds of silence: ‘dead, inert’ silence with no recognizable attributes that we can discern and ‘superior, alive’ silence which is fully accessible to our senses.422 What is called by Brook ‘Holy Theatre’ – ‘Sacred Theatre’ – is derived from this

415 Brook, The Empty Space, 99. 416 Ibid., 98. 417 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 83. 418 Ibid., 83. 419 Ibid. 420 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, Dedication. 421 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 35,36. 422 Billen, "I Refuse to Take Myself Seriously."

89 silence that can create known and unknown attributes.423 Brook explains that we are all familiar with the celebratory climax of cheers, laughter, joy, and hand clapping; but we have forgotten that “at the other end of the stick is ‘the climax of silence’ – another form of recognition and appreciation for an experience shared.”424 In silence, “there are many potentialities: chaos or order, muddle or pattern, all lie fallow – the invisible-made-visible is of sacred nature.”425 We, Brook reminds us, have essentially forgotten silence. 426 Quoting Swiss philosopher Max Picard (1888–1965) in The World of Silence, Pallasmaa agrees that “[n]othing has changed man’s nature so much as the loss of silence.”427 The question of silence Brook describes resonates closely with architecture. The task of architecture, Pallasmaa underlines, “is to create, maintain, and protect silence”428 and architecture itself is “ultimately the art of petrified silence.”429

In their exploration of the invisible, Brook’s international group performed many experiments on the question of silence, its duration and its relationship with spectators.430 Perhaps one could better appreciate the role of silence in Brook’s theatre from the book Between Two Silences, in which Brook suggests that “for ten seconds even, one can have a taste of a better world. […] [T]heatre experiences should bring one to a moment where, even on a very simple level, you see all that’s going on in the world, and yet you live the fact that the same people who are killing one another can work together. So that’s not a theory. It’s a reality, and you see it for ten seconds.”431

The quality of silence is perhaps profoundly embedded in Brook’s theatre home – the Bouffes du Nord. It is a theatre in which “when there is silence it is not just

423 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 76. 424 Brook, The Empty Space, 47. 425 Nicolescu, "Peter Brook and Traditional Thought," 15. 426 Brook, The Empty Space, 47. 427 Pallasmaa, Encounters, 305. 428 Ibid., 305. 429 Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin; Architecture and Senses (Chichester, UK: Wiley- Academy, 2005), 51. 430 Brook, The Empty Space, 52. 431 Moffitt, Between Two Silences, 162,163.

90 absence of noise, a register of zero decibels: it’s an active thing, something which penetrates the audience, something which comes upon us,”432 instilling a feeling that Brook refers to as “silent wakefulness”.433 One can suggest that the silence in Brook’s theatre is far beyond the question of acoustics. It is much more than that. The theatre opens a silence that is part of the same understanding as language; a silence that communicates as much as or more than spoken words.434 Pallasmaa points out that the silence of art is not merely the absence of sound, but “an independent sensory and mental state, an observing, listening, and knowing silence, a silence that evokes a sense of melancholy and a yearning for the absent ideal,”435 a true silence that is responsive and remembering.436 With its walls surrounding the empty space of the stage, the Bouffes du Nord theatre enhances and embraces the quality of silence. Due to the equal depth/height proportions of the theatre, the sound travels uniformly in space. This is also true for silence as it is ‘propagated’ equally through the space; the silence symmetrically advances with equal quality horizontally as it does vertically, engulfing the entire audience.

Silence – a fundamental experience that architecture can evoke437 – emerges in Brook’s theatre, offering an “openness to different possibilities, a listening quality.”438 It is a silence that comes alive and whose presence is felt by the spectators, a silence that leads its participants to connect the story of the play and place with their own stories and narratives at the moment in the world. It is an ‘animated silence’ that enhances our participation in the theatre, exposing a possibility for the audience to engage with tragedy and comedy; good and evil; justice and injustice… The silence makes the spectators feel more alive and aware,

432 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 30. 433 Peter W. Culman, "Brook Shares Findings from Inner Search," Baltimore Sun, June 14, 1998. 434 Brook recalls that mime Étienne Decroux (1898–1991) claimed that he envied the actors because they had the possibility of silence – the speech made communication through silence and stillness possible. For Decroux, because he renounced speech, stillness and silence was the most difficult to achieve through mime. See Kenneth Rea, "Kenneth Rea on Why Actors Need Fit Bodies as Well as Fine Voices; Get Physical," Guardian, Jan. 13, 1984. 435 Pallasmaa, Encounters, 305. 436 Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, 52. 437 Pallasmaa, Encounters, 305. 438 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 27.

91 allowing them to reflect on their own experience and life. The silence Pallasmaa describes is a silence within which time reverberates in a primordial past and man can regain “his sense of self as a historical being,”439 a sense of self that leads us to participate in the “dimensions of dream, imagination and desire.”440 Then, as Brook puts it, the silence, which is hidden in us, becomes an “intensifier” that sends our “private emotion back across the space.”441

The search for a silence that is shared and is “the supreme moment of communication”442 seems to be an endeavour to explore the question of language, or perhaps better, non-language or absence of language. These concepts were best revealed in the first year’s work of the ICTR, which was based upon the structure of sound and non-verbal language. Although they were aware of the validity of workable language systems, beyond the basic system of communication of theatre those at the ICTR intentionally cut themselves off from all principles,443 aiming to discover a non-verbal language or a shared mode of communication exterior to the restrictive references, signs and geographical boundaries of language. Several explorations and improvisations on this subject led later to the project of Orghast 444 in the ruins of Persepolis. This play was based on a dramatic sensitivity to sounds in forgotten, ancient languages and also in the language of Orghast. Orghast was based on the gesture of sound in dramatic action and was actually invented for the performance through a long process of research and discovery. What they were after in this compelling project, which started a movement in twentieth-century theatre,445 seemed to be an anti-language, or perhaps a forgotten, common language.

439 Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, 52. 440 Ibid., 11. 441 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 80,81. 442 See Introduction to Moffitt, Between Two Silences. 443 Brook, The Shifting Point, 108. 444 For information of Orghast refer to this thesis, Part II and Part III. 445 Arby Ovanessian, Personal phone communication with Negin Djavaherian, April 1, 2012.

92 But is this language really forgotten? Is it dead? This is a question that has been debated in Daniel Heller-Roazen’s Echolalias: On the Forgetting of Language.446 The main question was whether languages are forgettable or can be dead. Heller- Roazen’s argument is that a language never dies, and thus it is not forgettable. Languages are always changing and are absorbed by other languages. Even going back to Babel, he suggests, all languages are re-cast from the original language that we think we have forgotten.447 But that original language is ‘unforgettable’ and its life survives, albeit without a ‘container and form’. The meaning of ‘unforgettable’ connotes more than simply “we cannot forget it;” it refers to the quality of ‘unforgettability’ itself, that quality by which something resists oblivion.448

446 Daniel Heller-Roazen, Echolalias: On the Forgetting of Language (New York: MIT Press, 2005), 229. 447 Ibid., 229,230. 448 Ibid., 229.

Part II

DEVELOPING A PRACTICE: ORGHAST

In Meetings with the Remarkable Man a young pupil asks his master “what do you call learning?” The master replies: “Knowing happens directly, when not even a thought stands between you and the thing you know.”449 Perhaps this level of direct perception is the core of Brook’s theatre. For Brook, theatre as a work of art can well up from any reference into a pure experience, revealing the order of the cosmos. Oblique, non-verbal, incomplete, suggestive and of ambiguous form, Orghast, in my view, draws out a poetic discourse in the context of modern art. That discourse offers an immediate grasp of the totality of existence, and a primary intuition of time-space. In the vast repertoire of theatrical works created over the long career of Peter Brook, this project that he referred to as a “work in progress” epitomizes a critical discourse and a fresh awareness of the concerns of place, play and language. A complex set of fundamental theatrical experiments in Orghast – exerting an immense influence on Brook’s later plays – appears as a challenge exposing explicit and implicit relationships, each with an architectural meaning.

The following begins by placing the play in the context of the arts festival of which it formed one of the most prominent contributions. It goes on to discuss the process by which Brook developed the play. That process is illustrative of Brook’s approach, and illuminates what it is in his approach that is of value to architects. The discussion of Brook’s process begins by looking at his exploration of sound and language in developing the play. It then goes on to look at the play’s origins in other narratives and in myth: its nested myths. This part also discusses the representation of these nested myths as a body (what was called the physiology of Orghast); and their connection with a poetics of darkness and light. We continue by looking at how Brook and his troupe discovered the settings of the plays, and set out the theatrical spaces and their architecture. The discussion of each element of Brook’s process will lead us into the historical, cultural and theoretical starting points relevant to it.

449 Peter Brook, Meetings with Remarkable Men, Directed by Peter Brook (1979), DVD.

94 2.1. Shiraz Arts Festival

Orghast was created for the international annual Shiraz Arts Festival (1967-1977). The festival began in 1967 under the patronage of the Empress of Iran, Farah, and lasted eleven years. The main motive of the festival was encounter between East and West,450 highlighting the latest experimental and avant-garde creations in art.451 The Empress in her opening message has remarked that the main reasons for the creation of the festival were the expansion of art, homage to a national artistic tradition, and elevating the level of culture in Iran.452 The festival gave an opportunity to honour works by Iranian artists and to present them not only to the Iranian nation but also to all people of the world: an international community of artists and spectators. 453 However, more importantly, the festival introduced foreign artists to the Iranian people and showcased the latest changes and avant- garde ideas in world art and artistic phenomena.454 Establishing the festival became a tool for developing new cultural values and for creating a peaceful relationship with other nations.455 The international festival invited Eastern and Western artists in order to present new research, experimental work and diverse efforts in art at an international level.456 Hence the festival served as a meeting place, laying the foundation of a direct intercultural discourse between the

450 See "Meeting of Two Worlds," in Catalogue of the Fifth Festival of Arts, ed. Iradj Gorguin, (Shiraz-Persepolis: Public Relation of the Festival of Arts, 1971). See also "Jašn-e-Honar [Arts Festival]," Pars News Service Artistic Group Newsletter, Tehran, (August, 1972), 3, text in Persian. 451 See Iradj Gorguin, ed., Catalogue of the Third Festival of Arts (Collection of 1st, 2nd and 3rd Festivals of Arts in 1967, 68, 69) (Shiraz-Persepolis: Public Relations Bureau of the Festival of Arts, 1970), text in English and Persian. 452 Ibid. 453 The origins of contemporary movements in Iranian cinema can be traced back to the festival as well. From Arby Ovanessian, Personal phone communication with Negin Djavaherian, February 26, 2012. 454 See Gorguin, Catalogue of the Third Festival, Preface, text in Persian. Reza Qotbi, the Director General of the Festival, points out “that the Empress before founding the Shiraz Arts Festival mentioned ‘that some people have this opportunity to travel to European countries and attend art festivals while others do not. Establishing the art festivals in the country would give an opportunity to all Iranians to become familiar with the contemporary art in the world and also to introduce Iranian art to the people of the world’” (my translation). 455 Iradj Gorguin, ed., Catalogue of the Seventh Festival of Arts (The Book of Art Festival 1967- 1973) (Tehran: Bureau of National Radio and Television of Iran, 1973), 7, text in Persian. 456 "Jašn-e-Honar [Arts Festival]," 3, text in Persian.

95 Occident and the Orient.457 Besides this main objective, the festival was dedicated each year to a specific theme.458

The organizers of the Shiraz Arts Festival, besides the city of Shiraz, chose as the location for a number of its presentations a place which itself made a compelling and unforgettable impression on people: Persepolis.459 Persepolis, northwest of Shiraz, was built by Darius the Great during the Achaemenian era in the 6th century B.C. and the city was viewed as the ‘cultural and spiritual capital’ of the Persian Empire.460 The intention behind selecting Persepolis and Shiraz as sites for the festival was straightforward: Persepolis was one of the historical birthplaces of art, and Shiraz was one of the cradles of the most important lyricists of the East.461 Many important poets and writers, the likes of Hafez (1325/1326- 1389/1390 AD), Saadi (1184-1283/1291 AD), Mulla Sadra Shirazi (1572-1640 AD) and Ruzbahan Shirazi (1128-1290 AD) have risen from this region. Persia, the land of Fars, is known for its literature, art, architecture and mysticism dating back to 500 BC,462 and the ruins of Persepolis provided a link to Iran’s pre- Islamic past.463 In the mid-1960s when the Empress Farah initiated an annual festival of arts in Iran, Shiraz, with its exceptional relationship with other Iranian cities and foreign countries, had a reputation as a modern urban center while at the same time possessing the charm and magnetism of a great ancient city.464 In addition, the newly built university campus could have housed visiting artists and students during the summer holidays.465 This ‘Persian metropolis’, as opposed to other Iranian cities that were moving in the direction of industrialization, had an ambiance of cultural and artistic activity that was largely unrivalled in Iran.466

457 See "Meeting of Two Worlds." 458 "Jašn-e-Honar [Arts Festival]," 3. 459 Gorguin, Catalogue of the Seventh Festival of Arts, 8. 460 See "Meeting of Two Worlds." 461 See "Andišeh va Sāzmān Jašn-e-Honar [Thought and Organization of Art Festival]," in Catalogue of the Fifth Festival of Arts, ed. Iradj Gorguin, (Shiraz-Persepolis: Public Relation of the Festival of Arts, 1971), text in Persian. 462 See Gorguin, Catalogue of the Third Festival. 463 Ibid. 464 See "Meeting of Two Worlds." 465 Arby Ovanessian, Interview by Negin Djavaherian (unpublished), Paris, May 23, 2011. 466 "Meeting of Two Worlds."

96 It is important to describe the atmosphere of the festival, which was about innovation and experimentation rather than the presentation of conventional works of art or works from classical Eastern or Western canons. The work aroused as much enthusiasm as it generated criticism. The festival demonstrated its evolving power to create change in music, theatre and dance. A sense of fearlessness toward invention and experimentation underlined many events.467 Considered as one of the world’s leading theatre festivals of its kind468 and ‘a very important phenomenon’,469 the Shiraz Arts Festival provoked discourse on “the development of cultural communication among nations”,470 venturing beyond racial, national, cultural and geographical boundaries.471 The Shiraz Arts Festival also started a new movement in which architecture was placed in a new relationship with theatre.472 This of course refers not to the architecture of theatres, but fundamental principles of architecture revealed through theatre.

During its eleven-year existence the Shiraz Arts Festival presented strikingly different programmes, ranging from classical and traditional to avant-garde repertoires.473 The festival became the host of renowned artists from around the

467 "Jahān be Panjomin Jašn-e-Honar Širāz, Taḵt-e-Jamšid Češm Duḵteh Ast [The World Is Looking at the Fifth Arts Festival - Persepolis]," in Catalogue of the Seventh Festival of Arts, ed. Iradj Gorguin, (Shiraz-Persepolis: Bureau of National Radio and Television of Iran, 1971), 153, text in Persian 468 M.K., "An Editorial: The Shiraz Festival: Politics and Theatre," The Drama Review vol. 20, no. 4, Theatrical Theory Issue, (December, 1976), 2. 469 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, April 2012. 470 See "Meeting of Two Worlds." 471 "Meeting of Two Worlds." 472 Don Rubin, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, vol. 5 (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 200,217,218. 473 See Gorguin, Catalogue of the Seventh Festival of Arts. See also Terry Graham, ed., Catalogue of the Nineth Festival (Tehran: Bureau of National Radio and Television of Iran, 1975), 6. See also Catalogue of the Tenth Festival of Arts 1976), text in Persian, and Catalogue of the Eleventh Festival of Arts (Shiraz-Persepolis: 1977), text in Persian. The first Shiraz Arts Festival (1967), which opened with a message from the Empress Farah Pahlavi promoting ‘artistic standard in Iran’, was focused on Eastern traditional and Western classical music. Tazieh, the Persian religious theatre related to Shia’s historical events, was also part of the first-year theme. Inclusion of Tazieh was an important development because it has been forbidden since 1933). The New Iranian cinema was also introduced to the festival and it became a regular feature in the future years. The 2nd Shiraz Arts Festival (1968) followed a similar pattern to the first festival with Eastern and Western traditional music and Eastern traditional dance theatre (Kathakali). Modern Iranian theatre was presented for the first time with two plays: A Modern Profound and Important Research in the Fossils of the 25th Geological Era, 14th, 20th makes no

97 world: musicians, dancers, theatre and film directors, designers, actors, and so on, who presented the outcomes of their experimentation and research.474 In the field of theatre, in order of their presence at the festival, the artists included Arby Ovanessian (1942-), Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999),475 Victor Garcia (1934-1982), Peter Schumann (1934-), Joseph Chaikin (1935-2003), Andre Gregory (1934-), Robert Wilson (1941-), Andrei Serban (1943-) and Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990). Among the musicians were Olivier Messiaen (1908-1999), Iannis Xenakis (1922- 2001), Bruno Maderna (1920-1973), John Cage (1912-1992) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007); in dance, Merce Cunnigham (1919-2009), Maurice Jean Béjart (1927-2007) and countless others. Peter Brook was first invited to present a retrospective of his films at 4th Shiraz Arts Festival in 1970 before the foundation of the ICTR.

difference and City of Tale. The programme also included round-table discussions on Eastern and Western music and theatre. This as well became a regular feature. The 3rd Shiraz Arts Festival (1969) again focused on music with special attention to percussion. Balinese Gamelan dance theatre was presented at Persepolis which served as a setting for this traditional ritual dance theatre. The 4th Shiraz Arts Festival (1970) experienced a prominent shift from music to theatre. The main theme was dedicated to ‘Ritual Theatre’ and the venue included important experimental work of several renowned theatre and film directors. The 5th Shiraz Arts Festival (1971) focused on ‘The Art of Today’. The programme also included Taziyeh and Ru-Howzi (Iranian popular theatre) as well as Easter and Western music. The 6th Shiraz Arts Festival (1972) was aligned with the avant- grade movement. The festival featured theatre, musical events and concerts performed at Persepolis and gardens and bazaar of Shiraz. An impressive programme of traditional music was presented at Hafezieh. The 7th Shiraz Arts Festival (1973) presented outstanding modern dance performances. The festival also welcomed a programme of the Third-World International Theatrical Festival that featured plays from Iran, India, Korea, Tunisia, and others. The 8th Shiraz Arts Festival (1974) followed the progress of avant-garde movements in theatre. It also featured an exposition of neo-surrealist cinema, Western classical music and traditional music from Asia. The 9th Shiraz Arts Festival (1975), besides the regular traditional and avant-garde theatre, music and film venue, featured Japanese traditional Noh Theatre. The 10th Shiraz Arts Festival (1976) invited mostly previous artists to present their new productions specifically created for the festival. An international conference on Taziyeh was organized in Shiraz and the Taziyeh theatre was performed for the visitors in a nearby village. The special feature of the 11th Shiraz Arts Festival (1977) was a conference on Iranian popular theatre and presentation of Ru-Howzi. The avant- garde theatre was represented by the Hungarian ‘squat theatre’. 474 "Jašn-e-Honar [Arts Festival]," 9. 475 Jerzy Grotowski was one of the most influential theatre directors of the 20th century, founding the ‘theatre laboratory’ of Poland which has been one of the most prominent experimental centres of theatre in the world.

98 The significance of the Shiraz Arts Festival was not only limited to Asia; it also influenced the international art world.476 It was the first international festival based mainly on performances specifically created and produced for the event. In this sense it was a unique festival.477 The festival organizers solicited directors and musicians from around the world in order to create a programme for the festival that would include previously unseen performances, as in the cases of Peter Brook or Robert Wilson.478 This concept of collaboration with foreign artists had been discussed during the 4th Shiraz Arts Festival in 1970, which had the theme of “Theatre and Ritual.”

In that year, before the presentation of the retrospectives of films by Peter Brook and films by anthropologist Jean Rouch (1917-2004) about Africa, the festival opened at Persepolis with Vis and Ramin directed by Arby Ovanessian at sunset. For the first time since 331 BC, the date that according to history the central ritual city of Persia was burned down by Alexander the Great, the fire was ignited again at Persepolis and a play was acted. The next day in Shiraz at the Baghe-Delgosha pavillion, Jerzy Grotowski presented his production of The Constant Prince which was appreciated for its ‘theatrical brilliance’. The stage consisted of a pit, similar to that in a zoorkhaneh,479 in which a prisoner and a torture platform were located. The performance was based on Calderón’s Spanish play about a Portuguese prince who was severely tortured to the brink of death by the Moors. However,

476 See Hamidreza Risheri, Kārgāh-e-Namāyeš [Theatre Performance] (Tehran, Iran: Noruz-e- Honar, 2006), text in Persian. 477 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, April 2012 Before the Shiraz Arts Festival, several important theatre festivals were established. Avignon Festival remained local until 1968-69 when, for the first time, a group from New York participated in it. It was the first foreign programme at the Avignon Festival, and others were to follow. The second important theatre festival was in Edinburgh which was mainly a domestic festival with occasional foreign participation. The third festival, The World Theatre Festival at Nancy, started to be known internationally in 1963. All three festivals gradually opened up for international participation. However, none of them commissioned and premiered new foreign plays before 1967; the common practice was to invite groups with established shows. 478 Besides the performances that were principally created for the Shiraz Arts Festival, or commissioned by it (some of them were later performed in other places around the world). other productions, that were not especially produced for the festival, were also invited, as was the case with Tadeusz Kantor. 479 Zoorkhaneh is the traditional Iranian sporting place. It is a flat ground with a pit about one meter deep. The athletes are contained within the pit, while the audience forms a circle around them and watches from an elevated position.

99 the prince does not surrender to the torturers of King of Fez and thus becomes a symbol of resistance. Victor Garcia participated also in the 4th Shiraz Arts Festival with his production of Les Bonnes by Jean Genet. The production was about two housemaids who conspire to murder the despotic lady of the house.480 The two Spanish actresses who played the roles of the housemaids created a magical performance through the power of their acting.481 Garcia staged the play in front of immense aluminum screens and on a stage surface which, mirror-like, reflected the performance in distorted images.

At the 5th Shiraz Arts Festival, Iannis Xenakis conducted his own musical piece, Persepolis, as a tribute to the ancient site. Following the performance, a wide range of critical opinion emerged about its significance.482 Xenakis writes about this production: “Symbols of history’s noises; unassailable rocks facing the assault of the waves of civilization. Childhood awakening must be maintained because it represents active knowledge, perpetual questioning which forges the becoming of man. [...] ‘Persepolis’ is a visual symbolism, parallel to and dominated by sound. The music corresponds to a rock tablet on which hieroglyphic or cuneiform messages are engraved in a compact, hermetic way. The history of Iran, fragment of the world’s history is thus elliptically and abstractly represented by means of clashes. [...] The listener must pay for his penetration into the knowledge of the signs with great effort, pain and suffering of his own birth.”483

480 Setāreh Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān: Kārgāh-e-Namāyeš, az Āqāz tā Pāyān (1348-1357) [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time: Theatre Workshop from the Beginning to the End (1969-1978)], vol. III (Tehran: Našr-e-Afrāz, 2009), 140, text in Persian. 481 Ibid., 141. 482 Graham, Catalogue of the Nineth Festival, 10. 483 See Iannis Xenakis, "Persepolis: Spectacle and Music," in Catalogue of the Fifth Festival of Arts, ed. Iradj Gorguin, (Shiraz-Persepolis: Public Relation of the Festival of Arts, 1971). Another musician, Max Roach, an American drummer, with his Jazz quintet participated in the third festival. The critics named him the most artistic and talented Jazz player that, with his techniques and characteristics of his work, influenced the music of the time. See "Jašn-e-Honar [Arts Festival]," 12. One of the international classical musicians participating in the festival was Bruno Maderna (1920-1973), an Italian conductor, composer and dramatist who was one of the pioneers of modern music. Besides directing classical and romantic symphonies, he was capable of switching between

100 One of the most vigorous and dominant artists at the Shiraz Arts Festival was Arby Ovanessian. A pioneer of new directions in modern Iranian theatre, he was also one of the four co-directors of Orghast. At the second Shiraz Arts Festival (1968), Ovanessian directed the first ever theatre production in the history of the festival: A Modern Profound and Important Research in the Fossils of the 25th Geological Era, 14th, 20th, makes no difference written by Abbas Naalbandian. The play stimulated many polarized discussions among the critics, directors, and the audience.484 Some critics considered Ovanessian’s work as a new direction in research and the beginning of a new dawn for Iranian modern theatre.485 The play was an investigation of the human condition and our spiritual life. Its eight characters of diverse backgrounds “get acquainted, travel, exchange ideas, make a show of their lives, die, get resurrected, and keep going without getting anywhere. […] Its contemplative surrealistic process ends with an aesthetic awakening.”486 In the 6th Shiraz Arts Festival (1972), Ovanessian directed Nagahan… (All at Once, “Beloved of God…”). Poor neighbours of a schoolmaster, Fereydoun, believed that he is hiding a box of jewels in his house. On the day of Ashura (commemoration of the martyr Imam Hossein), they break in and kill the schoolmaster, only to find a box of books. “This play which, without imitation of any formal aspects, imaginatively connect[ed] contemporary Iran with the essence of Taziyeh, had a shocking impact on religious fanatics when produced in 1972.”487 The performance was exceptional and even though it was unmistakably theatre, not reality, a few members of the audience felt compelled to rescue a dead body – the main character.488 “Approaching it at midnight through a candle-lit garden, spectators entered a low doorway and sat round a small empty courtyard with immobile figures looking down on them from upper alcoves. The setting

different musical styles. At the 5th Shiraz Arts Festival he conducted Kraców Philharmonic Orchestra. 484 Gorguin, Catalogue of the Third Festival. 485 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 125. 486 Rubin, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 208. 487 Ibid., 208. See also Graham, Catalogue of the Nineth Festival, 11. For Taziyeh refer to Introduction of this thesis, 26. 488 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 506.

101 suggested a house inside a house, and the atmosphere was such that you dared hardly whisper. [...] The whole building becomes a whispering gallery for man’s shadowy enemies whose voices echo through the corridors and stairways of the building.”489 In the 8th Shiraz Arts Festival (1974), Ovanessian directed Albert Camus’ Caligula. In this production, Camus’ vision of the absurd found an original interpretation.490 There, Ovanessian undoubtedly proved himself as a creative and avant-garde director.491 He was again invited for the 10th Shiraz Arts Festival (1976) to present a new theatrical creation There Appeared A Knight…, a form-free rendering of Iranian mystical writings for three actors and a child, which was performed at the tomb of Artaxerxes at Persepolis at midnight.492

Perhaps the most influential of Ovanessian’s works, and one with a number of resonances with the later project of Orghast, was the production of Vis and Ramin at the 4th Shiraz Arts Festival (1970) written by Mahin Tajadod. The script of the play is based on a forgotten but important 12th century Persian poem by Fakhreddin As’ad Gorgani.493 In an answer to a question why he staged Vis and Ramin at the ruins of Persepolis, Ovanessian said: “At Persepolis I have employed the elements of real time. The play moves ahead in step with real time and when the sun sets at Persepolis the actors appear like shadows. Furthermore, Persepolis helps us evoke historical memories. Thus the historical existence of the characters can be better felt.”494 Before the backdrop of walls and columns of ancient

489 Irving Wardle, "Lure of New Iranian Drama," Times, Sep.-Oct., 1972. 490 Graham, Catalogue of the Nineth Festival, 13. See also Rubin, The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre, 210. See also Michael Coveney, "Sinking in the East," Plays and Players, (October, 1974), 24,25. 491 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 513. 492 See Catalogue of the Tenth Festival of Arts, text in Persian. 493 Ibid., 493,494. The play follows the question of ethics in a simple romantic story. Through a forbidden love that religious, self-proclaimed ethical people consider impure, the narrative describes an innocent, honest tale with a pure essence: a young girl, forced to marry an old monarch, harbours in her heart undying love for her lover Ramin. See Irving Wardle, "Rituals in the Desert: The Shiraz Festival," International Theatre Review 5, no. 18&19, (Aug.-Sep., 1970), 149. 494 See "Nader Ebrahimi talks to Arby Ovanessian about ‘Vis and Ramin’," in Catalogue of the Fourth Festival of Arts, ed. Iradj Gorguin, (Shiraz-Persepolis: Public Relations Bureau of the Festival of Arts, 1970).

102 Persepolis, the perpetual lovers Vis and Ramin come to life and discover each other once again. 495 In return Vis and Ramin bring meaning to the stone engravings of Persepolis.496 Irving Wardle notes about Vis and Ramin: “[…] visually the production is utterly eclipsed by its setting. Ovanessian’s actors adopted a deliberately flat, inexpressive manner: evidently his aim was to draw spectators into the myth by blending living performers with bas-reliefs of the ancient palace. And in this way, he did achieve some haunting effects, like the first appearance of the doomed Queen on the stairway, as if she were stirring to life out of the stone, and her final panic-stricken flight into darkness across the Apadana of Xerxes. But Persepolis at twilight, with the setting sun burning like doomsday over the dusty plain, is one of the most awesome prospects in the world; and not surprisingly the living performers were no match for the lingering presence of the Achaemenian dynasty.”497

Ovanessian’s productions at Shiraz Arts Festival became the epicentre of discussion for many critics and artists. Before the 5th Shiraz Arts Festival in 1971, Peter Brook had already seen two of Ovanessian’s productions: A Modern Profound and Important Research in the Fossils of the 25th Geological Era, 14th, 20th, makes no difference (1968) and Vis and Ramin (1970). Brook believes that “Arby (Ovanessian) is exceptional. […] He is both a man of the East and of the West open equally to the visible and invisible worlds.”498 He invited Ovanessian to collaborate with him on the creation of the International Centre of Theatre Research in Paris. Later, Ovanessian’s ideas and contributions were instrumental in shaping Orghast for the 5th Shiraz Arts Festival (1971).499

495 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 496. 496 Parviz Pour Housseini, Interview by Negin Djavaherian, Tehran, August 28, 2011. Parviz Pour Hosseini was one of the Iranian actors of Orghast and the only Iranian actor to be invited along with Arby Ovanessian to the ICTR in Paris. 497 Wardle, "Rituals in the Desert," 150. 498 See Peter Brook, introduction to Majid Lashkari, Teātr va Sinamāye Arby Ovanessian - Az Varāye Gofteh-hā, Nevešteh-hā va Aks-hā [The Theatre and Cinema of Arby Ovanessian: Through Conversations, Writings, and Images] (to be published). 499 Orghast was presented at the Shiraz Arts Festival as a “work in progress” as a collaboration of four directors: Peter Brook, Arby Ovanessian, Geoffrey Reeves and Andrei Serban. See Smith,

103 The 5th Shiraz Arts Festival brought together all the different themes of the previous years: theatre, ritual, Western and Eastern music, dance and films. It also attracted a large contingent of international journalists and critics. The theme of this festival was ‘Today’s Art’, making connections with contemporary art from around the world. 500 The aim was to create new possibilities for a ‘free discourse’.501 Peter Brook, who had obtained a grant from the Empress and Iranian Radio and Television for the first year of his three-year project with the multi-national group at the ICTR, was invited to present the results of the Centre’s experiments as a “work in progress” at the Shiraz Arts Festival of 1971. This work later became Orghast. Two months after its presentation, Iran celebrated the 2,500th anniversary of its empire.

2.2. The Flesh of Sound

Orghast was an original theatrical experiment, a “work in progress”, created by four directors: Peter Brook, Arby Ovanessian, Geoffrey Reeves and Andrei Serban. It was based on lengthy exploratory research around the ‘structure of sound’ and ‘non-verbal communication’.502 In its nascent years, the ICTR spent a great deal of effort to understand and to elucidate the significance of sound in theatre. They established “a form of research much closer to that of scientists in an experimental laboratory: the search for processes, combinations, causes and effects hitherto unknown,”503 and they applied this experimental work to the subject of sound. Several improvised performances and research discourses on that subject culminated with the production of Orghast. Primary sources studied, in order of progress, were based on writings by Levon Shant in Armenian, Calderón in Spanish, Aeschylus in ancient Greek and Seneca in Latin. Brook

Orghast at Persepolis, and also see A Programme Note for the Production of 'Orghast'. 5th Shiraz Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis, 1971. Orghast was never presented to the public anywhere else. See also Richard Helfer and Glenn Loney, eds., Peter Brook: Oxford to Orghast (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 158. 500 Iradj Gorguin, ed., Catalogue of the Fourth Festival of Arts (Shiraz-Persepolis: Public Relations Bureau of the Festival of Arts, 1970), text in English and Persian. 501 Ibid. 502 Yoshi Oida, "From an Actor Adrift," Asian Theatre Journal, 10, no. 2, Autumn 1993. 503 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 15.

104 describes how various passages were rewritten for the actors without spaces between the words, forming a seemingly random collection of letters in a string of gargantuan words, for example:

EIELEUELELEUUPOMAUSFAKELOSKAIFREENOPLEGEIS…504

Brook compares the actors to archaeologists whose role was to discover and unravel fragments of each word. With their emotional faculty and senses, the actors explored the rhythms embedded in the ‘flow of letters’ and attempted to capture a dramatic sense of each word in order to enunciate it with a deep and embodied sense of meaning.505 Drawing on their own power of feeling and intuition, the actors were able to divide the group of letters into segments.506 The actors worked “for a long time with a dozen or so set syllables that had no fixed meaning, and therefore infinitely variable potential meaning.”507 In “The Flesh of Language,” David Abram refers to Merleau-Ponty who “distinguishes sharply between genuine, expressive speech and speech that merely repeats established formulas and treats the language as ‘a finished institution’.”508 However, “wild, living speech takes up, from within, the interconnected matrix of the language and gestures with it, subjecting the whole structure to a coherent deformation.”509 Ancient Greek in itself has been observed to have such qualities. Parviz Pour Hosseini, one of Brook’s actors, emphasizes the power of ancient Greek in respect to the expressive quality and communicative possibilities of sound. As he puts it, if one quarrels in Greek, the words help one. He makes the observation that the Greek pronunciation of consonants, like p, b, t, etc., is like a shotgun that projects them very rapidly, while the vowels are softer and travel much more slowly.510

504 Brook, The Shifting Point, 108. 505 Ibid., 108. 506 Peter Brook, "Orghast: Zabani B-niaz as Kalameh [Orghast: A Language Independent from Words]," Tamāšā 47, trans. Abd-Allāh Tavakol, (Feb. 11, 1972), 25, text in Persian. 507 Tom Stoppard, "Orghast," Times Literary Suplement, London, Fri., Oct. 1, 1971. 508 David Abram, The Spell of The Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 83. 509 Ibid., 84. 510 Pour Housseini, Interview with author.

105 This understanding of the innate power of language, prior to meaning, is in agreement with Brook’s experimental work on sound. The experiments resonated with deconstructing the strict set of signs, the formal system of syntactic and grammatical rules or conventional dimensions of language, and instead offering language’s “sensorial and sentient”511 aspects. In The Shifting Points, Brook elaborates on the rationale behind experiments on the role of sound. The main goal, Brook explains, was “to discover more fully what constitutes living expression” by eliminating common languages and common signs that are part of the “shared cultural and subcultural imagery.”512 The programme of the 5th Shiraz Arts Festival asks the audience: “What is the relation between verbal and non- verbal theatre? What happens when gesture and sound turn into word? What is the exact place of the word in theatrical expression? As vibration? Concept? Music? Is any evidence buried in the sound structure of certain ancient languages?”513

2.2.1. Avesta

Before the beginning of work with the newly formed ICTR group in Paris, Brook had visited Iran and there had described to Ovanessian the first aim of his research – “to discover the essential sounds and vibrations common to all languages, carrying the deep meaning behind the different words.”514 As Brook writes, Ovanessian had introduced him to an Iranian researcher and playwright, Mahin Tajaddod, “who had made a deep study of how the letters of the ancient language of Zoroaster, Avesta, were diagrams of the inner paths the breath has to make to make the sounds vibrate.”515 Avesta had vanished as a spoken language after the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. No one was able to speak Avesta for millennia, until the Persian scholar, Tajaddod, succeeded in deciphering the pronunciation from preserved fragments of the written language. Being interested

511 See Abram, The Spell of The Sensuous. 512 Brook, The Shifting Point, 108. 513 Brook, Peter. Ibid., 110. See also A Programme Note for the Production of 'Orghast'. 5th Shiraz Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis, 1971. 514 See Brook, introduction to Lashkari, Teātr va Sinamāye Arby Ovanessian [The Theatre and Cinema of Arby Ovanessian]. 515 Ibid.

106 in Persian culture and its ancient Zoroastrian history, Brook decided to include the language of Avesta in the project.516 Tajaddod and Ovanessian were instrumental in teaching and interpreting the nature of the sounds of Avesta to Peter Brook and his group.517 The ICTR began with exploration of the First Book of Avesta, which is a collection of prayers, rules, principles and beliefs of the ancient Zoroastrian religion.518 Avesta consists of two books of hymns written in the now-defunct language of that name – Avesta.519 Zoroaster (also Zarathushra)520 was the ancient messenger of ancient Persia and the books of Avesta represent a collection of his religious thoughts dating back more than 3,000 years.521

Among the significant characteristics claimed for Avesta was that in this language the quality of the sound was very close to the meaning of the words. As Brook points out, there was no gap between sound and meaning. Because the sound captured the exact meaning of the language, there was no need to ask what the

516 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 48. Antony Smith collaborated with Peter Brook as a literary adviser on the project of Orghast and was invited to participate as a journalist, whose role was to provide a detailed record of the trip, including reviews, critical reactions and Brook’s thoughts on the play. Smith’s book provides the most complete account of Peter Brook’s Orghast project. 517 Ibid., 79 and 124. Ovanessian points out that Avesta language, was dead. As a language, it required special techniques of breathing and articulation; this was forgotten until its enchanting qualities were rediscovered by Tajaddod and transmitted to Brook’s group. This contributed to awakening and influencing theatre directors and musicians, who later became inspired by the experimental works that took place at the festival in the beginning of 1970s. (Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 26, 2012) See also Andrei Serban, "The Life of Sound," The Drama Review 20, no. 4, (December 1976). 518 See Ebrāhim Pur-Dāvud, ed., Yašt-hā, vol. 50 and 51, Zabān va Farhang Irān (Tehran: Ṭahuri, 1967). See Jalil Dust-Ḵāh, ed., Avestā: Nāmeye Minaviye Āʾin Zartošt [Avesta: The Heavenly Book of Zoroastrianism], based on the work of Ebrāhim Pur-Dāvud (Tehran: Morvārid, 1964). 519 Only the Books of Avesta have been written in the language of Avesta. No other evidence of Avesta has been engraved in or written on slate or any paper. See Mahin Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Terāžedi Āfarineš [Tragedy of Creation], Collection and Interpretation of Avestian Texts (Shiraz- Persepolis: Sāzmān-e- Jašn-e-Honar, 1971). 520 The establishment of the Zoroastrian religion is attributed to Zoroaster (Zarathustra), a prophet in the seventh century BC. No evidence has been found showing that the language of Avesta was used as a daily, ordinary communicative language among people. It was used in religious hymns and during traditions and ceremonial events. See ibid., 23. Avesta was not a colloquial language; it had the quality of a ceremonial language that was used in temples. The Zoroastrian priests were schooled in the exact way how to pronounce it, and only they knew the esoteric combination of the vibrations of the language (Arby Ovanessian, Personal phone communication with Negin Djavaherian, December 26, 2011.) 521 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Terāžedi Āfarineš [Tragedy of Creation], 10.

107 spoken language meant: the meaning of the words was directly connected to the quality brought to life by the act of speaking.522 Discovering the hidden qualities of Avesta was one of the achievements of Brook’s group.523 Smith explains that Avesta had a “powerful dignity and beauty, and promised a new sort of theatrical vibration.”524 The understanding of the meaning through sound in Avesta was one of the pivotal notions that the ICTR strove to explore and fathom through its experimental work in Orghast.

Tajaddod writes about the natural power of sound in the language of Avesta. In each language, we usually protract and pull the sound or bring up and down the music or tonality of expression; or we use different techniques to imbue sounds with power and energy. This power that accompanies the syllables is artificial. The syllables do not possess power naturally, of themselves; rather energy and control must be injected into them. However in Avesta, it is claimed that the syllables, upon taking shape in one’s vocal system and then emerging from the body, are possessed of the natural power of sound: the language spontaneously retains this natural power.525 Tajaddod differentiates between raw sound and refined sound. The air collected inside the chest and belly through breathing comes out as a formless sound; it is the foundation of ‘raw sound’. The outcome could be silence, whispering, laughter, a shout, crying or any other amorphous sound. But when air passes through various sections inside the throat, mouth, and nose, and finally exits the body prudently, it takes the shape of a letter; that is the origin of refined sound.526 The raw sounds permanently retain their natural power and energy within themselves, while this primitive, natural power is reduced in

522 Brook, The Shifting Point, 110. In Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 503, Tajaddod describes that as soon as Peter Brook heard about Avesta, a 3,000-year old language based on sounds rather than literal (verbal) dialogue, he was sure that he would involve it in the creation of Orghast. 523 Qāsem Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]," Āyandegān, Tehran, Orghast, Part 2, Performance of Peter Brook at Shiraz Arts, Festival-Persepolis, Sat., Sep. 11, 1971. 524 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 179. 525 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Terāžedi Āfarineš [Tragedy of Creation], 20. 526 Ibid., 20,21.

108 the refined sounds through centuries of linguistic development.527 Linguistic understanding focused on the exact meaning of words and referential signs, while the potential and power of the sound itself lost its presence. Avesta is one of the rare languages in the world that possess this natural power of raw sound; so it was able to convey the message to its audience in the way music does.528 The composition and arrangement of syllables in the structure of the words in Avesta was connected to the natural power of the raw sound within this language.529 The Persians, based on their knowledge of phonology and the science of sound, were aware of the quality of raw sounds and the impact of its natural power on different human beings in the world.530

The mystery of the musical character of the words in Avesta was uncovered and provided insight into the correct utterance of notes. If a syllable was not enunciated properly, the word lost its magical virtue.531 In order to speak or read Avesta one needed to have an exact understanding of the parts of the body conveying sound; an awareness of the impact of each letter when air encounters it; a comprehension of the physiology of the lungs and the throat; the ability to control the vocal chords at the moment of enunciating a letter; and the ability to focus the thought at a precise moment and imagine the form of the sound outlets during the act of speech.532 The compressed air in the chest should be expelled to excite each of the vocal chords in order to articulate each letter of Avesta.533

These qualities of the language make Avesta an inherently theatrical language. As we have seen, the quality of sound in Avesta was intimately connected and compatible with meaning. The syllables in Avesta related to anger and harshness,

527 Ibid., 21. 528 Ibid., 22. 529 Ibid., 23. It has been said that St. Augustine in the 5th century, after hearing the Avesta language, cried spontaneously without even knowing the meaning of the words; it was because of the influential and penetrating natural power of sound that Avesta possessed. 530 Ibid., 23. 531 Ibid. 532 Ibid., 23,24. 533 Ibid., 24.

109 for example, are expelled from the farthest corner of the lungs by the sudden contraction of the diaphragm. In contrast, soft sounds conveying calmness are created in the mouth and by the lips.534 This confluence of sound quality and meaning means that each letter and syllable has certain characteristics with the potential to create dramatic, even tragic, elements and compositions. Brook’s actors studied the qualities of Avesta, its science, and its techniques of enunciation; this allowed them to make use of this language’s inherent aural qualities in their theatre.535

2.2.2. Orghast

In Paris, autumn of 1970, Brook had begun research into improvisation of language with his group, developing Bashtahondo, a language of nonsensical syllables such as BA-SHTA-DO. 536 But the tongue central to Orghast’s excavation of sound and meaning was the completely new, invented language537 from which the play took its name. The language of Orghast was designed and developed by the English poet Ted Hughes (1930-1998).538 Its name was derived from two roots: org describing the sound for life and ghast meaning the flame. Therefore, the word ‘Orghast’ represented the ‘fire of being’ where the fire metaphorically symbolized the sun. With his interest and faith in the “magical properties of sound”539, Hughes intended to create “a language of tones and sounds, without specific conceptual or perceptual meaning.”540 He hoped to discover sounds that could communicate directly through the emotional and dramatic senses they embodied and evoked. Another way of putting this is that Hughes based the language of Orghast on subtext rather than text. The subtext is not a series of words on paper; it is what provides the language with pattern,

534 Ibid. 535 Ibid., 6. 536 Oida and Marshall, An Actor Adrift, 70. 537 Read, "Peter Brook: From Stratford-on-Avon to the Gare du Nord," 69. 538 Ted Hughes is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the twentieth century. In 1968, he adapted for Brook Seneca’s Oedipus, was staged in London at the National Theatre, The Old Vic. 539 Stoppard, "Orghast." 540 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 157.

110 rhythm and melody. The subtext, in this sense, can be best discerned by listening to acting in a foreign language.541 The concept of Orghast is closely related to what Brook calls ‘prewords’ and ‘preconcepts’, something that can be described as ‘moving forms’ which sometimes can be represented as a murmur creating a ‘pattern of sound’.542

Figure 2.1: Images of two pages of handouts for Orghast. The image on the left contains handwriting by Ted Hughes in Orghast and notes by Parviz Pour Hosseini in Persian. The image on the right contains sentences in Orghast and English translation.

Brook enquires in The Empty Space, “[i]s there a language of actions, a language of sounds – a language of word-as-part-of-movement, of word-as-lie, of word-as- parody, of word-as-rubbish, of word-as-contradiction, of word-shock or word- cry?”543 Linguistic meaning is “primarily expressive, gestural, and poetic”544 and Orghast was exploring precisely this quality of language where meaning and sound were inseparable from each other.545 It was the language that “no one could

541 Peter Brook, "In a Sense," Peter Brook's private copy. Oct. 1971, 3. 542 Brook, The Shifting Point, 109. 543 Brook, The Empty Space, 49. 544 Abram, The Spell of The Sensuous, 80. 545 Brook, "Orghast: Zabani B-niaz as Kalameh [Orghast: A Language Independent from Words]," 25. See also Pour Housseini, Interview with author. He describes that Brook gave an example to the actors concerning languages, the notion of sound and how to express what they are looking for. The primordial man who lived in a cave when, for a first time, saw a dangerous lion outside of his cave and when he went back to the cave, how he conveyed to other people in the cave that he had seen a threatening lion. How he could suggest,

111 understand literally; communication occurred on the level of intention and energy.”546 There was no meaning independent of the words’ articulation. The essential role of language was the expression of the theatrical sense of sound (‘sense’ as in meaning but also ‘sense’ as in lived and felt experience), within the context of dramatic action.547 This discussion recalls Walter J. Ong’s observation in Orality and Literacy where he addresses the power of the human phenomenon of speech in its native and oral form. He emphasizes the role of the “oral utterance, which is never autonomous but always embedded in non-verbal existence.”548 Orghast seems to address this quality of a language “that exist basically as spoken and heard, in the world of sound.”549

To describe the quality of the language of Orghast, Yoshi Oida refers to Mantras. Mantras (for example ‘Ohm’) are words or verses which help man to connect to the higher powers of existence through their inherent hyperphysical and supernatural strength. He provides as examples from ancient times an oath ceremony or a rain calling. Such influence over nature is not acknowledged in our time. When a modern man says ‘rain’ he imagines that the word and its internal energy are divided into separate elements. Words have lost their internal natural essence. In Orghast a tremendous attempt was made, through the appropriate mode of enunciation, to express words whose internal, profound feelings are inseparable from their form. Oida points out that if, for instance, he said ‘rain’ in the language of Ted Hughes, it was actually supposed to be raining.550 Hughes also points out that Orghast, like a Mantra, offers “magical attempts to bypass the

inspire or convey the sense of danger? Brook was looking exactly for this quality. He was exploring if there was any language in the world that still has this quality that without knowing of the meaning of the words, one could communicate through sound. And based on these qualities, Ted Hughes invented the language of Orghast. 546 Oida, "From an Actor Adrift." 547 Andrew Porter, "Enʿekās Jahāni Panjomin Jašn Honar, Širāz - Taḵt-e-Jamšid: Orghast [World Reflection on the the Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis: Orghast]," Tamāšā, no. 28, (Sep. 30,1971). 548 Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York: Routledge, 2002), 157. 549 Ibid., 7. 550 Oida and Marshall, An Actor Adrift, 73.

112 limitation of reason.”551 Each word, if it is enunciated properly, can become a Mantra; Avesta has this potential. Similar to Mantras, Hughes suggests, Orghast was designed as a system “in order to open it to magic.”552 Hughes studied and researched the theory of magic; he mentions that those studies influenced the creation of Orghast.553 Andrew Porter describes that speaking in Orghast with a loud voice provided him with a compelling outcome. Through enunciation and utterance of words, he perceived the language with his feeling rather than rationally. This openness and potential of Orghast suited theatre.554 Andrew Porter draws our attention to the enthralling pleasure of Orghast which can be perceived immediately by any musician.

Ted Hughes mentions that his intention was to open a path toward a new and unknown world. He refers to music that has an exact and mathematical, yet open language; it has the possibility of encountering anything, yet it closes the path for objective rationalism. In comparison to his invented language, Hughes suggests that his ‘music’ is complicated and attaining it is difficult. Orghast wants, like music, to offer meanings and concepts on a higher level;555 it aspires to attain the quality of music and to express affection and emotion in a common language.556 In response to the question of whether a dictionary to the language of Orghast existed, Hughes replied with a question whether music had any dictionary. Just as for music, the same applied to Orghast: its dictionary was within us – in our minds and bodies.557 For Hughes, one can find music only within music, not in the dictionary for music.558

551 Peter Wilson, "Interview with Ted Hughes Author of Orghast," Tamāšā, no.7, Special Daily Edition for 5th Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis, Wed., Sep.1, 1971. 552 Ibid. 553 Ibid. 554 Porter, "Orghast," 70,71. 555 Hušang Ḥesāmi, "'Orghast' Yek Zabān Tāzeh Jahāni va Moštarak ['Orghast' a New Common and Universal Language]," Jašn-e-Honar-e-Širāz, no. 8437, Shiraz, Aug. 31, 1971, text in Persian. 556 Ibid. 557 "Tajrobeh Tāzeh Mā, Bedur Afkandan Teātr Qarārdādi Ast [Brook: Our New Experiment is Getting Away from Conventional Theatre]," Eṭelāʿāt, no. 13585, Aug., 31, 1971. 558 Hesami, "'Orghast' a New Common and Universal Language."

113 Hughes likens Orghast to music unearthed and listened to for the first time after thousands of years, yet still conveying qualities which can be understood like those of a poem.559 Hughes proposes we imagine a kind of music buried for 5,000 years, its origins were ruined and forgotten, until it was brought out of the soil.560 It lacks “the complexities of civilization, but belongs to human beings at a basic level of experience.”561 This is the ideal of Orghast.562 Hughes adds that this is exactly a feature of Orghast that makes it difficult to refer to as a language. It cannot be considered to consist simply of “a system of fixed, semantic – symbolic references, reflections far removed from direct communication.”563

Orghast invites us to experience the splendid music of language itself – the obliterated music of words.564 It originated from the poet’s own experience and it was based upon a series of rhythmical syllables that conveyed the meaning of light, darkness, life and death. Without a “system of fixed, semantic/symbolic references, reflections […], each word of it c[ould] shift as a poetic image, modifiable by setting.”565 Brook points out that the sound language of Orghast together with ancient Greek, Latin, and Avesta “could penetrate directly to the subconscious.”566 With “the vibratory power of ancient languages”567 along with the new language of Orghast, the intention was to search for qualities that would enable the actors to express emotion through the dramatic sense of sound. As a result, some of the languages were given different roles: Avesta represented the

559 "Tajrobeh Tāzeh Mā, Bedur Afkandan Teātr Qarārdādi Ast [Brook: Our New Experiment is Getting Away from Conventional Theatre]." . 560 Wilson, "Interview with Ted Hughes Author of Orghast." 561 Ibid. 562 Ibid. 563 Ibid. 564 "Enʿekās Jahāni Panjomin Jašn Honar, Širāz - Taḵt-e-Jamšid: Peter Brook va Zabāni Tāzeh: Orghast [World Reflection on the the Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis: Peter Brook and a New Language: Orghast]," Tamāšā, no. 26 (translated from Le Monde to Persian), (Sep. 17, 1971). 565 Peter Wilson, "A Survey of the Work of I.C.T.R. in Iran from June to September 1971," Peter Brook's private copy, (1971). See also Wilson, "Interview with Ted Hughes Author of Orghast." 566 Brook, introduction to Lashkari, Teātr va Sinamāye Arby Ovanessian [The Theatre and Cinema of Arby Ovanessian]. 567 Richard Schechner et al., "Talking with Peter Brook," The Drama Review: TDR vol. 3, no. 1, (Spring 1986).

114 light, while Orghast was designed to express darkness.568 The premise of the work, as Brook describes, was “the examining of forms of communication to see whether there are elements in the theatrical vocabulary that pass directly, without going through the stage once removed of cultural or other references.”569 Sound and language in Orghast were essential to the process of poetic discovery in the creation of this play.

2.3. Nested Myths

The script of Orghast was, to a large extent, based upon the story of Prometheus. Brook and Hughes were greatly interested in the works of the ancient tragedian Aeschylus, particularly his play Prometheus Bound, 570 as well as in Greek mythology.571 Thus the four co-directors of Orghast also incorporated in the work Aeschylus’ The Persian,572 which describes the defeat of the Persian army at the nautical battle of Salamis. In parallel to The Persians, they also worked on Seneca’s Hercules Furens,573 who in a moment of madness kills all his children. There was an attempt to create a new kind of theatrical ritual inspired by ancient mythology and by mythological allusions. 574 Seneca’s Hercules Furens and

568 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 49. 569 Ibid., 248. 570 See Aeschylus, Persians; Seven Against Thebes; Suppliants; Prometheus Bound, trans. Alan H. Sommerstein, vol. I, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). 571 The history of the Greek deity and the origin of the human race were documented by the Greek poet Hesiod in his book Theogeny. Prometheus, the son of a Titan, was given a task by the god Zeus to create man. Prometheus obeyed and created men from water and dirt. Feeling sorry for the primordial humans, Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and brought it to humankind hidden in a fennel stalk. Prometheus taught man to use the fire for cooking and he showed them how to make weapons from metals. Prometheus’ fondness of humankind led him to deceive Zeus during a sacrificial ceremony. Prometheus wrapped entrails and meat in an animal hide and meatless bones in tasty fat. Zeus chose the bones and people were given the meat. This angered Zeus and he had Prometheus chained to the Caucasus Mountains. As a punishment every day an eagle swooped down to feast on Prometheus’ liver, and each night the liver grew back. To punish men, Zeus created a woman, beautiful but evil Pandora, and sent her among the men. Prometheus was eventually rescued by Heracles. 572 See Aeschylus, Persians; Seven Against Thebes; Suppliants; Prometheus Bound. 573 Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Tragedies: Hercules Furens. Troades. Medea. Hippolytus or Phaedra. Oedipus, trans. Frank Justus Miller, vol. VIII, Books 62 and 81, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917). 574 Ossia Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971," The Contemporary Review, vol. 222, no. 1286, 1973.

115 Aeschylus’ The Persians were essential because of their inherent historical and thematic connections with the site of the performance.

Other narrative sources were also important. One of these was Calderón’s Life Is a Dream575 in Spanish. In this tale, a prince is imprisoned by his despotic father in a tower in wilderness. Calderón’s text was highly rhetorical,576 a quality which was explored during the Paris rehearsals only. Life Is a Dream played an important part in the “work in progress” because its content related to the myth of Prometheus and The Chained One. 577 Peter Handke’s Kaspar “provided the perfect vehicle for actors trying to find […] movement without cultural overtones.”578 This unusual play portrays a young man who is brought up from childhood in complete isolation and has no memory of his past. In relation to the civilized world, he becomes imprisoned by the ‘ideology of language’ and is tortured by each new word.

But the first inspiring source that greatly influenced the creation of Orghast was The Chained One.579 Brook recalls: “Arby [Ovanessian] at once introduced us to the great Armenian writer [Levon] Shanth and his play The Chained One which linked thematically with Calderón’s Life Is a Dream. Hearing the Armenian’s words inspired the English poet Ted Hughes who was developing a sound language of his own which together with ancient Greek and Avesta could penetrate directly to the sub-conscious.”580 The majority of secondary sources about Orghast merely mention the name of The Chained One; this does little justice to the tremendous role the play had on the development of Orghast. Given

575 See Pedro Calderon de la Barca, “Life is a Dream.” In Eric Bentley, ed., The Classic Theatre: Six Spanish Plays, vol. III (New York: Doubleday (Anchor Books), 1959). See also Everett Wesley Hesse, ed., Calderón's La Vida es Sueño: A College Student's Edition, text in Spanish; Preface in English (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961). 576 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 156. 577 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 26, 2012. 578 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 156. 579 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 26, 2012. 580 Brook, introduction to Lashkari, Teātr va Sinamāye Arby Ovanessian [The Theatre and Cinema of Arby Ovanessian].

116 this important omission, I include a short section on the play The Chained One to clarify how it influenced Orghast.

2.3.1. The Chained One

The Chained One written by the Armenian writer Levon Shant in 1918,581 although largely unknown, is a text of great significance.582 It is a profound and premonitory theatrical play, based on ancient Armenian history and mythology.583 In the text, a cursed prince Ardavazt (the holy Book of Avesta refers to Ahavazdah, i.e., Ardavazt, as “immortal personality”),584 the son of Earth and the son of Man, is imprisoned by the Demon of Life in the Mount Massis585 in the depths of the Earth. “The old women tell of him, that he is imprisoned in a cave, bound with iron chains; and with two dogs constantly gnawing at the chains, he strives to emerge and end the world; but, it is said, that the sounds of a blacksmith’s hammering strengthen these bonds. It is for this reason that to this day, many blacksmiths strike the anvil three times on Saturday evenings, so that, it is said, Ardavazt’s chains may strengthen.”586 The prince is “pining”587 to free

581 Levon Shant, The Chained One, (original text written in 1918) trans. by Mischa Kudian, commisioned by Galoust Goulbenkian Foundation, (unpublished typed script), ICTR archive and Arby Ovanessian's collection (1970). In the spring of 1970, Arby Ovanessian introduced The Chained One to Peter Brook. Shortly after, Brook sent the original text to be translated from Armenian to English by Mischa Kudian via the Galoust Goulbenkian Foundation. Although the English translation was a literal one and was not able to reflect and transmit the complexity of sounds and rhythms of the original, one could not only understand the play thematically, but was touched by the sense of its rhythm evoked by the original text. (Ovanessian, phone interview with author, Februry 19, 2012). 582 Arby Ovanessian, Personal phone communication with Negin Djavaherian, March 4, 2012. 583 Arby Ovanessian, Personal phone communication with Negin Djavaherian, February 19, 2012. 584 Vahan M. Kurkjian, A History of Armenia, Chapter 34, Armenian Mythology (New York: Armenian General Benevolent Union of Ameriaca, 1958), 308. 585 Massis is the mythical name of Mount Ararat in Armenian culture, which does not use the biblical name. This is the reason why Shant intentionally did not use the word Ararat. (Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 26, 2012). 586 A quote by Moses of Khorene (5th, 7th or 9th century AD) that Levon Shant has used as a second epigraph for The Chained One. 587 Shant, The Chained One, 74.

117 himself and liberate the world from the reign of the Demon of Life.588 Alas, he remains chained prisoner.

A prophet Naghash589 is the first to openly proclaim that blacksmiths by their hammering ritual and curse should not keep the prince Ardavazt in prison forever. The belief that the liberated prince will destroy the world is not the ‘Truth’. On the contrary, he prophesizes that if the prince is released he will build a new better world, without tyrants and greed, free from the rule of the Demon of Life. Then people ask when their prince will be freed, Naghash replies: “Secure the laces of your feet, tighten your belts and your hearts! You still have a long way to walk, a very long way. That sinuous road of sweat and blood, of tears and blood, that wandering road of brutality and tyranny, you will still have to walk for yet a very long time. Have you been up the high mountains? Have you climbed the rocky peaks?”590 […] “You overthrew the old tyrant and the new one came. If you overthrow the new one, the next one will come. There is no end to it! You must realize that you will not gain anything until you overthrow the mother tyrant that begets them all, and nourishes them all! The only tyrant, the basic one, the real one!”591 The central point of the play can be perceived through Naghash’s monologue, with his insistence that the true tyrant is inside of every one of us and it is we who are keeping the prince in prison. “If you want all your chains to break, if you want all your chains to break, supress the tyrant that rules within you, under every bosom, kill the tyrant that is inside you!”592

The supporters of Naghash attempt to discontinue the blacksmiths’ ritual, creating a conflict between them and the traditionalists, leading to further warfare. The Demon of Life with the help of dwarves widens the rift among people. The

588 “One, named Ardavazt, was imprisoned by the demons, and is alive until the present; he will emerge and dominate the world.” A quote by Eznik of Koghp [Golp] (5th century AD) that Shant has used as a first epigraph for The Chained One. 589 In Persia, prophet Mani (for Mani refer to this thesis, footnote 626) is known as Naghash (a painter of images). Shant has used the same name in The Chained One for his prophet. 590 Shant, The Chained One, 69. 591 Ibid., 69. 592 Ibid., 70.

118 dwarves mine gems and gold that corrupt people; they extract iron from which deadly weapons are forged in the underworld. As an echo to the cursed ritual of blacksmiths, countless new little dwarves are born to serve the Demon of Life in the mines where their hammering and activities in the ‘deep wells’ torture the prisoner.

The Demon of Life believes he is the sole ruler over life; yet he fears the prophecy that one day Ardavazt – the son of Man – will rule the world. By first calling the Ancient Dwarf, he decides to steal Ardavazt away from the “treasure of [his] memories”593 and persuade the prince to obey him. Then the Demon addresses Mother Earth – “from the black darkness of whose womb humidity sprouts, grows, excels; where growth becomes pregnant; where the sacred germ takes shape; where the hungry root thrusts and seeks in every direction, with its greedy threads; where living matter comes to life and is roused, the sap of nourishment creeps forward; the genius of birth boils and swarms; you, Mother Earth and mother of Life, open your bosom to the Demon of Life, to the Son of the Earth, show the path to that deep abyss, where one day I pushed down, rolled down, imprisoned and sealed up the son of Man, that stubborn soul…”594 Thus she pulls back her masses of clay and rocks, steep cliffs and flowing waters, cracks and voids and fires; there comes the sound of quaking, the rupturing and fracture of blocks and rocks, the tumult of water and lashing fires and all ends in silence. She reveals the way to the depths where centuries ago the Demon of Life had imprisoned and chained Ardavazt.

In the dreadful ruins, the Demon of Life inside the cave in the darkness and silence recognizes the prisoner and hears the sound of chains; promises the prince to end his solitude and shower him with wealth beyond belief, glory, honour, fame, vigour in body, suppleness, intelligence and grace as well as a concise

593 Ibid., 72. 594 Ibid., 72,73. This is an example of how the inner structure and function of imagery in The Chained One became intimately an inspiring source for Ted Hughes. See this thesis, Figure 2.2, Physiology of Orghast.

119 speech if he suppress his dream that one day men will make him a Free Man. “I want to suppress you and only you! You know it!”595 answers the prisoner. The Demon of Life becomes curious; attempts to know the sense of Ardavazt’s stubbornness and endless perseverance remaining an immortal prisoner. In the heart of darkness he hears the voice: “what sense has the fiery sea in the bosom of the earth, which is there, and boils and froths and craves to burst and flow out from the bowels of the earth, from the thousand smoking wounds of its body? Why do its muscles tremble and shake from those inner struggles, its violent efforts, untameable pining, eternal torments …?”596 Immediately, the echo of the ritual and the curse of blacksmiths is heard and the Demon of Life laughs at the prince’s naïve pride, reminding him that the blacksmiths are striking their anvils again. The prisoner replies: “A new race and new hands will come to break these chains!”597 Cruelly the Demon of Life treads the ground; darkness reigns again; sounds of collapse are heard; he orders the Mother Earth to tighten again the cave with veils of darkness, to close its layers and loads of clay, ashes, mines and granite stones; and press and solidify them in order to seal the prison of Ardavazt in the depths for eternity.598

As a result, revolutions emerge on earth: different governments and powers try to destroy each other. At the end of the play, Naghash and one of his disciples, a concubine,599 are arrested by the traditionalists and judged by aristocrats. Naghash remains silent. He and the concubine are condemned to be burned alive. Thus the prophet, the messenger of enlightenment who rose from the fire, is returned to the fire, to the “fiery sea in the bosom of the earth.”600

595 Ibid., 74. 596 Ibid., 74,75. 597 Ibid., 75. 598 The mythical content that Levon Shant uses in The Chained One is as old as the myth of Prometheus; they both originated from one mythical root in which the main character is chained to a rock by deity. Prometheus also was chained in the Caucasus Mountain by a titan: Zeus. (Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 19, 2012). 599 The concubine is present from the beginning of the play and is one of the women in the harem of Emir. She is one of a few people who are aware of the Naghash’s prophesy, and when the palace of Emir comes under attack in a war, she escapes and joins Naghash. Eventually, as was Mary Magdalena for Christ, she becomes one of the best known female followers of Naghash. 600 Shant, The Chained One, 74.

120 The Chained One ends at a point where events on Earth and below its surface result in a perpetual cycle of warfare. Tyrants as Christian kings, Merchant Jews, Moslem Emirs, Blacksmiths, Militaries, Artisans, Aristocrats, Mobs, dominate the world while the Demon of Life keeps the ‘immortal prince’ in chains proclaiming itself the almighty, omnipotent, uncontested ruler of the world. A manifestation of the destructive power, greed, selfishness and autocracy that is within us, from which, Man cannot free himself. He is the prince of darkness, while the prisoner is the prince of long yearning – “pining.”601 The imprisoned prince shares the same faith as Prometheus who gave fire and knowledge to Man, for which he was chained to the rock by Zeus.602

The subtitle, A Play from Our Middle-Age,603 that Levon Shant has given to his work, has multiple meanings: the middle age of human race; the middle age of Armenian culture; the middle age of Christian history; even our contemporary era named as a Dark Age. The phrase has a meaning both deep and broad 604 and creates a bridge between the old mythical world and contemporary times.605 Ovanessian writes: “Shant, by penetrating through the darkness of the middle ages, not only makes us to see but also to hear the sound of The Chained One from the impenetrable depth of free Massis”606 The structure of The Chained One and the

601 Ibid., 74. 602 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 19, 2012. 603 Shant, The Chained One, (front page). 604 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012. 605 Ovanessian, Arby. A Programme Note for the Production of 'The Chained One'. Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, Paris. The play situates the action and its movement in the historical city of Ani. Geographically, Ani was in the intersection of East and West. The ancient Armenian capital city of Ani (now in the Eastern Turkey) was one of the cities on the Silk Road. After the 6th century AD, it became one of the most important and well-known cities. Its architects were famous and the city boasted 1,000 churches within, and one church outside, its fortified walls. Like the book of One Thousand and One Nights, that has an esoteric sense of that number, the city had 1,001 churches. It was a gem coveted by many kings who desired to possess it. (Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012). 606 Ovanessian, Arby. A Programme Note for the Production of 'The Chained One'. Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, Paris. Ovanessian refers to the structure of The Chained One which is in four acts: a theatrical quatrain. (See ibid.). At the middle of the play, in its intersection between horizontality and verticality, at the time that prophet Naghash delivers his message gradually merging darkness of the night. (Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012.)

121 movement between the elements in the play are important and meaningful from an architectural perspective. The action progresses gradually, moving in and out, from surface of the Earth to its central core: moving from the visible to the invisible.607

The most powerful, beautiful and philosophical moment in the play is during Naghash’s monologue, starting just before sunset. The scene gradually darkens as the sun slips away. The stage darkens, all images vanish and only Naghash’s voice is heard. Gradually, we are led metaphorically and physically to be absorbed within ourselves: swallowed by a darkness reminiscent of the condition of bliss. From the background, the sound of hammering is heard – the traditional cursed ritual of the blacksmiths strengthening the prince’s chains. The sound of the hammers synchronizes with that of our heartbeat, regulated by the rhythm and sound of the words in the monologue. The play gradually transports us from the external, visible world to the internal, invisible world within ourselves, placing us in a state of self-confrontation.608

“The Chained One is an exceptionally profound work of art. It is not a mere fantastic play full of fantasy, but has deep roots in historical reality: the realities of the wars and revolutions of the early 20th century are reflected in it. The text is layered both thematically and structurally, and it represents the translation of myth into the 20th century. From the very first day that I encountered this play, [I was] immediately was touched by it; sensed its very importance.”609

Ted Hughes was inspired by The Chained One in a number of ways. He was interested in the structure of the play and its architectural qualities: the levels and

Massis (Arrarat) is in Asia Minor, near the Caucasus Mountains. Incidentally, Prometheus was chained in the Caucasus Mountains. It is a volcanic range which is still active and extremely powerful. This is metaphorically related to the myth of Ardavazt in The Chained one. The power imprisoned within these volcanic mountains connects profoundly to Orghast as well. 607 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012. Levon Shant believes the play should be conceived as an architectural piece. He has written about his concept: the sense of Movement in Theatre. 608 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 19, 2012. 609 Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished).

122 surfaces realized within it, and its use of the relationship between the interior and exterior sense of words and images. 610 Hughes and Brook listened to the Armenian611 readings of the original and, without a need for translation, they immediately discerned the power of its language: the power of the syllables and the significance of its intriguing rhythms and sonic structures.612 Hughes began to work on the translated version, trying to parallel the auditory texture of the original. In his understanding, the language and the meaning of the words were connected directly to the subconscious; this was what made them theatrically expressive and compelling. They had an unparalleled potential for communication through sound, independent of literal meaning. 613 What Hughes and Brook learned from The Chained One about qualities of sound, composition of consonants and vowels, the inner structure of language, the rhythms and the untranslatable sound combinations and syllables of the spoken text, allowed them to create the new language later to be named Orghast.614 By experimenting with the sonic structure as well as the theme of The Chained One, their ideas for the play Orghast began to take shape in sound, syllable and imagery.615 Ted Hughes began exploring, developing and refining scenes.

610 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, December 2011. This can be seen in the drawing of the physiology of Orghast by Ted Hughes. The Light, Orghast, the force of creation, the fire of being, is situated in the centre of the body of Prometheus. And the whole play, based on sound, is an attempt to make awareness of the presence of this Light, with its titanic power, which is hidden inside earth, inside the body of Prometheus. See this thesis, Figure 2.2, Physiology of Orghast. 611 The Armenian language has Indo-European roots. 612 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, December 2011. Just to feel, understand and preserve the rhythm and the moving power of sounds in the text, the ICTR group in Paris learned through Ovanessian a passage of the text; the incantation of the dwarves, in the original Armenian. Many of the qualities of The Chained One were reflected in Orghast. For instance, the monologue of the Demon of Life inspired Hughes to write the text of king Krogon. Ted Hughes had first worked on the passages and the monologues of the Demon of Life in English, which he later transformed into sounds. 613 Ibid. 614 Ibid. 615 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012. The question of using the sound of Avesta and the choice of spaces at Persepolis and Naqsh-e- Rustam came up later in the project, when the ICTR group moved to Iran.

123 2.3.2. Physiology of Orghast

In the early stages of preparation for Orghast, having merged these sets of myths in his mind, Hughes sketched an image representing the mythology of Orghast, as can be seen in Figure 2.2. He envisioned the physiology of the play to be similar to that of the physiology of man. The image captured the figure of Prometheus chained to the rock. In fact, the performance was intended to symbolically transpire within Prometheus’ body.616 Hughes outlined areas in Prometheus’ body where different myths, stories and characters were situated.617 The sounds to be associated with the play were also a part of this body, in the same way all the languages are rooted within the ‘physiology’ of man.618

Figure 2.2: Ted Hughes’s physiology of Orghast.

616 Christopher Innes, Avant Garde Theatre 1892-1992 (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 139. 617 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 91. 618 Ibid.

124 At the very centre of Prometheus’ body is Light – Orghast – the creative holy fire, the light of the Divine harmony. Orghast is contained within a female, Moa (Mother Earth),619 who symbolizes creation and the Earth – ‘matter of creation, chaos of all, a womb of all’.620 Sun is spirit fire and “the sire of organic life, the door in created matter opening back on Light.”621 Through the marriage of Moa and Sun, their son Krogon (Demon of Life) is born. Since Krogon lacks the natural power and harmony of Sun and the potent energies of Moa, he incarcerates his own father the Sun – “fire is no longer creative but destructive.”622 In Hughes’ drawing, Prometheus is overshadowed or shielded from the Sun by a vulture resting on his shoulder. This is the representation of Krogon as the destructive principle concealing the light and creating shadow – a false order and power in the world.623 Krogon becomes a tyrant who fears the return of the natural order: The Sun will be freed and its natural light will return; Moa will resume her limitless, fertile procreation; and Light (Orghast) will regain its energy.

Moa pines for her undying love, the Sun, and submits to rapes by Krogon in the hope of conceiving a son who will avenge her. Krogon, aware of the threat, murders all his male children, except one child who is reared by Moa in secret and who eventually kills his father. But instead of liberating Moa and Sun, the son of Krogon becomes Krogon II. Each successive Krogon becomes ever more fearful until one day the whole fractured universe comes together in defiance of him, to resume the flow of life and creation in the world.624 Prometheus embodies that unity, the substance of the universe; he himself is Light and possesses creative fire. He is Sun and Moa, and yet he is “the divine self of creation in human form.”625

619 Ovanessian clarified the parallel between the characters in Orghast and in The Chained One, as indicated in the parentheses that will be used from this point onward. This is intended to help the reader to follow the intimate relationships between the concepts within both performances. (Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished)). 620 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 93. 621 Ibid. 622 Ibid., 93. 623 Ibid., 93,94. 624 Ibid., 94. 625 Ibid.

125 However, he is in a quandary whether to follow eternity, ecstasy and infinite light or settle for finite life, temporal destruction, transition and death. With an open wound, he is suspended between earth and heaven, prevented by Krogon from making the right decision.626 If Prometheus renounces Moa’s mortal heritage, he will no longer be a victim of Krogon. Finally, Prometheus is reborn as Krogon’s son, Sogis (Ardavazt), following the same path toward the destruction of Krogon. Sogis is imprisoned, but to his aide come Moasha (Naghash/Mani),627 the bearer of the Light that illuminates him, and Ussa (Concubine), the embodiment of the persecuted Light that liberates him. (Moasha/Ussa are the decedents of Moa and represent the imprisoned light). With their help Sogis escapes his captor and encounters Prometheus, his divine self, who convinces him to depose Krogon. Sogis releases Sun and reunites it with Moa. Eventually, he marries Ussa, who becomes the representation of the Light. In the drawing, Sheergra (Blacksmith) is an expression of strength and Furorg (Dwarf) portrays enslaved life.628 Man and woman are brought to being by Prometheus and Agoluz (Hercules), who is the son of Sogis and Ussa. The myth created by Hughes is intricately layered and complexly woven to a point that Brook referred to it as “the most labyrinthine work since Ulysses”.629

Hugh’s drawing of the Orghast myth within the physiology of Prometheus correlated profoundly with the preoccupations of The Chained One.630 We can see in Hughes’ drawing that the prince Ardavazt enclosed within the womb of Mother Earth, surrounded by darkness, has been translated into the notion of the original creative force, the Light, protected by the fertile womb of Moa. The Demon of Life, the son of Mother Earth, who imprisons prince Ardavazt, assimilates to the king Krogon, the son of Moa-Earth, who imprisons Sun, slays his family and spreads a shadow of destruction and tyranny over the world. Both the Demon and

626 Ibid. 627 Mani (216–276 AD) is a philosopher who established a new, pre-Islamic, religion Manichaeism. See Section 2.3.3 Sound and Light; Creation and Destruction in this thesis, 127. 628 Innes, Avant Garde Theatre 1892-1992, 139. 629 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 98. 630 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, December 2011.

126 Krogon are terrified of being overthrown; both are afraid of prophecies foretelling their demise and the liberation of imprisoned energies in the world. Krogon wants to stop time in order to hold off his death and his successor.631 The bound body of Prometheus in Hughes’s drawing is reminiscent of the wounded body of Ardavazt chained to the wall in the depths of the Earth. The enslaved Furorg of Orghast is reminiscent of the Ancient Dwarf, the first-born Man in The Chained One.632 Moreover, the elements of the chain633 and the sound of hammering reverberating through the layers of the Earth penetrate the play Orghast, as we will soon see.

2.3.3. Sound and Light; Creation and Destruction

I have already noted that sound was central to Orghast. An exploration of sound is one of the deep preoccupations the play shares with The Chained One, most potently through its translation of the notions of light and darkness through the phenomenon of sound. In The Chained One, the sound of the blacksmiths' hammering fortifies the chains by which the body of Ardavazt is bound. But each strike of a hammer against the anvil has another effect. It creates a spark within the Earth, deep beneath the surface; and from the light of the spark, a dwarf is born. Each newborn dwarf joins the hordes already extracting gems, gold, and iron from mines deep underground and delivering them to people on the Earth. The dwarves are the minions of the Demon of Life. As his devoted servants, they extract the ores that men turn into destructive, murderous weapons. Thus the flashes of Light within the Earth – generated out of the sound of hammering – are transformed under the influence of the Demon of Life into a destructive, awesome power that is used against man.634

The dwarves, however, are not evil; they are not bad by nature. They merely extract metals and deliver them to men. They are under the control of the Demon

631 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 93. 632 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 19, 2012. 633 The element of chain was also present in Vis and Ramin where the lover and the beloved were prisoned within a circle of chain. 634 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 19, 2012.

127 of Life, who in fact represents the Demon that exists within each of us. Ovanessian points out that: “The raw metal is like an atom that in itself is a powerful entity that can be manipulated both for destruction and for creation.”635 As the Demon of Life captured the light created within the earth, so the Demon within us captures the light that emerges within us – that is, enlightenment, awareness and knowledge – and imprisons it to keep our inner selves under the control of darkness. In fact it depends solely on us how we use the power and energy created out of those sparks of light. The hammering of chains, the birthing of destructive powers, takes place through the action of man himself. Because man is corrupted by his own Demon, he cannot see the truth and break free. The process becomes circular as wars are won and lost, despotic governments fall and rise, and the ordinary people perpetually suffer under the yoke of tyranny. Man is the pivot in a “closed orbit” of suffering.636

An essential aspect of the myth of The Chained One, a dimension also of Orghast, is that sound is the beginning of the whole chain of events. Sound is a mediator: it connects people on the earth, the imprisoned Ardavazt, and events within the earth. It associates light imprisoned deep inside the earth with humanity outside. Light and sound are inseparable in these narratives. Sound, like light, creates awareness and knowledge. This concept, the importance of sound in relation to light and darkness, was acquired from Manichaeism.637 Ovanessian pointed out to

635 Ibid. 636 Ibid. 637 Ibid. Born in Babylonia, the philosopher Mani (216–276 AD) established a new religion, Manichaeism, which reflected some aspects of Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Christianity. Between the 3rd and 7th century AD, it became a major religion in the region between Great China and the Roman Empire. Although Manichaeism had become the state religion in the Sassanid Empire during the reign of Hormizd I, Mani was imprisoned and killed by Bahram I, the next Sassanid king. With the arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD, Manichaeism gradually receded until it disappeared entirely in the 14th century. Little is known about Manichaeism as a religion due to the lack of records; most of our knowledge is based on myth and anecdotal stories. (Ovanessian, phone interview with author, March 2012.)

128 Peter Brook the roots of Manichaeism embedded within The Chained One, and these Manichean notions638 have infiltrated Orghast also.639

2.3.4. The Myth of Creation

The myth of creation in Manichaeism is based on the continual battle between light and darkness,640 which can be likened to the dichotomy between the good, spiritual world of light and the evil, material world of darkness.641 According to the prophet Mani, the elements of light and darkness, God and Devil, are interlaced with one another; the outcome is a ‘unity of opposites’. Mani believed that the world was created by God in order to refine and separate the light from the darkness. The Devil, by deceit, created Adam and Eve and allowed the light to be imprisoned in darkness.642

In Manichaeism, the World of Light is in the northern hemisphere, while the World of Darkness can be found in the southern hemisphere. The Devil rules the World of Darkness. He begins to expand his power, infiltrating adjacent areas until he encounters majestic Light. He feels awe in the face of Light and recedes back to the world of Darkness. His desire becomes to capture Light and imprison it. 643

Zurvan, the ruler of the World of Light, sends the Son of Light to a war against the Devil. However, the Son of Light is defeated and the Demons imprison him in a dark cave. The Son of Light cries for help from the World of Darkness. Zurvan

638 Although the records of Mani are scarce and fragmented, it is believed that the mother of Mani was an Armenian princess. As an Armenian himself, Levon Shant was aware of Mani and his religion. The fact that Naghash and the concubine are burned in Shant’s text is related to events and legends in the Mani religion. (Ovanessian, phone interview with author, March 2012.) 639 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012. 640 Mahin Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Savāri Darāmad; Ruyaš Sorḵ va Muyaš Sorḵ va Qadaš Sorḵ va Labaš Sorḵ va Dandānaš Sorḵ va Asbaš Sorḵ va Neyzeh-ash Sorḵ [There Appeared the Knight...], (Collection of writings for developing a play There Appeared the Knight… for the 10th Shiraz Arts Festival), (Tehran: Soruš, 1971), text in Persian. 641 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012. 642 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Savāri Darāmad [There Appeared the Knight]. 643 Ibid.

129 calls upon goddesses to find him. One of them ventures to the border of the two worlds. Encountering the depth of darkness, she calls out from the bottom of her heart, at which point, the Goddess of Sound emerges. It is she who steps into the darkness and descends into its depths.

Her cry pierces the body of the unconscious Son of Light. He opens his eyes and in response cries out in his heart; this is how the Goddess of Sound finds him and rescues him from the World of Darkness. The goddess defeats the Devil and captures many demons.644 And while the goddess of Sound carries the body of the prisoner on his shoulder, they all enter the world of Light.645 The goddesses kill half of the demons and from their flesh create the Earth, from their skin the sky and from their bones the mountains. The second half of the demons must support the Earth on their shoulders for eternity. From the pure light, sun, moon, stars, water, wind and fire are created. And then, the goddesses set the universe in motion. Since the Earth was created from the demons, the goddesses attempt to separate the light from the darkness and absolve the impurity of the demons; they try to do this through many different means. In their final attempt, fire is created and burns for one thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight years in the hope that all light can be liberated from darkness. The Devil sabotages all their efforts by creating two demons, who hide inside two lions, who eventually become the creators of Adam and Eve. Since the lions have light imprisoned in themselves, the imprisoned light is transferred to Adam and Eve and hence to all humankind. And the tragedy of imprisoned light continues through the generations.

Ovanessian emphasizes an important notion in Manichaeism: Darkness swallows the Light. Darkness is ignorant and greedy; it swallows, engulfs everything. Light has a secret that Darkness ignores, and swallows it up. Light knows the power of the secret, it sacrifices itself and allows itself to be swallowed up. Hence, Darkness can be transformed by Light. After it has been engulfed, the only

644 Ibid. 645 Ibid.

130 connection Light has with the outside world is through its vibration which produces sound, and this is the crucial role that sound plays. It is the vibration of sound that delivers the message from light and spreads the awareness of its presence. Light is like fire that yearns to emerge, and it eventually escapes.646

This mythical relationship is closely related to the notion in The Chained One of Light’s imprisonment by Darkness, deep inside the womb of the Earth. In Manichaeism, Light is imprisoned within each of us. The tragedy of creation is that we are not aware of this secret: the presence of the Light within each of us. With each birth, this imprisoned light is transferred to a newborn and the tragedy carries on.647 Brook, well aware of these notions of sound and its relationship to darkness and light, and its origins, researched and developed that subject throughout Orghast.648

2.3.5. Zoroastrianism

Another part of the body of stories and myths contributing to Orghast, and one with close ties to the sites where the play was performed as well as to the language of Avesta, is Zoroastrianism. The establishment of the Zoroastrian religion is attributed to the seventh-century BC prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra). The religion itself is a syncretism of beliefs and philosophies influenced by other religions and cultures during the expansionist wars of Alexander the Great (356- 323 BC) in Asia Minor and Ancient Persia. Zoroastrianism quickly gained popularity and eventually became the official religion of the Sassanian Empire

646 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012. Sound was among the most important means of teaching and training for Mani along with movement, dance, painting, colour and smell. 647 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Savāri Darāmad [There Appeared the Knight]. Manichaeism, as a religion, is opposed to reproductive birth because with each child born, another Light is imprisoned within darkness. Ovanessian clarifies that the objective is to refine the human race. In The Chained One each stroke of a hammer creates a spark in the Underworld, inside the earth, that gives a birth to a new dwarf, but people on earth are not aware of it. The Demon in Manichaeism (described in The Tragedy of Creation) strongly resembles that of the Demon of Life in The Chained One. (Ovanessian, phone interview with author, March 2012.) 648 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012.

131 (also known as the pre-Islamic Persian Empire). The Sassanian Empire wielded considerable power, rivalling that of the Ancient Greek and Roman Empires.

Zoroastrian philosophy is based upon the ancient Aryan religions which portray the struggle between two energies, good and evil – holy wisdom (knowledge) versus immoral (impure) wisdom.649 Ahura Mazda (Goodness, Light and Heaven) is in perpetual confrontation with his archrival Ahriman (Evil, Darkness and Hell). “At the head of the host of heaven, as supreme ruler over the kingdom of good, of truth, of light, stands Ahura Mazda, …, the ‘Lord Wisdom’, the ‘Sovereign’ who is knowledge.”650 The reverence of Ahura Mazda is threefold: “…His original state is a state of perfection; his second and current state is characterized by Ahriman’s evil and destructive interposition; and his third state is the supernatural state in the kingdom of Ahura Mazda (comparable to the Christian ‘heaven’).”651 Zoroastrianism had close interactions with other religions (Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity); its influence on them is well-substantiated.652 References to Zoroaster can be found in the Bible; in particular the Old Testament. Zarathustra, the founder of the religion and a magi, can be seen as a prototype of the Wise Man from the East following the Bright Star to Bethlehem in order to bow before the newborn Light of the World.653 Zoroastrianism, as a pre-Christian religion, possesses a plethora of pagan symbolism.654 In the Naqsh-e-Rustam, for instance, the tombs of the ancient kings are hewn into the mountain face in cruciform shape

649 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Terāžedi Āfarineš [Tragedy of Creation], 26. However, contrary to the Aryans, who believed in worshiping different Gods (for each natural power, Aryans imagined a specific God), Zoroaster abolished this ancient custom by introducing his new religion and inviting people to worship one unique God – Ahura Mazda. 650 A.V. Williams Jakson, Zoroastrian Studies: Iranian Religion And Various Monographs, vol. 12 (New York: AMS Press INC., 1965), 39. 651 Barbara Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image, trans. Lee Preedy (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 136. 652 See Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla, History of Zoroastrianism (Bombay: The K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, 1985). See also Aptin Khanbaghi, The Fire, the Star and the Cross: Minority Religions in Medieval and Early Modern Iran (London: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006). 653 Williams A.V. Jakson, Zoroaster: The Prophet of Ancient Iran (London: Macmillan & CO., Ltd., 1899), 141. 654 Dhalla, History of Zoroastrianism, 14.

132 with their entrances at the intersection,655 which prompted the local people to refer to the burial site colloquially as the ‘Persian Crosses’.

The Zoroastrians believe that Ahura Mazda does not have any physical form, but that the Sun symbolizes His spiritual existence. The power of Ahura Mazda is closely associated with the radiating light of fire that represents eternal life and ultimate wisdom. Thus, the fire has become not only the symbol of the infinite light, power and energy of Ahura Mazda, but it is also the ultimate connection to Him; it mediates him physically. According to Zoroaster, the presence of fire on the Earth, after the dominance of darkness, is a sign of goodness. And since the pure essence of fire breaks darkness, fire is the most precious blessing that descended from the sky to the earth. Parallel to Greek mythology in which Prometheus brings fire to the world, in Zoroastrianism Ahura Mazda sends his son, Izad Azar Ahura, who is the essence of pure fire to Earth, for the good and welfare of all people.656 The son of Ahura Mazda – the essence of fire – is the source of grace and blessing; he is behind the worship and adoration of the ancient theology657 and the worship of fire in Zoroastrianism.658 In the Zoroastrian religion, each soul, after man’s death, must go through the fire; only pure souls are allowed to pass the fire unscathed.659 To honour and to celebrate Ahura Mazda and to keep his Holy presence, ‘Fire Temples’ were erected throughout the region. Inside these temples, perpetual fires were lit to nourish the everlasting connection with the Lord. “A consecrated fire in the heart of a ‘Zoroastrian Fire Temple’ is understood to be the actual presence of the cosmic life-animating principle of ‘righteousness’.”660 The principles of the Zoroastrian religion were inscribed in a holy book called Avesta that was kept in the ‘Fire Temple’. The true origin and the meaning of the word Avesta have long been forgotten, as has been the

655 Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished). 656 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Terāžedi Āfarineš [Tragedy of Creation], 84. 657 Ibid., 28. 658 Ibid., 84. 659 To this very day in Iran, on the last Wednesday before the New Year (March 21 – the first day of Spring) bonfires are set ablaze in the streets and people leap over and through the fire to purify their soul and body. 660 James W. Boyd and Firoze M. Kotwal, "Worship in Zoroastiran Fire Temple," Indo-Iranian Journal 26, no. 4, (1983).

133 language in which it was written.661 The Book of Avesta had originally been in the form of a narrative that had dramatic and tragic characteristics. Being aware of the theatrical qualities within the narrative in Avesta, a few sections of the Book of Avesta that had a rapport with the myth of Orghast were edited and included in the project.662

2.4. Discovering the Places of Performance

This consideration of the myths and ideas employed in the creation of Orghast, the exploration of sound, and all the laboratory work behind the play, demonstrate the importance of process in the development of this work of art. The goal of these exercises was to discover new methods for performance, experimenting with space, body, sound and human interaction. 663 Beyond language, beyond the diversity of cultures,664 beyond text, beyond age, beyond classical research, the intention was to create a human experiment.665 One could cite an example of Orghast group exercises during their first two months of preparation in Tehran.666 Surrounded by two groups, two actors from different cultures and geographical origins were supposed to create together a delicate piece with all their energy and focus. The starting point or the beginning notes of such a meeting was a poem, three lines of a story, an imaginary object, a path, a closed box, a pile of papers, a

661 Solomon Alexander Nigosian, The Zoroastrian Faith: Tradition and Modern Research (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993), 46. 662 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Terāžedi Āfarineš [Tragedy of Creation], 5. 663 Moḥaṃad Mahdi Qobāni, "Peter Brook va Andišeh-haye No [Peter Brook and New Thoughts]" (Master's Thesis, Central Tehran Azad University, 2000), 154. 664 The ICTR was composed of participants from various countries (Armenia, Britain, Cameroon, France, Iran, Japan, Mali, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, and the USA). See "Orghast," Tamāšā, no 3., Special Daily Edition for the 5th Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis, Sat., Aug. 28, 1971. 665 Qobāni, "Peter Brook va Andišeh-haye No [Peter Brook and New Thoughts]," 154. 666 In the three-month journey undertaken by the Centre to Iran, they spent two months of preparation in the great hall of Baghe Ferdous, a mansion in North of Tehran. The first two months were occupied with the integration of the Paris and Iranian groups through improvisation, physical and vocal work. Brook had created two groups that worked on Orghast in parallel. In Tehran, actors arriving from Paris learned Avesta from the Iranian group. The Iranian group, which had already practiced Avesta for a few months, learned Greek from the Paris group. To develop and rehearse Orghast, Hughes and Brook worked together with both groups in Baghe Ferdous, isolated from the outside world. See Smith, Orghast at Persepolis. See also Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 41.

134 piece of wood, a suggestive situation, or any other element that might help creation to happen. The actors accepted the danger of encountering the unknown and the hidden contradictions embedded within cultures. Among and beyond all these forms and encounters, Brook was watching the action as if he was writing music: the actors were like notes to him; in his mind he was creating the symphony of Orghast. 667 The group experimentations helped to develop all aspects of the play.

The period of the first two months was important for the group’s acclimatization and assimilation with the physical demands of the project and the cultural differences. When the Paris group first moved to Iran, the influence of Iran itself started to penetrate their experimental work. 668 The aim was to “exchange experience, particularly the human experience of language.”669 They exercised with a sequence of episodes based on themes like sacrifice, violence, liberation and reconciliation.670

Discovery as an approach to theatre, giving oneself over to process, was just as important to the selection of architectural setting as it was to the development of the narrative. The development of the stage is a vivid illustration of the privileging of discovery in the development of the play. Before the trip to Iran, the designer Jean Monod crafted in Paris a stage model for the presentation of the “work in progress.” The model was made of scaffolding in a shape of a cube. The cube was to move on rails, and four cranes located at each corner of the nine- metre tall cube were to lift actors and animals in and out of the cube. Brook and his group hoped to find an appropriate location for the cube in Iran.

Most areas they researched in and around Shiraz and Persepolis were too open and would not appropriately concentrate the focus of the audience for the

667 Qobāni, "Peter Brook va Andišeh-haye No [Peter Brook and New Thoughts]," 155,156. 668 "Orghast." 669 Ibid. 670 Richard Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians," Observer, London, Sat., Sep. 12, 1971.

135 theatrical event. They expanded their search to the tomb of Artaxerxes (II or III)671 in the nearby mountains where a sizable portion of the sloping mountain was hollowed out, creating an empty space sheltered by a front wall and on either side by sloping, triangular walls of solid rock, as seen in Figure 2.3. The fourth, open, side allowed viewing of the ruins of the mythical Persepolis. The tomb carved into the mountain was located high above the ground on a platform, a man- made ledge, protruding from the front wall. This ledge was about twenty metres wide and twenty metres deep. In the middle of the front wall, a small opening outlined the entrance to the tomb. On either side of the tomb entrance, columns chiselled in the stone appeared to be supporting a massive tableau. The scenery sculpted in the stone plate depicted a procession carrying a platform upon which the king worshipped fire, with the Sun above it. In the middle of the scene was Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian God, with two large wings opened horizontally.

Figure 2.3: The tomb of Artaxerxes (II or III) at Persepolis where Orghast I took place.

An empty space they discovered, surrounded by the tall walls of the mountain, appeared to concentrate energy appropriately. Enchanted by the location, the group improvised passages from Orghast and Avesta in order to examine the acoustic properties of the site. Smith describes “when Irene [Worth] put her mouth close to the wall, the stone swallowed the consonants but gave back the

671 No accurate record exists to identify precisely the buried king Artaxerxes.

136 vowels with a slight boom.”672 Brook was concerned how the audience would arrive at such a remote place that was inaccessible except by foot. Undecided, the group visited another tomb on the other side of the mountain a few hundred yards away. They performed the same acoustic tests in the new location. The second place was noticeably larger and the depth of the high ledge was also greater; it could accommodate a larger audience and it had a greater area for acting as well. However, the first place, the tomb of Artaxerxes, felt “more intense, more vibrant to the rock it was cut in, and commanded a more stunning view over the ruins.”673 At sunset, Brook and the group returned to the tomb of Artaxerxes and resumed testing the acoustic properties and searching for visual merits. Scouts were sent to the top of the cliff and images of their figures contrasting against the sunset sky were assessed. After exhaustive exploration and deliberation, Brook decided to use the tomb of Artaxerxes for his performance. And in the process, Brook abandoned the idea of utilizing the stage cube they had designed in Paris.674 For Brook, the place, simply as it was, had the essential spatial qualities required for his performance. This was how much Brook valued the process of exploration and discovery: he was willing to completely abandon an important element of the preconceived plan if it did not serve the evolution of the work. Proposed by Ovanessian, it was decided that fire was to be the only element added to the performance.

In their search for places, Brook, and the group of his collaborators and actors visited Naqsh-e-Rustam (see Figures 2.4 and 2.5), an area about four hundred metres by one hundred metres, which is located twelve kilometres from the main historical site at Persepolis. Naqsh-e-Rustam is a mountain cliff, about a hundred metres high, that faces south in the direction of Persepolis. It is the final resting place of four ancient Achaemenian kings: Darius I (Darius the Great); Darius II; Xerxes I; and Artaxerxes I. For each revered king, a tomb penetrating deep inside

672 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 102. 673 Ibid., 104. 674 The set model for “work in progress” that was initially designed and built in Paris resembled a machine. Brook explains that they later looked for a design that would allow human relationship and communication to happen. (Pour Housseini, Interview with author.)

137 the mountain was hollowed out in the rock high above the ground. The venerable presence of the tombs left no doubt about the importance of the late kings, and the esteem in which they were held. Each tomb entrance was hewn into the mountain face in the shape of a colossal cross. The actual access to the burial site was formed by a modest, dark opening in the centre of the cross high above the ground. Each tomb was adorned with religious symbols and glorifying scenes similar to those at Persepolis, including the omnipresent Ahura Mazda safeguarding each tomb. The towering cliffs of Naqsh-e-Rustam could be accessed by a narrow, winding path. In front of the cliff a prominent pit was hollowed out in the middle of which stood a large, cube-shaped structure built of large stone blocks – the ancient Zoroastrian Fire Temple built in Sassanian period (see Figure 2.6), which was in the process of being excavated, and thus covered on one side by scaffolding.675 Because of its shape, the Fire Temple is often referred to as the ‘Cube of Zoroaster’. Twelve metres tall, the building stands witness to the Zoroastrian religion and the glory of the Achaemenian kings.

Figure 2.4: Naqsh-e-Rustam where Orghast II took place.

The group tested the acoustic and visual qualities of the cliffs at different ground levels. The vastness of the place and the presence of the steep vertical cliffs

675 Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971."

138 offered a particular aural quality through which they could appreciate the sounds and voices they had been fervently practicing. The acoustic properties were astonishing and superb. As Smith recalls “the acoustic was uncanny; it was possible to converse in a normal voice at one hundred yards, or more,”676 at some particular places. A person standing on the cliff could be clearly and unmistakably heard on the ground a hundred metres below. Resisting the idea of searching for new places and abandoning such magnificent acoustic quarters led to the decision that Orghast was to be divided into two parts: Part I (Orghast I) was to be played at the tomb of Artaxerxes at sunset because it offered a place “highly focused, intense, with a few simple movements and a large range of sound,”677 and Part II (Orghast II) was to be staged at Naqsh-e-Rustam with incorporated fragments in ancient Greek from The Persians by Aeschylus. It would take place before sunrise in front of the four royal tombs that implied an epic culmination in the second play.678

Figure 2.5: Testing visual and acoustic qualities at Naqsh-e-Rustam before the place was chosen for the performance.

676 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 105. 677 Geoffrey Reeves, "The Persepolis Follies of 1971: Being a partial and personal account of research work in progress, into which are interwoven Ted Hughes’s comments on his new language, Orghast, and several of Peter Brook’s Persian carpet speeches," Performance, (Shiraz, September 1971), 57. 678 Ibid.

139

Figure 2.6: The Zoroastrian Fire Temple (The Cube of Zoroaster) at Naqsh-e-Rustam during the performance Orghast II.

These two places were chosen for Orghast after a challenging and protracted process of meticulous search and contemplation that considered both the visible and invisible qualities of the sites. Among the many criteria considered were, of course, experiments with sound in the sites. One of Orghast’s Iranian actors, Parviz Pour Hosseini, emphasizes the importance of the sound investigation and experiments in the site. He recalls that Brook asked actors before they went to bed at night to think about which sound could express and convey the sunrise. What sound could describe the gradual emergence of the sun? The first thing that came to Pour Hosseini’s mind was that when the first rays of the sun appear, it is like a voice that starts from very far, very distant, and as the sun gets higher, intensifies. He invented a word for this condition based on the sense of sound which was implemented in the performance of Orghast. Pour Hosseini’s alto sound, generated by the voice of Natasha Parry at the beginning of Orghast I, echoed and exposed the evanescent sparkles and rays of light glittering over the horizon. Her voice gradually spread across the ruins of Persepolis with the diminishing rays of light until the majestic sun disappeared.679

679 Pour Housseini, Interview with author.

140 Many experiments on sound and detailed research on the influence of consonants and vowels, as Pour Hosseini points out, were carried out at the site in order to explore what could be conveyed and transmitted to the spectators. For example, a great deal of testing was performed to investigate how to express fire through a sound; or what letters and which sounds could covey a fight or quarrel.680 Other experiments were performed to explore the vibration, resonance, echo and pitch of sounds in the space at day and at night.681 Pour Hosseini recalls that they went in the middle of the night and with much difficulty to the places of performance. Sometimes they climbed to the top of the mountains in order to explore the properties of echoes at night; what the quality of the resonance in the desert site would be like and how the sound would reverberate in the desert. Brook wanted to conduct these experiments at night to learn the quality of sounds at the time of the real performance, in the darkness of the night. It was necessary because most rehearsals were during the day, while the real performance for the audience was at night.682 Emphasizing the question of sound and its qualities as his most important experience in Orghast, Pour Hosseini describes that they tried to imagine and produce sound that could travel to the depths of earth or from Persepolis to Paris. They worked on images that could be created through sound. He recalls that Yoshi Oida was saving his energy in silence when they were not rehearsing, and when the real performance began, at the right moment, he was able to transform all his energy to a sound that could fill the whole desert and vibrate the mountains.683

Ovanessian explains that the sound experimentation and exploration in situ was mostly based on the rehearsals of sounds in Avesta because the language had a full gamut of sound, ranging from deeply sonorous to high-pitched. This allowed for a comprehensive testing of reverberation and resonation. In fact, discovering the relationship and realizing the compatibility of Avesta with the sites, and

680 Ibid. 681 Ibid. 682 Ibid. 683 Ibid.

141 appreciating the intertwining of the spatial qualities of those places and the sounds of this forgotten language, was one of the most important reasons behind the choice of sites for Orghast.684 The sounds of Avesta were inherently connected to the architecture of the sites; through Avesta the theatre of Orghast could be connected to place. Also the sound experiments demonstrated how essential Avesta was to Orghast. It was as if the space and its architecture demanded the presence of the Avesta language.

One can appreciate the encounter with the site and the meticulous contemplation of its qualities. In the tomb of Artaxerxes, a member of the group recited passages from Orghast near to the wall. The sound leaving the actress’ mouth bounced back transformed by the stone wall: the wall ‘retained’ the consonants, but ‘amplified’ the vowels.685 The rock walls influenced the propagation of sound, and inadvertently influenced the actors’ voices: an effect which had to be taken into account during the performance. This relationship between the place and the person is reminiscent of J.E. Malpas’ exploration of the ‘influence of a place’ on a person elaborated on in The Place and Experience. He refers to Gaston Bachelard’s idea that the “self is to be discovered through an investigation of the places it inhabits.”686 In agreement with Malpas’ study, one could suggest that through reciting and acting, Brook and his group established a very delicate relationship between the place and themselves.

If we survey the four majestic tombs of the Persian kings and their awe-inspiring presence, it is difficult to imagine making a relationship between us and them and the possibility of performing theatre in such a place. Even, as Pour Hosseini describes, the very first time the group came to the site of Naqsh-e-Rustam, around sunset, and encountered the magnificence of the tombs of the Persian kings carved high in the mountain, Brook cautioned that performing there may be very challenging because historical places with such grandeur could eclipse

684 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, April 2012. 685 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 102. 686 Malpas, Place and Experience, 5.

142 them’.687 He tried to discover ways to perform there without becoming lost. Besides sound, an essential mediator in letting the actors play in such places, light and darkness were crucial tools that enabled their encounter with the site. By means of darkness and light they could hide or reveal historical facades at well- chosen moments during the play.688 The investigation happened on many other levels, for instance: how the silhouettes of the actors contrasted against the sky in the twilight; how the light at sunrise illuminated the tombs; how energy was concentrated; and so on. Everything was subjected to testing and experimentation in situ: sound, images, and what spectators could be expected to experience. The relationship of the site to people was in fact one of the most important subjects of the experimentation.

The spatial experiments and discoveries during the preparation of Orghast marked an important point in Brook’s career, one that permeated throughout his subsequent work in quarries and other unconventional settings.689 The empathetic endeavour to uncover hidden qualities, and what we previously termed the ‘persona’ of these found spaces, can be thought of as a site-specific scrutiny akin to the careful assessment of qualities and unearthing of potential inherent in a place designated for architectural creation: the visible and formal features of a place, its acoustic and aural characteristics, the slope of the ground and its potential for design, the mood and character of the site at sunrise and sunset, its potential for spatial propositions, the shadows of objects and architectural elements at different hours, and so forth. The site observations during the “work in progress” for developing Orghast, as Brook indicates, could be compared to laboratory work690 revealing ethical and poetic architectural values that are often ignored by architects: that an original idea must be let go in view of the qualities of a site; that meanings are already ‘out there’ in the site; and that architecture can indeed build upon and respond to such meanings. This approach addresses a

687 Pour Housseini, Interview with author. 688 Ibid. 689 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 46. 690 The work was not necessarily intended to have final results, but at the same time, to developing it at all, the experiments needed to be presented publicly. (Pour Housseini, Interview with author).

143 crucial point that architecture cannot be only the result of “the egocentric imagination of an architect, nor mere novelty, the product of deranged computer virtuosity.” 691 It must respect the natural and cultural features and various meanings embedded in the site. These meanings are not merely visual; they involve all the senses. And in addition to the senses’ mediation with the external world, they reveal an internal sense of place and its appropriateness to a program: a plot for a way of living.

691 Pérez-Gómez, "Architecture and Public Space," 51.

144

PART III

Placing Three Plays

3.1. Orghast

3.1.1. The Play – ‘Non-Referential’ and ‘Non-Intellectual’

The scientific-world view refuses to accept myth and devalues it as an interpretation of historical events by pre-scientific man. But in fact modern man is ruled by myth as never before; he simply refuses to recognize it. Instead of deus ex machina, the machine became a God for modern man. Orghast, which is concerned with man as myth-maker, offers an imaginative arena in which myth can be aligned with the modern world.692 Rather than simply following a plot, a line-by-line story, Orghast loosely followed “basic myths – the gift of fire, the massacre of the innocents, the imprisonment of the son by the father, the search for liberation through revenge, the tyrant’s destruction of his children: and the search for liberation through knowledge – as reflected in the hymns of Zoroaster, the stories of Prometheus and Hercules, Calderón’s Life’s a Dream, Persian legends, and other parallel sources:” 693 Shant’s The Chained One and Manichaeism.

Orghast was intended to be opaque to its audience. Neither its nested myths nor its narrative structure were laid out for the spectators in advance of the performance. The programme of the play only touched on a few key ideas, in a handful of sentences. The mythical themes noted in the programme, as Wilson indicates, were never intended to be definitively and explicitly conveyed to the spectators – merely “communicated”. Each spectator could find or not find a certain correlation with those myths and what happened on the ‘stage’. 694 Ovanessian too suggests that people did not necessarily know about these concepts; none of the play’s ideas were ever given to or described to the spectators of Orghast prior to the performance. Brook kept a holy silence

692 "Orghast." 693 A Programme Note for the Production of 'Orghast'. 5th Shiraz Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis, 1971. 694 Peter Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1," Tamāšā, no. 4, Special Daily Edition for 5th Shiraz Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis, Sun., Aug. 29, 1971.

145 regarding Orghast; the actors and all members of this project preserved this enigmatic quality. The play was a mystery: enthralling and esoteric.695

The intention rather was to explore how Orghast itself could connect to the subconscious of people, even across cultural boundaries. What was crucial was how the audience was engaged and placed in vital interaction within the play at that particular moment in that particular place. Brook’s words to the actors before the performance were, as Smith describes, “it [i]s a work of vibrations and movement. […] We are not setting out to teach the audience anything, do anything to them, explain anything, but to create a circle in which the impulse can go round.”696 Albert Hunt and Geoffrey Reeves refer to Irving Wardle who wrote that Orghast “marks the beginning of something which is not only new for Brook but without parallel in theatre history: the creation of a form of drama comprehensible to anyone on earth,” 697 an aim that could certainly be appropriated into architectural expression by architects building in the manifold cultures of our compressed global village.

Just as Avesta and Greek were employed for their overtones and musical values rather than their literal meaning,698 the intention was not to make the play any sort of “a new lingua franca” to be easily understood by the spectators.699 Below I will present the events of the play in the sequence in which they happened; but essentially, the play was never conceived as having a linear plot. Orghast instead “was created from a poet’s dream world, with a poet’s tools: metaphor, image, symbol and sound.” 700 The story, while improvising around a ‘tight sound structure’, offered a ground for something ‘much looser’ and ‘much freer’ centred

695 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]." 696 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 200. 697 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 170. 698 Dennis Kennedy, "Review of the book Orghast at Persepolis: An account of the experiment in theatre directed by Peter Brook and written by Ted Hughes," Educational Theatre Journal 25, no. 4, (December 1973), 525. 699 Ibid. 700 Margaret Croyden, "The Center," May 1980. Peter Brook's private copy., 5.

146 on a series of ‘key images and relationships’.701 The spectators could recognize the characters only ambiguously; perhaps only Prometheus or the vulture was distinguishable for the audience.702 The script of Orghast can thus be perceived as a “non-referential and non-intellectual” expression of emotional states rather than telling a story.703 It is self-defeating to try to ‘translate’ its language;704 this will only result in an impoverished understanding of the performance. As Smith put it, “to try to explain Orghast in terms of the working structure that was used is to explain it away.”705 This essentially ‘non-intellectual’ orientation of this process presents Brook’s trust and faith in discovery rather than planning as the path of creation.

After more than forty years, Keyvan Mahjoor, a spectator of Orghast recalls: “I vividly remember the vibration of sounds and some unforgettable images, but very little from the content of the play. Even then, at the time of the performance, I, like many other spectators, did not fully understand a certain plot or story of the play. We also did not necessarily understand when the actors talked in Avesta, when it was Greek or when it was Orghast. What I remember and I can still feel with my body, even now after 41 years, is the mysterious power of sounds in that place, its connection with human beings and the whole mythical space created with this theatre. One could say, as if we travelled 2,500 years through time to the time of Achaemenian Empire and, at the same time, we could feel the present by being there and experiencing the 20th century play. We sat on that platform, wondering where we were and what year it was. It was a very profound and esoteric play.”706

701 Reeves, Geoffrey, “The Persepolis Follies of 1971” Performance, Shiraz, September 1971, 59. 702 Kennedy, "Review of the book Orghast at Persepolis," 525. 703 Ibid. 704 Ibid. 705 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis. 706 Keyvan Mahjoor, Interview by Negin Djavaherian, Montreal, November 11, 2010. Keyvan Mahjoor is a painter who currently lives in Montreal, one of the spectators of Orghast. After more than forty years, he gives his personal account of experiencing Orghast at Persepolis and Naqsh-e-Rustam in 1971.

147 Aiming to create a theatrical experience that would be truly participatory, as opposed to a mere literary or optical encounter, Orghast reached beyond a formal and visual discourse. It created a condition for the spectators to observe the play as if it was a ‘religious experience’ and as though they were ‘listen[ing] to music’.707 Its ambiguity opened up an opportunity for a secular audience to experience a modern play through an ancient site and its attendant architecture that could convey a sense of sacred and spiritual awareness connected to ancient Persian mythology. The insight attained directed the spectators toward questions of a purposeful world and the tenets of a meaningful life. This recognition occurs only through experience; the play resonates as a poem does: “its ‘meaning’ is inseparable from the experience of the poem itself.”708

In sum, one might try, in vain, to uncover the details of the battles and successive events of the play.709 But the play was not a question of exact plot; rather it was a question of myths in motion. It was a multi-faceted myth woven from the myths of Prometheus and others with a connection to fire.710 Of course, the work had a ‘story’ and ‘characters’, yet these elements were like devices,711 devices which served a higher, and participatory, process of revelation.

Nevertheless, it still is possible to talk about the specifics of this ephemeral play in those tombs in and around Persepolis, how the play offered a particular theatrical relationship712 and also how it engaged the question of architecture; an architecture that allows for “participatory human action and affirmation of life- toward-death through symbolization as ‘presencing’ through the constructed

707 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 46. 708 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, "Hermeneutics as Architectural Discourse," in FOLIO 05, ed. Li Shiqiao, (Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore: 2003). 709 "Orghast: Aṯar e Šegeft-Angiz e Peter Brook, Dāstān e Ātaši Moqaḏas ke Robudeh Mišavad [Orghast: Wonderous Work of Peter Brook, the Story of a Stollen Holy Fire]," Tamāšā, no. 24, Sep. 2, (1972). 710 Ibid. 711 Kennedy, "Review of the book Orghast at Persepolis," 525. 712 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time] 150.

148 work.”713 What follows is a re-creation of the experience of the play based on extracts and scenes documented by Smith and various newspapers and journals of that time, and years later by critics, musicians or spectators who had witnessed the play. To the extent possible by drawing on first-hand accounts of the performance, some recorded during the festival and some recounted years later, I attempt to bring the performance back to life by taking the reader through the play as presented on those few days in 1971. This exploration is based mainly on primary source material which has been unearthed and collected for the first time. To recreate the experience of this play, some repetition of detail from the preceding section will be inevitable; but this is necessary if we are to understand the experience of the play vividly. The next section is presented as just such a re- creation, with some digression to underline the significance of the experiences offered up by Orghast. The details of the performance are grounds for observation and speculation on its meanings and implications leading us to explorations of what kind of architectural and experiential space Brook was engaged in creating through the Orghast experiment.

Orghast I – The Tomb of Artaxerxes at Persepolis

The audience714 arrived on foot after an about twenty-minute walk up to the site, passing through ruined gates and palaces, walking on stony, uneven roads.715

713 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, "The Space of Architecture: Meaning as Presence and Representation," in Question of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture, (San Francisco: Williams Stout Publishers, 2007) 714 Orghast I was played twice a day on August 28-30, 1971. The first performance started at about 6:30 pm with sunset and finished about 8:00 pm, followed by the second performance that started about 10:30 pm and finished about midnight. Thus, Part I was played six times, each performance experienced by 200-250 spectators, half of whom witnessed sunset during the play (as we will see, the sunset was a key element of the mise en scène), and the second half of the audience watched the play in the darkness of the night. However, fire was present in every performance. Besides the public performances, the Empress of Iran and 30-40 of her guests attended a special performance of Part I at Persepolis on September 3 at about 10:30 pm. Besides the Empress Farah and her entourage, on that date, other spectators, including foreign figures, special guests, organizers of the Shiraz Arts Festival, but also regular spectators viewed the play. The attendance amounted to 200-250, but this performance was not announced, and the tickets were not sold. Hence, Orghast I was played seven times in total: six times for public and once for the Empress and special guests. For three days, Wednesday, August 31, Thursday, September 1 and Friday, September 2 the group did not perform; they were rehearsing Orghast II (Ovanessian, phone interview with author, Feb. 26, 2012.)

149 Walking the long distance and then ascending a mountain to get to the place of performance “was like a pilgrimage.”716 In a final leg of the trip, climbing up the stairs, they ascended to the platform in front of the Artaxerxes’ burial chamber located high above ground level. There was no stage, only an open space.717 The public was seated next to the side walls, on either side of the platform. 718 Before the audience arrived, a group of actors and singers filed in and sat on the ground in two rows. During the performance, the actors and singers, as a chorus, had the principal task of providing the necessary acoustic artwork through singing and chanting. Certain actors would assume Avestanian mythical roles and would speak in the language of Avesta.719 The actors departed from the chorus group to join the performance; once their role came to an end, they re-joined the chorus. Other actors and singers acted within the high-cliff area, and a few other performers were sometimes situated inside the tomb.720

One of the most engaging and mesmerizing qualities was that the play started with the setting of the sun. Exactly at the moment the last ray of sunlight was disappearing from the earth the performance started.721 The red glare of the setting sun reflected from the mountain in which the tomb was carved. A few moments later, the sunset made the sky entirely red. Mahjoor recalls: “It was fascinating! Everything happened with natural light. No artificial light!”722 When the sun went down, the rays of light created long shadows in front of the tomb at the foot of the mountain. It left an impression that the shadows were pointing to the tomb. After the glow and heat of the last ray of sun dissipated, the beautiful, soft voice of

715 Porter, "Orghast," 70. 716 Pour Housseini, Interview with author. 717 Yoshi Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," Gardun, no. 50, trans. Nāser Ḥosayni, Tehran, Jul.-Aug., (1996). 718 Sadr-al-Din Zāhed, "Tajrobe-hāyi az Dur/az Nazdik," in Ketāb-e-Kānun-e-Kārgardānān-e- Ḵāneh Teātr-e-Irān [The Book of Society of Directors of Iranian Theatre House], ed. Ruzbe Housseini, (Tehran: Rošd-e-Āmuzeš, 2010). 719 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Terāžedi Āfarineš [Tragedy of Creation], 5. 720 "Enʿekās Jahāni Panjomin Jašn Honar, Širāz - Taḵt-e-Jamšid: Peter Brook va Zabāni Tāzeh: Orghast [World Reflection on the the Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis: Peter Brook and a New Language: Orghast]," 721 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 40. 722 Mahjoor, Interview with author.

150 Natasha Parry spread and echoed over the desert and mountain, creating the first note.723

One can imagine how the sunset embraced the performance area. The actors wore earth-coloured robes, which glowed as the earth did. Certain actors were invisible to the spectators’ eyes. They were either higher up on the mountain, out of sight of the spectators; or they were hidden within clefts and rocks and the audience were only aware of their presence through sound. The sound of the actors, Mahjoor explains, even of those the audience could not see, came from different heights and corners of the place that surrounded them. It was as if the audience was placed among the performers. 724 A crucial quality of the performance revealed itself from the very beginning: the emergence of a space created through sound. The place was “intense” and “vibrant to the rock it was cut in,”725 concentrating the energy in the play.

Then “everything started from the dark opening of the tomb. The audience could hear the sound of a man from the dark cave without seeing him. It was very expressive,” Mahjoor recalls.726 Then, he describes that a loud rattling of a chain came from the cave. Suddenly a slave, his feet tied up with a heavy chain, escaped from the burial chamber. Shouting in an unintelligible, mysterious language, he ran toward the edge of the platform. The spectators felt that he was going to jump from the ledge and fall down, but the other end of the heavy chain, which was affixed in the burial chamber, prevented that at the very last moment. The spectator of Orghast describes: “His madness and his dash toward the precipice created an excitement, better yet, an anxiety among us. Forever, this image will be engraved in my mind”.727

723 Qobāni, "Peter Brook va Andišeh-haye No [Peter Brook and New Thoughts]," 156. 724 Mahjoor, Interview with author. 725 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 104. 726 Mahjoor, Interview with author. 727 Ibid.

151 The presence of fire was remarkable and essential right from the beginning of the play. The only light came from flares and flaming torches or the light of the full moon which hovered in the sky over the performance.728 The syllables of an unknown language were given voice by the actors shouting and screaming with fear and horror in the darkness of the night.729 Afraid and startled, trying to stampede and escape from themselves, they cried out in a language of gods, in a language of forsaken ages.730 The spectators absorbed this profound and complex experience from their place sheltered in the darkness of the mountain. They anticipated that something inevitable was about to happen; and at last a ball of fire spewing flames appeared.731

High up, far above the burial chamber some two hundred meters above the audience’s heads,732 Prometheus was chained to the cliff on top of the mountain. As he was tortured by a vulture, he lamented in ancient Greek and his words projected a sense of fear, anguish, resistance and struggle.733 The liver-devouring vulture wrought piercing screams734 from Prometheus as it dashed up and down along the mountain top. 735 The demigod’s cries echoed over the space, 736 conveying Prometheus’ suffering and abjection through his tragic gestures and the sounds of ancient Greek.737

728 Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971." 729 "Orghast: Aṯar e Šegeft-Angiz e Peter Brook, Dāstān e Ātaši Moqaḏas ke Robudeh Mišavad [Orghast: Wonderous Work of Peter Brook, the Story of a Stollen Holy Fire]," 4. 730 "Enʿekās Jahāni Panjomin Jašn Honar, Širāz - Taḵt-e-Jamšid: Peter Brook va Zabāni Tāzeh: Orghast [World Reflection on the the Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis: Peter Brook and a New Language: Orghast]," 731 "Orghast: Aṯar e Šegeft-Angiz e Peter Brook, Dāstān e Ātaši Moqaḏas ke Robudeh Mišavad [Orghast: Wonderous Work of Peter Brook, the Story of a Stollen Holy Fire]," 4. 732 Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971." 733 Pour Housseini, Interview with author. 734 The vowels, consonants and syllables in Orghast, on the other hand, were used “to express certain sensual impressions and to convey to the spectator by means other than intellectual perception something of the mythology, history or literature that underlay the theme of the drama.” Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971." 735 Ibid. 736 Qobāni, "Peter Brook va Andišeh-haye No [Peter Brook and New Thoughts]," 156. 737 Pour Housseini, Interview with author.

152 In the darkened sky the ball of fire – a holy fire or divine light738 symbolizing the sacred fire that Prometheus stole from Zeus – conspicuously glowed against the dark sky, illuminating the cliff, and then it slowly began to descend towards the audience. Prometheus watched as the fireball unhurriedly passed in front of him. It illuminated the engraving of Ahura Mazda above the tomb,739 and “flare[d] over the upturned faces of the spectators”740 until it was received by Man.741

The audience was mesmerized by the scene of the suffering Prometheus and the blinding fireball742 that, figuratively speaking, descended upon them and which, for some, was terrifying.743 The visual effect of the fireball descending from the darkness of the skies conveyed the enormity of Prometheus’ deed in bringing fire from Olympus. Its size and the intensity of its light spoke of the gravity of the gift granted to humankind. But there are other connections to be made, relating to the place itself and its specific culture. As we have seen, the tombs are reminders of the famed Achaemenian kings prayed to Ahura Mazda. Their admiration and adoration for this Zoroastrian god is clearly evident from engravings on the tombs: the kings are portrayed as worshiping the blazing ball of fire, the Sun. The radiating light and the ‘non-physicality’ of the fire represented the spiritual existence of Ahura Mazda; its radiance epitomized the supreme perception, power and energy of the Zoroastrian God. Indeed fire was central to the play. It commenced with fire; it revolved around the axis of fire; it endured upon the power of fire. It re-introduced fire and its qualitative values and virtues and it employed fire in the creation of the work of art as an entity which embodied powers and thoughts. The play portrayed a sense of veneration and the offering of an element which has been praised and preserved in Persia for thousands of years; we have already touched on the close ties of fire with Avestian concepts and

738 "Enʿekās Jahāni Panjomin Jašn Honar, Širāz - Taḵt-e-Jamšid: Peter Brook va Zabāni Tāzeh: Orghast [World Reflection on the the Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis: Peter Brook and a New Language: Orghast]," 739 The kings are believed to have adopted the Zoroastrian religion that developed and prospered during and after their reign. 740 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians." 741 Porter, "Orghast," 70. 742 Qobāni, "Peter Brook va Andišeh-haye No [Peter Brook and New Thoughts]," 156. 743 Pour Housseini, Interview with author.

153 Zoroastrianism.744 The play thus returned to ancient faiths and explored good and evil through the symbolism of fire and darkness745 and the notion of tragic struggle between two opposing forces.746 Beyond these specific resonances, fire as archetype possesses a wide range of associational significations, life above all, across different cultures.747 The act of the fireball inching closer and closer to the ground presented to the audience a gesture that drew proximity and intimation with the ultimate union between Man and God.

But all of these potential meanings were conveyed through a real, concrete, and overwhelming poetic gesture. In this it was characteristic of the play’s action, which was in Peter Wilson’s words, “cryptic in some cases, crudely but effectively symbolic in others… like for instance when the holy ball of fire descended from the top to the stage and a candle [wa]s lit from it.”748 As the play unfolded from here this proved to be a quality inherent in the rest of the play: experience over rational understanding. Richard Findlater writes: “What happened for the next 90 minutes left most people at Persepolis bewildered and overwhelmed. What we saw and above all, what we heard was riveting, beautiful and disturbing; but what it meant, precisely, was elusive and still is…..; it worked on first encounter, as music, spectacle and (in part) as ritual, emotionally apprehended but half-understood.”749

As the fire slowly descended, the chorus group, representing humankind, chanted and murmured in Avesta, yet another thread in the complex fabric of languages, peoples, religions and customs that Brook wove into Orghast. A mystical tune

744 Mahjoor, Interview with author. 745 Nāder Ebrāhimi, "Orghast, In Musiqi-e-Por Heibat-e-Zabān [Orghast, the Magnificent Music of Language]," Tamāšā, no.5, Special Daily Edition for 5th Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis, Monday, Aug. 30 1971. 746 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Terāžedi Āfarineš [Tragedy of Creation], 33. 747 David Williams, Personal communication with Negin Djavaherian, January 20, 2012. 748 Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1." 749 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians."

154 was heard from every direction and the Avestian sounds echoed as if from the sky. The Earth answered from the depth of the burial chamber.750

The gift of fire in the shape of a fireball was received by a man who captured it with an iron hook and transferred it into a bowl filled with oil. King Krogon (Demon of Life) entered the stage and ordered his servant Sheergra (Strength/Blacksmith) to confiscate the fire. The servant stole the power of fire and handed it to the king;751 the fire created madness within him, the insanity of slaughter.752 Before Sheergra wrestled the fire away from the wretched man, a freed slave named Furorg (the Ancient Dwarf) saved the fire by lighting a torch. Above the scene, the torture of Prometheus continued. As the play progressed, king Krogon, who was afraid of being overthrown, killed his first-born son.753 He then murdered all his family and commanded Sheergra to imprison his second son, Sogis, in the burial chamber.

King Krogon soon repented his crimes and blinded himself. Sogis (Ardavazt), the second son of the king, who has been imprisoned and grew up in a burial chamber, was rescued to fulfill his destiny;754 Furorg found him and (employing fire again) burned the ropes binding him. Rescued, Sogis climbed above the burial chamber to meet Prometheus and then was guided by Furorg within the tomb to kill his father. But Sogis was unable to thrust the knife he was given by Furorg through his father’s heart. Dismayed, he followed the distant voice of Agoluz-Hercules (Ardavazt/now as Darius the Great) chanting in Avesta. King Krogon disappeared into the night,755 and the action shifted from Prometheus’ punishment to Hughes’ Orghastian mythology: where a repeating pattern of destruction and revenge could be seen as the heritage of cosmic defiance.756

750 Porter, "Orghast," 70. 751 Ibid. 752 Oida, "Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Art Festival.” 753 Porter, "Orghast," 70. 754 Ibid. 755 See Smith, Orghast at Persepolis. 756 Kennedy, "Review of the book Orghast at Persepolis," 525.

155 Part I finished with an abrupt and unanticipated end. The simple lighting steadily darkened, leaving the characters and spectators suspended in the moonlight,757 floating in its bright luminosity.758 Silence filled the space; and then the spectators again felt their presence next to the actors on the platform before the tomb.759 A meditative pause penetrates the ambiance, surrounding the spectators and actors.760 An intense silence overwhelms the space. “Once again they [became] aware that they [were] sitting far from ordinary life, high above a wide plain, in a tomb overlooking a platform covered with ruins”. 761 The play “[took] the audience up a certain observed path of violence and ritual, ending in the meditation in the dark, and resulting in a change of consciousness.”762

Orghast II – Tombs of Persian Kings at Naqsh-e-Rustam

The plot in the second part of Orghast did not appear to follow a clear or specific direction. The play, more or less, follows “Brook’s principle of something fixed, so that something else can be very free.”763 The fixed part of the play was a procession moving slowly, following the story of king Krogon, while the free part of the play was embodied by a free-moving chorus group of ‘the Persians’. These two structures allowed for much freedom in improvisation by the actors and a more open plot which inadvertently increased the importance of sound.764

757 Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1." 758 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 40. 759 Porter, "Orghast," 70. 760 Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1." 761 Ibid. 762 Wilson, "A Survey of the Work of I.C.T.R.," 17. In Oida, "Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Art Festival,” Yoshi Oida, playing a Krogon character, mentions that at that moment he was sitting in a dark corner of the tomb area watching the moonlight; rarely, he describes, maybe every 5 or 10 years, does he have such a feeling that theatre was what he had to do in his life. And that night was one of those instances. 763 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 213. 764 Orghast II was performed only twice on two consecutive nights on September 3 and 4, 1971. Security concerns prevented the Empress and her guests from attending Part II alongside the public because the audience in Orghast II was not restricted to one location only, but were scattered throughout the site of Naqsh-e-Rustam where they could freely move in order to follow the action. Therefore, the Empress and her guests attended the rehearsal of Part II of Orghast on the very same night, September 3, that they had seen Part I. The rehearsal started about 2:30 am in the darkness of the night and finished before 4:00 am well before dawn. No seating arrangements were made, and the Empress and every one could move throughout the site, following the

156

Orghast I resumed at a foot of the Naqsh-e-Rustam cliffs in the middle of the night. “After experiencing Part I, it became exciting and imperative for us to wake up in the middle of the night and take a bus following a dusty road to Naqsh-e- Rustam for Orghast II. We were waiting for it eagerly and impatiently,” recalls Mahjoor.765 The arriving audience was directed by beacons made of bonfires lit atop one of the cliffs. As the spectators approached their destination, they encountered the dark surface of the cliffs and their formidable height. The crowd was waiting and gazing in anticipation upwards, toward the top of the lit cliff. The sound of drums started softly, and then unexpectedly, light flashed and voices blasted from a pit in a corner of Naqsh-e-Rustam. Momentarily, behind the crowd of spectators, cruel sounds penetrated the night.766 Figures clutching lit torches in their hands raced through the unsuspecting audience.767 Savage, wild figures swept through the crowd and swarmed below the tombs.768 The performance was a mystical, dream-like, thrilling event for those who, in the magical night leading to the dawn at Naqsh-e-Rustam, were the spectators of Orghast II.769

Under the moonlight before the sunrise, light came from huge bonfires set ablaze on the top of the cliff and some rocks. The presence of fire again cast the spell of the Zoroastrian spirit on the play in this historic site. The performance happened at different locations, strung out over a length of a hundred meters.770 In fact, the events occurred simultaneously around all four royal tombs 771 that loomed monumentally over the natural arena.772 The mise en scène was thus open and

performance. Thirty minutes after the Empress and her guests left the site, the performance of Part II started for the public. Besides the last rehearsal that was attended by 100 guests who saw Orghast II only at night, a total of 1,000 spectators saw sunrise at the conclusion of the other two performances and experienced the new day that coincided with the end of the play. 765 Mahjoor, Interview with author. 766 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians." 767 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis 213. 768 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians." 769 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 502. 770 Zāhed, "Ketāb-e-Kānun [The Book of Society]," 101. 771 Mahjoor, Interview with author. 772 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians."

157 mobile throughout Naqsh-e-Rustam, over a thousand square meters: extending to the surrounding cliffs and rocks and even to the scaffolding of the fire temple.773 Only Naqsh-e-Rustam could have provided the versatility to accommodate this unusual stage setting.774 The spectators were not committed to a fixed place and moved freely around the site.775 While they were steered to follow the action and keep moving with the actors, they were free to move anywhere776 and from certain locations they could experience and pursue more than one incident at a time,777 whether actors moving across the perilous cliff778 or the enigmatic sounds emerging constantly from different corners and parts of the vast arena. This was not easy for the audience, but it was very exciting.779 In Part II of Orghast the actor-spectators relationship succeeded in a dramatic and stunning way.780 This quality of theatrical experience emerged vividly as the crowd of spectators found themselves unexpectedly propelled on their mobile rostrum into the middle of the acting area.781

The performance began with the eerie scream of a vulture from a cliff next to one of the tombs.782 A mourning procession set off from a pit next to the mountain, led by blind king Krogon (Demon of Life) and his mother Moa (Mother Earth), followed by the slain members of his family. The audience first heard screams and then saw the light from the pit before they could distinguish the king and his companions. From afar the voices of Agoluz-Hercules and Sogis (Ardavazt now as Xerxes, son of Darius the Great, back from Greece) 783 could be heard. The

773 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]." 774 Ibid. 775 Mahjoor, Interview with author 776 Andrew Porter, "Enʿekās Jahāni Panjomin Jašn Honar, Širāz - Taḵt-e-Jamšid: Orghast 2 [World Reflection on the the Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis: Orghast 2]," Tamāšā, no. 29, (Oct. 7, 1972) 777 Mahjoor, Interview with author 778 Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971." 779 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 150. 780 Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971." 781 Ibid. 782 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 783 Xerxes suffered a devastating naval defeat at the Straights of Salamis in 480 BC, although his fleet greatly outnumbered the Greek ships.

158 mother of Sogis (here as Atossa, mother of Xerxes in Aeschylus’ The Persians) came to greet her retuned son. All gathered singing and whispering in Avesta and Orghast and then Krogon’s son, Sogis, and Agoluz-Hercules (here as Xerxes) joined the march. In Part II, as in Part I, Brook and his group resorted to Artaud, who “trying to break through the confines of a narrow world, created a world in which cries, screams, howls, and writhing bodies were more acceptable…”784 In one of the first scenes, in the south east side, near the last tomb in Naqsh-e- Rustam, two actors and one actress stepped calmly from a slope and crept precariously along the rough and uneven cliff path. A woman on a rope some twenty metres above the ground created with her cries and screams the trembling and vibrating sound.785 On the other side of the scene, the galloping remnant of the defeated Persian army, ‘the Persians’, streamed toward the king’s procession. Here the story of Prometheus mingled with a counter-narrative: Aeschylus’ tragic defeat of the Persian army.786 Their harsh and dramatic motion conveying their memories of wars and battle, the Persians bore torches and ran in zigzag patterns through the site, scattering the spectators.787 The mourning procession and the Persians – the play’s two moving elements – united and when they arrived together at the tomb of the ancient Persian king Darius the Great, they prayed in Avesta in remembrance of the deceased king.788

The Ghost of king Darius the Great appeared at the entrance of his own tomb, high up on the face of the cliff. Illuminated by torches held by his two servants to either side, he addressed the queen Atossa and the crowd below in Avesta. This was one of the play’s most electric, compelling moments. The air was saturated with the dignity and grandeur of the ancient Persian monarch as he addressed the spectators. The “ritual procession”789 – Darius emerging from the darkness of his tomb – deepened the influence of the event and had a profound impact on the

784 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook, 51. 785 Ibid. 786 Kennedy, "Review of the book Orghast at Persepolis," 525. 787 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 788 Ibid. 789 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians."

159 audience. Porter points out that the energy and power was such that the spectators were compelled to their knees along with the actors.790 The speech of Darius echoed through the space, bringing life to the stoic mountain cliffs into which the tombs were carved.

From the distance, the Persian procession called upon the king Xerxes, recalling a similar moment in Aeschylus’ The Persians when Xerxes announces news of his defeat. The scene was full of the mournful weeping of the chorus. Their grief and misery were conveyed through sound; vocalizations, in which vowels were exploited to express these feelings. A melancholic, gloomy echo filled the site of the performance, overflowing with the sorrow and anguish that Xerxes was suffering.791

Through the appearance of the Ghost of the Achaemenian King, his image and voice vibrating over the ruins, and the procession of the lamenting Persians,792 Brook enlisted the historical figures of Naqsh-e-Rustam in the shaping of the play. This invocation of the historical memory of the place, as well as the free movement of the actors through the site, as Geoffrey Reeves notes “were intended to invoke the vibration of the place itself, which the Persians called the City of Dead.”793 The melange of languages – the invented Orghast, ancient Greek, Latin and Avesta – permeated the air in the rising sun above the royal tombs of Achaemenian kings, creating an intimate connection between the performance and the place. One might suggest that through sound, movement, imagery and action, the ‘fluid plot’ of Orghast became more connected to the place. The conditions of the play, sound, elements of the theatre and the natural features of the place came together in creating an overwhelming resonance.794

790 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 791 Pour Housseini, Interview with author. 792 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis 214. 793 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 169. 794 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]."

160 The play continued as Moa (Mother Earth) appeared from a crevice in the cliff, waiting for the procession. She saw the dying king Krogon (Demon of Life) leading the mob. The mad king led the spectators from one place to the other as they followed his destiny and the events of the play.795 Bitter, resentful and heart- broken, Moa harshly assaulted the blind king. The procession paused in front of her. From a distance, the sad voice of Krogon’s murdered son could be heard, as the king himself came to the last moments of his life. The chorus followed the figure of the murdered son to the Cube of Zoroaster. Sogis (Ardavazt/Xerxes), Krogon’s second son, and the rest of the mourning procession continued their journey and began to ascend the mountain by a narrow gully situated on the far left. Their slow and steady climb toward the summit epitomized the involvement of vertical elements in moulding the play. The snake of the procession crawling upward accentuated the audience’s perception of the verticality of the mountain and the effort the actors undertook in scaling it. The relation between Naqsh-e- Rustam and the content of Orghast II further deepened as the characters here underwent a metamorphosis. Moa (Mother Earth) transformed to Atossa who intimately linked the Achaemenian kings to the inner sense of Orghast: Atossa is the half-sister of Zoroaster; the daughter of Cyrus the Great; the wife of Darius the Great; and mother of Xerxes. Agoluz-Hercules in his turn is transformed into the unfortunate Xerxes.796

The humiliating loss at Salamis haunted Xerxes as he fruitlessly searched for hope and peace. He stumbled toward the Cube of Zoroaster and descended to the bottom of the pit. The audience followed the action and walked toward the edge of the pit with the Cube of Zoroaster at the bottom.797 Twelve metres down the pit, Xerxes met a magician and started describing his predicament and despair. At that

795 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 796 See Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 217. 797 Some of the actors close to the end of the play performed unimaginable acrobatic feats on the scaffolding of the Zoroastrian Fire Temple. In one of the play’s most moving moments, Irene Worth came into her own as she knelt beside a giant flaming pit and howled her heartfelt lamentations in Greek, as the widowed Persian Queen Atossa. See Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971."

161 moment fire encircled the Cube of Zoroaster. 798 “It was melodramatic and romantic – anything fire-lit tends to be both – but it dramatically explored the space.”799 Xerxes cried for his late father. His call was answered from the summit of the mountain where the mourning procession had arrived. Following the calls, Xerxes (as cursed Ardavazt), Furorg (as the Ancient Dwarf), the Vulture and the members of the chorus commenced their own journey from the very bottom of the pit to Prometheus’ rock at the top of the cliff. “The madness was not over. The cycle would be repeated.”800

This section of Orghast II, at the Cube of Zoroaster was, in my interpretation, a key moment in which the events and preoccupations of the play intertwined with the structure and qualities of its place. In the time of Zoroaster, the very same fire temple had been furnished with the Book of Avesta and the eternal fire to praise the love and power of Ahura Mazda. Its presence was a remarkable opportunity for the group,801 and therefore Brook drew this old sacred temple into the play, as the place where the anguished and distraught Xerxes was to seek redemption. The magician represented Zoroaster, and the Cube of Zoroaster related to the notion of God. Xerxes’ search in this specific place and his meeting with the magician resonated with the Zoroastrian search for God in the temple and the believers’ connection with him through Zoroaster. The ring of fire created around the Cube of Zoroaster not only displayed and conveyed the depth of drama and despair in this scene; it was also a symbol of God’s forgiveness and of ablution through fire.

Part II of Orghast was an experiment to explore or test possibilities. It created moments full of wonder. As the darkness of the night was ending and the glow of

798 Ring of fire: The perception of the play and the experience grasped by the audience strongly depended on the location of the spectator. For instance, it was possible that one spectator standing in the area of the Fire Temple could see the fire created around the temple as a ring of fire, while other spectator standing in a distance may have perceived differently. These infusions and suggestive imagery were natural to Orghast, Part II, which brimmed with improvisations, fortuitous events and unanticipated images. (Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 19, 2012.) 799 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 170. 800 Smith, Orghast at Persepolis, 217. 801 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians."

162 dawn was near,802 all torches died out803 and the actors looked like ghosts that could barely endure the arrival of the day. Slowly and wearily they climbed the mountain,804 negotiating a difficult road that led directly to the summit where gods were singing to great Orghast – the Sun.805 In their ascent the actors drew with them a group of the most engaged, even enraptured, spectators.806 They arrived at the top of the mountain, at the moment when the beginning of the day coincided with the end of the performance. All the actors, like shining stars, rested still for a moment before finally disappearing807 over the crest into the thin, warm Persian air.808

At the moment the sun was just about to rise above the horizon, Tajaddod began to perform the incantation of a section from the book of Avesta called “Praise to the Cock.” This had an extraordinary impact; deeply touched the audience and triumphed over one’s soul.809 In the noble, chaste dawn, the audience, before the rising sun, became opened to an awareness of time.810 All that had passed before, all the ghosts summoned from ancient times, dissipated like a dream, with the first rays of the sun.811 With the sunrise, the birds awoke and took to the sky.812At that moment, a bare-chested man led a white cow across the full east-west width of Naqsh-e-Rustam, while singing an Avesta passage.813 The calming spectacle of the sacred cow represented blessing, purity and innocence of soul, and its passage was the renewal of the human spirit. Guided across the concourse and into the

802 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 150. 803 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians." 804 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 150. 805 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 806 Ibid. 807 Ḵoṟamzādeh Esfahāni, Teātr-e-Iran dar Gozar-e-Zamān [Theatre of Iran in the Passage of Time], 150. 808 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians." 809 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]." 810 Ibid. 811 Qobāni, "Peter Brook va Andišeh-haye No [Peter Brook and New Thoughts]," 158. 812 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 40. 813 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]."

163 blinding rays of the distant, rising sun, it was also a symbol of the ruling dominance of nature over the human soul.814 As the sun was rising, the principle of destruction and darkness was overcome, but one knew now through what had been experienced, the cycle would be repeated. The play ended in the full light of dawn.815

The rising (emergence) of the sun at the end of the play also brought to completion a key notion: the imprisonment of light in darkness, and the seemingly mysterious communication of the secret that light has. As I have already elaborated, the roots of this notion lie in the narratives of The Chained One, Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism.816 In The Chained One, the Prince of Light was imprisoned within the Earth. The sound of hammers on the surface created sparks of light in the underworld, spawning countless dwarves there who mined for materials that were used above the surface to propagate warfare. Thus the Demon of Life ruled the world, but The Chained One, the prince, never gave up his secret to the Demon for becoming Free Man and remained silent in the heart of the Earth.817 So there was a connection between the depths of the Earth and the Earth’s surface, engendering life through light but mediated by sound. Similarly, in Orghast actors or their voices mediated between an imagined underground world and the world above where the play unfolded before the audience. The actors’ cries, screams, howls and writhing bodies emerged from the crags, clefts, slopes, and geological strata. These were, metaphorically speaking, signs of events and life within the earth, conveyed to the outside world through sound. As I have also suggested, the interplay between light and darkness even formed part of the language of Orghast, where it found a parallel in the relationship between consonants and vowels.818 The pure, raw sounds in Orghast were also reminiscent of the Goddess of Sound in the myth of Manichaeism; they had power to travel inside darkness and engender knowledge and understanding. The only way that

814 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 40. 815 Kennedy, "Review of the book Orghast at Persepolis," 525. 816 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, March 2012. 817 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 19, 2012. 818 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, December 2011.

164 Light imprisoned in the inscrutable darkness of Orghast could communicate with the outside world was through sound. And we should remember that in the Manichaean tradition, this sound spoke not only of the light within the Earth, but also the light hidden within each person. This was the notion articulated in Hughes’ early drawing which situated the light (Orghast) in the womb of Moa (Mother Earth). That drawing, as we also recall from the discussion of the physiology of Orghast, framed the entire play in terms of a body: one of Hughes’ early ideas was that the whole myth could be understood as transpiring within the body of Prometheus. Chained atop the cliff, surveying the events unfolding below, Prometheus was also watching the myth acted out in that volume of emptiness within himself.

The performances of Orghast, unravelling mostly at night after sunset and before sunrise, re-presented this notion of a hidden, imprisoned light whose luminescence reaches us not visually but through sound. That light was imprisoned within the stones, tombs and rocks of the cliffs and mountains of Persepolis and Naqsh-e-Rustam. Its metaphorical imprisonment suggested also the problem of union of the opposites in Manichaeism: where light and darkness are inseparably connected through the fore-mentioned tragedy of creation. They are bound up together within each of us and in our recurring cyclical lives. When at the end of the play the sun rose, it represented the relationship of light to darkness on many levels. It was as though, from the darkness of the tombs, something holy – a mystical awareness – emerged. It was as though within each of the members of the audience and troupe and the entire group together, a light emerged. Those lights rose up into the world along with the light of the sun – and yet, the sun itself, in silence, remained within the cycle of the day, the seasons, time. The tragedy of creation continues, even as light spills forth for the day. For all involved, the performance of Orghast opened the possibility of being in touch with the secret of Light and mystery of our world.819

819 Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished).

165 3.1.2. Place and Play: An Immediate and Intimate Relationship

We have looked at the setting, the process, and now the experience of Orghast as a “work in progress.” It is crucial to explore the means by which participants, play, and site were engaged in a condition of reciprocity. To sketch how Orghast involved the spectators in the theatrical creation, we must approach it obliquely; beginning with the specifics of the play’s own chosen architecture. We return to the sites where the play took place.

After all our preceding exploration and investigation, it is perhaps crucial here to emphasize one of the explicit and fundamental architectural questions within the creation of this theatre piece that touches the merging of the open and fluid narrative of Orghast to the site and environment of the ancient Persian tombs. Many observers and participants in Orghast commented on how the play, the narrative and the characters were intimately connected to the ancient scenery at Persepolis and Naqsh-e-Rustam. Porter underlines that we could never have seen Orghast anywhere else in the world. The play was a consequence of work and experimentation that happened in Iran and it was, in fact, the outcome of influences from Iran itself.820 Ovanessian also emphasizes that Orghast was inseparably related to the place and could not be repeated anywhere else because, as a whole, it was the result of that space and encounters related to it.821 Wilson suggests that “the use of place” was of the most important concepts in Orghast.822 Orghast, as he describes, “[did] not set out to “wake up” the past; the temple- tomb [was] treated as exactly that. It [was] neither worshipped nor desecrated, but its proportions and acoustics [made] up the central fact of the drama. Distant sound, sound from the tomb, sound from the nearby hills and crags, constantly [complemented] the action, both visible and invisible.”823 The play was built for Persepolis and ‘tuned to’ Persepolis.824 According to Brook and Hughes, Orghast

820 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 821 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, December 2011. 822 Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1." 823 Ibid. 824 Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971."

166 was specific to the site: “it was created for only a certain group of actors to perform [only] at a certain place.”825 Oida emphasizes the influence of place on the relationship between actors and their roles in the structure of the action:826 the place of performance heightened the real human relationships and meanings.827 Oida points out that playing in front of the tomb of a real king who was buried thousands of years ago created in him a vigilance and excitement which made the arena of the words he was enunciating free of past and future time. The words were unlimited not only within “time” but also in “place”: as he put it, they could fly freely as birds.828 It was that quality, Oida mentions, that made him really understand the meaning of Peter Brook’s Holy Theatre.829 Orghast, with its dramatic music, its discourse, its rhythm, the skilful fusion of visual and auditory features originated from the space and the sound possibilities of the place.830 As the product of a rich exploratory process, it had also to be seen as an incomplete or unfinished event,831 a “work in progress.” For all of these reasons, Orghast was unique and inimitable.

Pour Hosseini describes that one important aspect of Orghast was that the place became theirs; it was brought completely within the actors’ and spectators’ vision. The crucial question in Orghast was how to inhabit the space, so the location would be transferred into our possession. It was as if they somehow forgot that they were in front of a tomb of a Persian king, and that tomb became theirs. When the chained slave came out of the burial chamber, it was a very significant moment which stipulated their belonging to the place and the belonging of the place to them; at that moment, the spectator forgot that there was a burial tomb.

825 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 173. 826 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 827 Ibid. 828 Ibid. 829 Ibid. 830 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 831 Iraj Zohari, "Baṟesi Ejmāli dar Degarguni-hāye Bargozāri Namāyeš dar Ṭul-e-Do Hezār va Pānṣad Sāleye in Honar va Masʾaleh Sahneh Teātr dar Irān [Exploring the Transformation of Performance Places in the 2,500 History of Iranian Art]," Tamāšā, no. 160, Section 6, Tehran, (1973).

167 They possessed it intimately; for both actor and spectator, the space became a home.832

As Mahjoor expressed it: “The place itself had influenced deeply our feelings, but perhaps it came through Brook’s work and Orghast that activated and accentuated certain qualities of the place and exposed its spirituality. All that understanding, sensitivity and sympathetic relationship with the place, the desert area in front of the tombs, was breathtaking. With the simplest elements, the performance and the place become amalgamated. There was no stage, nothing …only the actors clad in long, earth-coloured robes, fire, a chain and vibration of sounds. Together, it created a sense of spirituality that we, the spectators, experienced and it touched all of us.”833

These observations were particularly true in Part II of the play.834 Fissures, crags, breaches, cavities, plateaus, platforms and accidental elements like the archaeologist’s scaffolding around the fire temple, were all employed.835 This attachment and connection to place perhaps could be poetically described in a scene where the Persian commanders and soldiers with fiery, luminous torches fled the ghosts of defeat. Within the large area of Naqsh-e-Rustam they stumbled over stones, bumped into walls, lamented their defeat and sang an elegy based on The Persians. They mixed with the crowd of spectators as they moved through the place within that vast geography, and the spectators became also part of the play. At sunrise, suddenly, all the soldiers disappeared behind the stones in the cliffs of Naqsh-e-Rustam.836 Their actions were inseparable from the places where they occurred.

832 Pour Housseini, Interview with author. 833 Mahjoor, Interview with author. 834 Qobāni, "Peter Brook va Andišeh-haye No [Peter Brook and New Thoughts]," 157. 835 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 836 Qobāni, "Peter Brook va Andišeh-haye No [Peter Brook and New Thoughts]," 157.

168 From an architectural perspective, one can appreciate Brook’s attempt to recognize the dynamic spatial configuration of the space,837 his interest in the unique nature of the place838 and his endeavour to tune in to the sense of the place.839 Through a lengthy exploration and site observation, Brook manipulated Orghast through the natural possibilities and potentialities of the place,840 and the proportions and acoustic qualities of the place “made up the central act of the drama.”841 The exploration and development of Orghast was entangled with very unusual features and conditions, namely the presence of ruins and their role within the play; the presence of sunset and sunrise in the performance and their effect in transforming the appearance of the ruins and their relation with the play and audience; and also the unusual and rare times of the performance, particularly in Part II which happened before dawn. 842 Through this, Orghast placed the spectators in a condition to truly experience natural phenomena – sunrise or sunset – within a theatrical play, “far beyond its reduction to an image.”843 Creating a tragic shadow in the space by implementing burning fire in particular places of the site;844 using fire, moon, and natural light as sources of light;845 echoing and chanting voices bursting out enigmatically from beneath ledges, inside of the pits, tombs and various areas of the place; were all strands in the network of relationships between Orghast and the site. The sound emanating from the architecture of the places became part of the theatrical piece.846 The sound and the vibration in Orghast became connected to the place and a profound harmony between them was established.847 Brook intimately used the space and natural

837 Williams, A Free Space Frees. 838 Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971." 839 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians." 840 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]." 841 Wilson, "A Survey of the Work of I.C.T.R.," 11. 842"Orghast." 843 Louise Pelletier, "The Building of a Horizon," in Chora 1: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture, ed. Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Stephen Parcell, (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994). 844 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]." 845 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 846 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, December 2011. 847 Ibid.

169 acoustics of the ruin.848 Sound in nature and nature as a place of creation of theatre were re-identified, re-discerned and re-discovered.849 The question of sound and site in Orghast reminded us that “one can[not] fully grasp the truth of a place or an event through visual objectification.”850 Through all these, Orghast as a “theatre of ritual and myth”851 opened a new way to develop dramatic virtues, ecstasies of sound and imagery852 in those ancient sites. It set in motion myths in performance, in language and in the place,853 and it created a direct, immediate and intimate relationship between the place and the audience.

3.1.3. Reciprocities and Means of Engagement

The following pages explore the ways in which the work engaged, or captivated, its participants. The dimensions of that fundamentally human experience and engagement will suggest for us, as we draw closer to our conclusion, the quality of space implied by this play and others by Brook.

Engaging Lives

For the performers, the creative process commenced with a period of intensive preparation. It included training in the dry, hot summer days at the ruins and tombs of Achaemenian kings and a lengthy acoustic testing and experimentation at different times and at different vertical levels which generated a sense of weightlessness of the body and liberation of mind. 854 As Nader Ebrahimi

848 Kennedy, "Review of the book Orghast at Persepolis," 525. 849 Zohari, "Baṟesi Ejmāli dar Degarguni-hāye Bargozāri Namāyeš [Exploring the transformation of Performance Places], Section 3," 68. 850 Pelletier, "The Building of a Horizon," 190. 851 "Orghast." 852 Zohari, "Baṟesi Ejmāli dar Degarguni-hāye Bargozāri Namāyeš [Exploring the transformation of Performance Places], Section 3," 68. 853 Ibid. 854 Yoshi Oida points out that the preparation and exercises for Orghast were done under very difficult conditions. It took them an hour and half on a bus to get from the hotel to Persepolis. The rehearsals were in the middle of a desert with intolerable heat during the day. The burning sun made the stones and cliffs so hot that even at night heat emanated from the cliffs. The desert wind and the dry, hot climate took most of their energy. The fact that Persepolis is 1,700 metres above

170 summarizes in his research, observations, surveys and, most importantly, personal communication with the actors, this process prepared the performers to attain a rare level of expressive power.855 Ebrahimi points out that for the actors to learn the language of Orghast and to participate in an Orghastian life, they suffered and submitted to a great deal of pain.856 They were in a state between praise, adoration, fear and wonder. They might well have even experienced Orghastian dreams and Orghastian reactions to daily life. Without a doubt, Orghastians were involved in a crisis, an interwoven sense of self-confidence and instability; a combination of pride, vanity and humility. They possessed a special knowledge and alertness857 because Brook put them in contact with a potentially life-changing experience. Ebrahimi talks about what it means to be Orghastian. He claims that they were different; they became transformed through passing through this event, this phenomenon. Without a doubt, he mentions, Orghast was a turning point, and the actors said that Orghast posed a different question to them from any other work of theatre.858 Through all the difficult preparation, the actors reached a marvellous “bodily and vocal virtuosity.”859 Their movement in Orghast, as Wilson writes, became “stylised, even stiff”. Although they were not in conventional terms athletic, without exception their motions were “strict, dignified, in fact,

sea level made things worse, because they had problems with breathing. It was particularly difficult to cope with the fine sand of the desert that filled the air. See Oida and Marshall, An Actor Adrift, 74. Nozar Azadi (Iranian actor) points out that for him acting in Orghast was the most virtuous and precious experience in his artistic activities. He refers to the hardships of the rehearsals, saying that he went through the most tormented moments of his life during the preparations for Orghast. See Žāleh Rafiʿ Zādeh, "Noḏar Āzādi; Harf-hā va Dard-e-Del-hāyaš [Nozar Azadi's Recollection]," Tamāšā, no. 28, Tehran, (1971), 33. Sadredin Zahed (Iranian actor) talks about working with Peter Brook and the Orghast group as one of the most important periods of his life. He describes the experience in poetic terms as clouds, wind, sun and sky came together to give him the opportunity to participate in creation. What was always missing in his life, was now felt and discovered. Through the work he realized how intimate the relationship between theatre and life really was. See Zāhed, "Ketāb-e-Kānun [The Book of Society]," 98,99. 855 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 856 Nāder Ebrāhimi, "Orghast, B-el-Qoṿeh va B-el-Fˁel: 1. Orghast va Bāzigarān [Orghast, The Potential and The Actual: 1. Orghast and Actors]," Tamāšā, no.7, Special Daily Edition for 5th Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis, Wed., Sep. 1, 1971. 857 Ibid. 858 Ibid. 859 Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971."

171 ritualised.”860 Wilson observed: “The characters, purged of love and hatred, act[ed] out their past deeds and misdeeds for the benefit of eternity, and a few observers.”861

From Seeing Eyes to Enthralled Bodies

If the performers were engaged in a transformatory process, this was no less true of the audience. From the very beginning, Orghast distorted and deconstructed the spectator’s ordinary, conventional senses of perception, freeing them of habits and removing them from perceptual and interpretive comfort zones. It purged memory and left body and mind attuned to the unseen and invisible. It created a condition that led to involvement in the space both mentally and sensuously. The spectator of Orghast, who entered and passed through fire, from that moment, could never be the same man.862 Wilson uses the word ‘austere’ to explain the impact of the play.863

For the audience, Wilson points out, “catharsis has taken place long before the action begins”864 and this was a crucial point about the performance. The journey began with the long walk to the tombs of the ancient Persian kings, following a steep, tortuous road full of rock, gravel, and sand.865 Their arrival was infused with expectation and effort, challenging and in defiance of the common pattern of entry to a modern theatre.866 The ‘stage’ itself, the location of tombs, shattered the viewer’s preconceived understanding of modern places of performance, overturning the encoded, pre-set layouts and shapes of theatre buildings. The spectators were denied satisfaction of their usual habits and expectations, being

860 Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1." 861 Ibid. 862 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 863 Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1." 864 Ibid. 865 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook. 46. 866 Many arrived from abroad. They flew to Tehran and then to Shiraz. They had to take a bus to Persepolis and walk about 20 minutes to get to the tomb for Part I. There were no cafés or restaurants. See Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 40.

172 situated within a spatial hollow at the heart of an environment that provoked awareness of the transience of physical and spiritual states, and the temporality of the world. Andrew Porter, who saw Orghast five times, points out that both creators’ and spectators’ minds became sensitive and attentive from the lack of sleep, from the reviving of the space at the troupe’s hands and the play’s incantatory opening to wonder. 867 We have already explored many of the theatrical gestures and devices which achieved this; I revisit some below, with an emphasis on the qualities which will help us identify the space that was evoked by Orghast.

Astonishment, Ambiguity and the Broken Line

The play momentarily created a sense of unexpectedness and unfamiliarity through sudden and immediate actions, which produced moments of lucid and suspended emptiness. The shocks were so strong that reality was shaken.868 It seems that shock, bewilderment, the eruption of awe and confusion were among the characteristics of the play and of the spectator’s experiences in Orghast. In Part I, the luminous ball of fire that suddenly appeared in the darkened sky and began to descend towards the audience from the mountaintop was one instance of the unpredictable gestures that went far beyond a mere confrontation and evocation of history in an ancient setting. The ring of fire that encircled the Cube of Zoroaster in the darkness of the night in Part II also introduced moments of astonishment and suspense. In those ancient and historical places, Orghast created new rapports, unanticipated relations, yet strangely familiar and deeply rooted in place.

Orghast also undermined our ways of understanding a play. It did not have a specific narrative and a rational continuity; the distinctions between its characters were obscure; the play did not follow a specific and established historical story;

867 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 868 "Faryād [Cry]," Tamāšā 26, Sep. 17, (1971).

173 and it did not have any fixed, obvious conclusion.869 It challenged the audience’s usual mode of following and perceiving a play.

As always in Orghast, the use of sound was one aspect of this. We will recall that the performance was permeated by “cries, screams, howls and writhing bodies”,870 springing to life from different locations of the cliff, crags and tombs. The use of the languages was manipulated at different cliff heights. Chanting, murmuring, reverberating voices and sounds could be heard at different horizontal and vertical locations on the ground, walls, ledges, cliffs and inside the burial chamber, accentuating the multiplicity of events. The sound came from close and far, from low and high, from inside and outside, from tombs and crags which complemented the action.871 The array of sounds created a condition under which events unfolded and disclosed themselves to our immediate perception ‘as vectors’, “not as finished chunks of matter given once and for all, but as dynamic ways of engaging the senses and modulating the body.”872

Vibrating sounds were accompanied by a deep beauty in the imagery:873 the surreal outline of a woman silhouetted on top of the cliff; Prometheus chained to the mountain; or a woman (Moa/Mother Earth) appearing at the entrance to the burial chamber. These served to capture and disperse the audience’s attention, drawing it to compelling but in many cases symbolically opaque figures. The characters in the play were placed on different locations and vertical levels. Some actors were in front of our eyes; but to see the others, one had to turn one’s head upwards and search for them amidst the inner folds of stone.874

869 Nāder Ebrāhimi, "Orghast, B-el-Qoṿeh va B-el-Fˁel : 2- Orghast va Tamāšāgar [Orghast, The Potential and The Actual: 2. Orghast and Spectator]," Tamāšā, no.8, Special Daily Edition for 5th Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis, Thu., Sep. 2, 1971. 870 Croyden, Conversation with Peter Brook 51. 871 Wilson, "A Survey of the Work of I.C.T.R.," 11. 872 Abram, The Spell of The Sensuous 81. 873 "Faryād [Cry]," 5. 874 "Enʿekās Jahāni Panjomin Jašn Honar, Širāz - Taḵt-e-Jamšid: Peter Brook va Zabāni Tāzeh: Orghast [World Reflection on the the Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis: Peter Brook and a New Language: Orghast]," 4.

174 Thus the indirect, non-linear or even broken nature of the movement was played out in the arrangements of actors and events across the stage in the field of action. The play engaged the vertical dimension, using the full range of the rock face and the sidewalls to mould and shape the play within the place, creating spatial depth in manifold directions. The performance created visual and auditory niches at different levels which were dispersed, free-flowing and occurred simultaneously over the entire place. The audio and visual stimuli interrupted the conventionally static concentration of the public; it teased and challenged the spectators in their anticipation of action unfolding in front of them, which they followed in a kind of labyrinthine walkabout.875

As the play progressed the action was increasingly decentralized and the audience gradually lost its usual means of processing visual and audible experience. The spectators were hence invited to share perception and attentiveness and became cognizant of different events taking place in other scenes and places, even of those actions which were seemingly invisible from their vantage points. The spectators, now closer in kind to alert observers, became involved spiritually and physically in different spheres of the play, browsing through the array of concurrent stories and discovering incidents in different scenes. Each scene, particularly the frenetic, strong, harsh, compelling performance in Part II with a manifold of simultaneously transgressing and interfering incidents,876 represented a piece of the puzzle from which the entire non-linear narrative tapestry was woven.877 And that depended on, even as it provoked, the imagination of the spectators. As Williams observes, Brook’s theatre has a way of activating one’s imaginative agency, when that agency is presented with incomplete, relational and elliptical information.878 In the case of Orghast, while the non-linearity of the action and the multi-dimensional perspectives interlaced with actions and events

875 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians." 876 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]." 877 Brook worked on Orghast like on a montage of a film, pieces by pieces. Then, he put the pieces, worked on by him and the other three directors, together like a collage. (Pour Housseini, Interview with author.) 878 Williams, Personal communication the author, Feb. 2010.

175 led to a distortion of the audience’s concentration, objectivity and reality, such modes of performance were used as means of constructing an animated, active and non-passive entity with which the spectators were intimately and fluidly engaged. One could suggest that Orghast evoked “a space that is qualitative before being measured mathematically, it embodies dream space, arguably the primary space where we actually live our lives and that must be the revelation of a genuine architecture, implicitly questioning the modern scientific ‘common sense’ of isotropic space.”879 The audience was cajoled and encouraged into absorbing and combining individual events, and thus lured to develop their own interpretation of the whole play. As different parts and pieces, created separately by various directors, were brought together by Brook to form a whole, the collage of stories and events was assembled and perceived in the observer’s mind as a phenomenon created out of interrelated, multiple events and actions occurring across different locales. While none of these individual events defined a single, unitary scene, a whole was created through collective experience, by inference and by the interpretation of different incidents. As a result, it could also be said, as Wilson did: “One action flow[ed] into another almost without a seam.”880

This whole might be understood as having a particular feature: “the irrational temporality of dreams.”881 Ovanessian points out that “Orghast resembled a dream without any linear story; when we wake up we perceive something else, uncertain of the reality and whereabouts. It is full of abstraction through which one may understand wholeness out of it.” Ovanessian describes: “I had called it a magic circus.”882 One could suggest this condition in Orghast is related to The Chained One where things happened through a perpetual circular movement. The world of that play was a closed loop and events ceaselessly repeated themselves, meaning that man seems never to be liberated from his prison where he lives pinned down by governments and powers, just as the prince was chained inside of

879 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, "The Wall and the Stair - Architecture and Its Limits," in Archipelago: Essays on Architecture, ed. Peter MacKeith, (Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 2006). 880 Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1." 881 Pelletier, Architecture in Words. 195. 882 Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished).

176 the earth. Nonetheless, the prince was pining883 that one day through man’s transformation and/or evolution he will free himself.884

A spectator of Orghast mentions that she always thought that it was this intricate, labyrinthine quality of Orghast and her own struggle and endeavour to comprehend it that made the play so compelling, engaging and interesting.885 Another member of the audience describes that, for him, Orghast never finished. It has not finished and it will never finish; it was the unknown, and unrevealed quality of Orghast that captivated him and it constantly persuaded him to think about every moment of it.886 An important dimension of Orghast was this hidden and invisible aspect and its endurance in the observers’ mind.887

Ambiguity and obscurity were constantly present within the play, 888 and vagueness and opacity was embedded in the language.889 The atmosphere was full of guesses, estimation and reckoning that came to the observer from every corner. One was constantly searching for discoveries, sketching and making a story.890 Spectators intensely meditated, trying to get to the heart of the narrative.891

Mahjoor recalls: “The vital concept of performance was for the audience to watch and experience a succession of events, unexpected and inexplicable happenings in the presence of mountains that gave depth to the space. In particular, the circumstance that we could not understand the languages in a rational way enabled us to perceive movements, sounds and action as ‘events’, rather than

883 Shant, The Chained One, 79. 884 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, February 19, 2012 885 Ebrāhimi, "Orgast va Tamāšāgar [Orghast and Spectator]." 886 Ibid. 887 Ibid. 888 "Enʿekās Jahāni Panjomin Jašn Honar, Širāz - Taḵt-e-Jamšid: Peter Brook va Zabāni Tāzeh: Orghast [World Reflection on the the Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis: Peter Brook and a New Language: Orghast]," 4. 889 Wilson, "Interview with Ted Hughes Author of Orghast." 890 "Enʿekās Jahāni Panjomin Jašn Honar, Širāz - Taḵt-e-Jamšid: Peter Brook va Zabāni Tāzeh: Orghast [World Reflection on the the Arts Festival, Shiraz-Persepolis: Peter Brook and a New Language: Orghast]," 4. 891 Ibid.

177 following the play linearly and understanding exactly what was happening in the story. We could not, we did not even want to, have such way of perception. What the play was doing with us was something more profound and participatory.”892

Language, the Raw Ear, Babel

In discussing the engagement of participants in Orghast, we have mentioned the use of sound in dispersing the narrative and casting the play’s spell. We have also, earlier on, looked at the development of languages as part of the process that produced Orghast. Now we turn to language and its role in engaging the play’s participants and engendering reciprocity between them and the work. The most impressive and inimitable characteristics of Orghast regarding human interaction and involvement were through the use of dead and invented languages, and raw sounds. These wondrous languages generated powerful conditions and potentials. 893 Ancient Greek, Avesta and Orghast possessed an energy and vibration that could be compared to Shakespeare’s language in Elizabethan Theatre.894 Above all, the play precluded the audience from associating sounds with known words, verbal rules and a recognizable language. It collapsed the common modes of perceiving a language, deconstructing and breaking preconceived sounds, roots, syllables.895 The languages were instead shaped anew,896 offering an unknown collection of sounds without a specific meaning. The aim was to move beyond the usual limited capacity of verbal communication, to reach a level of freedom and flexibility and a new openness to create a more direct means of vocal interaction. 897 In this condition both the actors and spectators became liberated from linguistic and verbal familiarity, and their minds became unencumbered by the delimiting semantic knowledge of a particular language and the restrictive prism of prejudice and preconception. Through this

892 Mahjoor, Interview with author. 893 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 40. 894 Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished). 895 Porter, "Orghast," 71. 896 Ibid. 897 Ibid.

178 linguistic voiding, Orghast reinstated a condition of emptiness that activated one’s imagination. This offered moments of discernment of an invisible area or a forgotten qualitative moment from the past – activated and manifested in the present.

The non-verbal language of Orghast, which was designed not for the defined meanings of words but for the gesture and meanings of sounds, offered a wide array of qualities and possibilities; it attempted to expose the forgotten “expressive depths”898 of language and creation, conditions where words could be perceived spiritually within revelation and discovery.899 Both the play Orghast and the language Orghast were intended, as Wilson points out, to offer “an inner transformation, an opening to a lost world.” Orghast, similar to music, engages one with this “deeper world,”900 and had like music a simultaneously “precise, mysterious, [and] open” quality.901 “More precisely, it was a pre-music.”902 The raw sound, the sheer volume and impression on the eardrums almost achieved the intended state of “sonic trance”.903 The exploration of Orghast was an attempt to discover an entry into “our innermost buried infra-rational selves.”904 Its dramatic sound went far beyond the limitation of a particular verbal language belonging to a specific geography and shared among a particular ethnic group. “Orghast aim[ed] to be a leveller of audiences by appealing not to semantic athleticism but to the instinctive recognition of a ‘mental state’ within a sound.”905

The language of Orghast was built on pure, raw sonic forms. Its sounds created powerful textures and rhythms that resonated and reverberated in the ruins and the mountains of Persepolis.906 The resonating sound was the first experience for the audience; at sunset, “chanting, rumbling voices broke out from different places –

898 Abram, The Spell of The Sensuous, 85. 899 "Faryād [Cry]," 5. 900 Wilson, "Interview with Ted Hughes Author of Orghast." 901 Ibid. 902 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, December 2011. 903 Trilling, "Festivities in Iran, 1971." 904 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians." 905 Stoppard, "Orghast." 906 Croyden, "The Center."

179 beneath the ledge, on the heights, inside the tomb”907 and “silhouetted on the skyline of the western side-wall, a woman (Light) sang a long, tremulous note over the silent ruins. From the distance, Man answered with a guttural gaveh.908 Light cried again, Man’s response was closer. The chorus, earth’s creatures, began with throaty, staccato murmurs and swells, not in unison.”909 This condition evokes Abram’s assertion in The Spell of the Sensuous that “at the most primordial level of sensuous, bodily experience, we find ourselves in an expressive, gesturing landscape, in a world that speaks.”910 Orghast displayed the enigmatic nature of language which “echoe[d] and prolong[ed] unto the invisible, the wild, interpenetrating, interdependent nature of the sensible landscape itself.”911 It created a condition of liberating one from preconceived rules and images, while offering a recollection of primordial experiences. Ovanessian emphasizes the role of “vibration of pure sounds,”912 which, arriving from close and far, from low and high, from inside and outside, 913 offered auditory perception and awareness that engaged the emotional senses of the spectators and created a deep level of simultaneous spatial and human experience.

In contrast to a world of “instantaneous transmissions of electronically coded information” where language is reduced to “plus and minus signs,” Orghast suggested a way of communicating through pure sound. The significance of the “rehabilitation of language” in Orghast was acknowledged by Wilson.914 In my interpretation, Orghast language was not necessarily meant to be a universal language in its absolute sense. Brook and Hughes were aware of the virtues of linguistic differences and that no one-to-one relationship exists between the words and what they denote; therefore, we are always in need of translation. In After

907 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective 166. 908 Gaveh is a word used in Orghast language. In Avesta, gaveh connotes soul and cow. (In Persian, gav means a cow. In Avesta, a cow is a poetic image for the soul of creation). See Smith, Orghast at Persepolis 183. 909 Ibid. 201. 910 Abram, The Spell of The Sensuous, 81. 911 Ibid., 85. 912 Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished) 913 Wilson, "A Survey of the Work of I.C.T.R.," 11. 914 Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1."

180 Babel George Steiner argues that translation is essential to human communication; we translate because the words are never completely transparent.915 Hughes and Brook believed that all languages, in a certain way, are related. At the deepest level of each language, a dramatic sense of sound exists that is shared among other languages. By creating a new language of Orghast, they are, in fact, amplifying that shared dimension of language. One could suggest that they are using a theatrical device to correspond to layers beneath and within all languages: a quality of sound, pre-words that all languages relate to. Their goal, perhaps, got closer to what Steiner writes: “[t]o move between languages, to translate, even within restrictions of totality [which] is to experience the almost bewildering bias of the human spirit towards freedom.”916 In The Search for the Perfect Language, Umberto Eco points out “…our mother tongue was not a single language but rather a complex of all languages.”917 And what occurred after Babel was not the invention of new languages, but rather the fragmentation of a tongue that had already contained all other languages.918 Orghast, in this sense, seemed to offer an awareness of that mother tongue.

Instead it created the possibility of recognizing the disparities and common points of people from different cultures.919 The collection of sounds in the play and the expressive and theatrical modes of enunciation by the actors created states of emptying and recalling, shedding and re-remembering, thus offering the possibility of sharing common levels of discernment and insight among the spectators, irrespective of their own specific languages, cultures, religions, genealogy and geographical dependence. The unfamiliar sound waves engaged the spectators in a state which Brook sees as akin to “the force of the irrational [as it] emerge[d] out of its primitive darkness.”920 Underpinned by openness beyond

915 See George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (Oxford: Oxford Press, 1998). 916 Ibid., 497. 917 Umberto Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language, ed. James Fentress (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 353. 918 Ibid. 919 "Faryād [Cry]," 5. 920 Brook, Compilation of Interviews with Peter Brook.

181 conceptualization and definitions, the discourse on sound in Orghast and its “oral- aural event-world”921 revealed the depth of one’s evolving reciprocity with the empirical world.

The exploration on sound and languages in Orghast recalls the investigation in Echolalias that we all are coming from an original shared language which never dies and to which we all belong; a language that, although it has been destroyed, still persists. One could suggest that the search in Orghast activated that ‘unforgettable’ (language) that we think we have forgotten. Orghast was remembrance, offering awareness that we had been “touched by the unforgettable” without knowing it.922

The primitive organic sounds of Orghast, the language of Ted Hughes, were personal. From these natural, intuitive sounds with seemingly no relation to any civilization, Hughes created, arranged and composed language and speech. In the language of Avesta, in contrast, the composition of sounds had a religious awareness which was beyond the instincts of individuals. One could say that a higher knowledge permeated the language and a sacred quality was inherent in the sounds. This expresses language as nascent in pre-reflective consciousness. This aural quality of the language of Avesta is derived from an unknown cosmic source, and is embedded in the particular order and composition of the sounds.923

“With the presence of Orghast and Avesta together within the play, the difference between instinctive, personal sounds in Orghast and the cosmic, sacred sounds in Avesta became more apparent; the play accentuated the contrast between those two qualities of the sounds.”924 One could perhaps come to an understanding of the instinctive sounds of Orghast as corresponding to Brook’s “rough”; and the sacred sounds of Avesta as “holy.” These are two contradictory and yet

921 Ong, Orality and Literacy, 157. 922 Heller-Roazen, Echolalias, 230. 923 Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished). 924 Ibid.

182 complementary qualities elaborated in Brook’s The Empty Space, which by coming together create, at their intersection, an ‘immediate’ quality of theatre.

Timelessness and Myth

Time was also provocatively treated in Orghast. It was manipulated in ways aimed at deconstructing the audience’s expectations and theatrical conventions, revitalizing their sharpened senses and giving rise to their participation in the space. The start of the performance broke up routine timelines, as spectators arrived and began to experience the play at peculiar times of the day: before sunset and before sunrise. The spectators were brought to the vicinity of tombs dating back to 550-330 B.C.: scenery which channelled the audience’s thoughts back to ancient times. Orghast inundated the spectators in harsh ‘pre-words’, sound vibrations and a melee of ancient, defunct and invented languages. The non-linear movement of the play with its surroundings, actions and events situated and confronted the spectators momentarily with historical times. This was perhaps best achieved by the Ghost of Darius the Great (550-486 BC) that appeared at the entrance of his own tomb flanked by torch-bearers, and began to address the spectators below in ancient Avesta, as though they were acclaimed soldiers.925 It was an event that was not only dramatic, but also literally dreadful and threatening.926 The voice of Darius echoed through the space, bringing life to the tombs carved into the stoic mountain cliffs. Orghast offered an unrepeatable experience where, in the middle of mountains illuminated by fire, ancient heroes from Prometheus to Oedipus were brought to life. Everything was intertwined in a halo of mysteries and enigmas; yet all were felt and perceived vividly. The audience were modern spectators of ancient myths.927 The script of Orghast gave actors the freedom and possibility through sounds, syllables, shouts, cries and whispers and through the qualities of the settings themselves, to be present in the

925 Findlater, "Myth and Magic Among the Persians." 926 Porter, "Orghast 2," 63. 927 Zāhed, "Ketāb-e-Kānun [The Book of Society]," 101.

183 play as though just reborn to our time from the depth of history.928 The experience of the rebirth of Avesta itself demonstrated how “timelessness and myth c[ould] come into the present and become part of the direct experience.”929 The chants and murmurs in this ancient Zoroastrian language resonated between the solemn mountain walls once again, after a two thousand year hiatus. The appearance of “the Persians” (the remnants of the Persian army) at a certain point in the play, and their free movement across the site, was intended to invoke a living vibration in a place that was referred to as the City of Dead.930

While Orghast pointed to historical events, the importance of the present moment was critical. The spectators were offered an experience of a place, languages or images and actions from the past, while they remained aware of their existence in contemporary time, being here and now in the world. Screams, cries, chants and sounds emanating from the tombs, openings and crags; dramatic scenes with fire and dazzling movements of actors; members of the audience shifting from place to place as they followed the play: all activated a sense of energetic if fleeting embeddedness in the place, creating new relationships in the very present moment of the performance itself. The spectators were witness to the fact that the architecture of the site was not static or in a state of immutable inertia; they did not have a merely passive presence or a historical identity related to a specific epoch or religion. Instead, these places – architectural repositories with traces of a whole set of mythologies and narratives about the world931 – were awakened and transformed into living, animated surroundings in the present, and offered up their own sensuous presence over the course of the play. The spectators did not perceive the ancient tombs solely as architectural remnants of the Persian Empire; rather they acquired new understandings and interpretations of the sites invoked and transformed during the dispersed actions of the performance.

928 Ibid., 100. 929 Peter Brook, Threads of Time: Recollections (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint Press, 1998), 155,156. 930 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 169. 931 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010.

184 Orghast also placed the audience on the course of encounter and dialogue between history and the present. This encounter was beyond time and place; here East and West or past and present were interwoven.932 The artists and spectators at Persepolis, which in its entirety served as a staging-ground for myth,933 established together new meanings and relationships in the present moment in this ‘theatre’ of creation – which was, ultimately, also a place of architectural creation. Such a phenomenon resisted description and definition. A new concept of time as transient, layered and in flux came to life between Brook, the actors and the audience, and connected associatively with a discourse between the time of the very distant past and the time of the very present moment, something only comprehensible there and then at the moment of the performance. Ovanessian refers to this quality of time when he points out that this is not a time that can be measured (of the clock); it is a quality of time within which the time of Persepolis that was two and half millennia previously and the time of 20th century Orghast became one. One cannot simply describe this quality of time, one can only experience it. It is being present in a vertical time, a time that could be perceived through myth.934 It is a time through which the cosmos can be felt within one’s body in space.935 The ‘element of real time’ at Persepolis, a notion important to

932 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 933 Zohari, "Baṟesi Ejmāli dar Degarguni-hāye Bargozāri Namāyeš [Exploring the Transformation of Performance Places], Section 6," 934 In Naqsh-e-Rustam, the tombs from outside are carved in the shape of a cross and each tomb’s entrance is at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical axes. This meeting point between horizontality and verticality is the intersection of the energy and powers from heaven and earth; it is a juncture of two phenomena. The intersection point is a centre from which all directions originate. This is an old mythical and mystical source. (Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, April 2012.) 935 The title of one of Ovanessian’s productions, A Modern Profound and Important Research in the Fossils of the 25th Geological Era - 14th or 20th makes no difference (presented at 2nd Shiraz Arts Festival in 1968), was intimately associated with perception of time. The metaphoric title alluded to the 25th century of Persian-monarchical, 14th century of the Islamic lunar and the 20th century of Christian calendars. Essentially, all dealt with exactly the same time. (Arby Ovanessian, Personal phone communication with Negin Djavaherian, January 15, 2012.) Ovanessian makes a reference to the time understood in Taziyeh or all ancient Greek theatre scripts. “The notion of ‘place’ was very crucial in experiencing of time through a theatrical play. The ‘place’, the ‘space’, the ‘location’ within which this vertical, mythical perception of time happened, was not just any kind of place. It was a particular place that allowed an intense concentrated confrontation to happen. Its architecture and spatial qualities must have been in close relationship and reciprocity with the duration and inner functions of the play.” (Ovanessian refers to certain

185 Ovanessian, is intimately connected to this temporal understanding; the setting and rising of the sun within Orghast was part of the creation of such a qualitative presence of time. Time of events in the play fused with real time, and therefore the happenings and events in the action and spectators’ perception moved on the same timeline. This is a profound concept, a quality, that also exists in Shakespeare’s plays. The story unwound outside of a finite time, and perhaps this is one of the most important reasons why Shakespeare’s plays are always alive and never out of date. This perception of time and our awareness in relationship with real time is present in all cultures and is embedded in all myths which, as Ovanessian believes, has been blocked or forgotten in our technological world. With television, computer, cinema and mobile telephone, we are deprived of an appreciation of the real time of events; we are separated from their temporal reality, and instead we are forced to understand them from the vantage point of a time likewise severed from their reality.936

This mythical temporal quality became more lucid and expressive in Part II. It became very close to Brook’s main goal in theatre: the coming-together of all elements to reach a rare and profound moment.937 This vibrant moment, related to the most crucial moment of The Chained One, is situated exactly in the middle of the play when the prophet Naghash (Mani) delivers his important message, revealing that the Demon of Life, the Tyrants live “in the deep darkness of [our] souls.”938 At that moment, the sun has already disappeared and the audience is submerged in a complete darkness. His words vibrate in darkness within each one of us and become meaningful; it illuminates us. This encounter happens within us; the answer is within us in the depth of our existence. Time becomes weighty at

town squares and other open spaces in which the myths and mythical time could be experienced through a theatrical play. He specifically refers to Taziyeh, which, even if it is performed in the middle of the street, by nature, it allows for creation of such a ‘place’). “That place, that space, that location is in a specific quality of time: it can be incarnated in architecture of a building or a play and that was what I was trying to explore in theatre.” (Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished).) 936 Ovanessian, Personal phone communication the author, April 2012. 937 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]." 938 Shant, The Chained One, 70.

186 that moment, as if it embodies a condition of eternity. Time stops there, at that very point. It is neither past, nor present. It neither ascends, nor does it descend. It is at the meeting point between verticality and horizontality where, as Ovanessian points out, myth is born. It is our profound presence; it is “Time present”.939 It is a burst of self-awareness and self-confrontation. It produces a delirious and hallucinatory non-time, as Part II of Orghast happened in an instant. From the initial emergence of the actors from below the rocks and cliffs to their final ascension to the top of the mountain, the performance resembled a dream940 within which one’s perception of time was not linear and whose elements could not be chronicled and dissected. It relates to a quality which Pelletier refers to as addressing both “the fragmented time of human experience” and, at the same time, “projecting a space/time in which we might recover a sense of our wholeness as mortal beings who belong to a more-than-human world.”941 One could say the performance of Orghast provided a rare and extraordinary experience of twentieth-century theatre by positioning the audience at a midpoint between the present and the archaic past, generating an elusive quality of time: touching them, awakening them, and steering them toward engagement in the exploration and revelation of what Brook deems to be the core narratives and structures of feeling of the universe.942

3.2. The Mahabharata

In the years following the project Orghast (a “work in progress” in 1971), which opened up new possibilities for Brook’s theatre, many engaging performances were created. These started with improvisations on the African journey (1972) and tour of America (1973) and continued to performances: Timon of Athens (1974); The IK (1975); Ubu (1977); Measure for Measure (1978); The Conference

939 Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished). 940 Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]." 941 Pelletier, Architecture in Words, 195. 942 Brook talks about the role of theatre in connection with meaning of the cosmos. See Brook, Extracts from Peter Brook's Speech at Epson Awards.

187 of the Birds (1979); The Cherry Orchard (1981) and The Tragedy of Carmen (1981). The year 1985 witnessed the production of The Mahabharata which marked one of the most compelling projects in the history of Peter Brook’s theatre. Although The Mahabharata was premiered in 1985, the project started long before with the writing of an epic script by Jean-Claude Carrière, which took more than a decade to complete.

The play is based on the more than two-thousand-year old poem of the same name, Mahabharata. This ancient poem – the longest narrative poem in the world – is a Sanskrit text, twelve thousand pages long, which was composed between 500 BC and 200 AD. However, according to Indian tradition, the ethic battles that occupy the centre of the story date back to 2,000-4,000 before Jesus Christ. Thus for millennia, the great story of Mahabharata was preserved by the oral tradition.943 With its eighteen volumes and nearly one hundred thousand verses, the poem is eight times longer than Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey put together, and fifteen times longer than the Bible. Metaphorically speaking, Mahabharata is a ‘repository’ of Hindu religion and philosophy. It captures history and folk tales and provides an insight into Indian culture.944 The poem records the earliest Indian history through a legend that is interwoven with reality.945 The epic, poetic saga has immortalized myths and folk fables and influenced cultures, religions and philosophical thought.946 The poem is centred on a family feud between the Pandavas and the Kauravas that leads to a devastating war. It contains a philosophical narrative on the purpose of life and its four components: dharma (the morally and socially conscious deed), artha (the purpose and reward of one’s action), kama (physical and emotional pleasure), and moksha (the liberation of one’s soul and reincarnation).

943 "V'la L'Mahabharata," Le Liberation, Tue., Jul. 9, 1985, my translation. 944 Robert Hewison, "Universal Meanings Revealed," Sunday Times, Jul. 14, 1985. 945 Diane Hill, "Brook Goes Quarrying for Eternal Verities," Stage, London, Aug. 15, 1985. 946 Thomas Quinn Curtiss, "Brook’s Mahabharata at Avignon," International Herald Tribune, Jul. 23, 1985.

188 The very first time Brook chanced upon Mahabharata was at a demonstration of Kathakali.947 The sudden appearance of a dancer clad in elaborate costume with a face painted in red startled Brook: “His costume was red and gold. His face was red and green, his nose was like a white billiard ball, his fingers were like knives; in place of beard and moustache, two white crescent moons thrust forward from the lips, his eyebrows shot up and down like drumsticks and his fingers spelled out strange coded messages.” 948 After the initial admiration for the dance evanesced, Brook realized that he could only imagine the story performed by the dancer. The second time Brook encountered Mahabharata was when he and Jean- Claude Carrière met the Sanskrit scholar Philippe Lavestine,949 who, for them, became the storyteller of the great tale. This was, in a sense, reminiscent to today’s storytelling of Mahabharata in India that takes place over a period of eighteen days, four hours each day, which has been practiced for past two thousand years.950

Smitten by the stories from Mahabharata, Brook and Carrière travelled to India. The more they learned and the more they discovered from the richness of Indian history and culture, the more apparent it became that to master the thousands of years of Indian classical arts was unattainable in a lifetime. Carrière describes that no religious idea is forgotten or superseded and that Hindu mystical thought uninhibited by dogma is “…a laboratory for understanding the strivings of the

947 See Phillip B. Zarrilli, Kathakali Dance-Drama: Where Gods and Demons Come to Play (London: Routledge, 2000). From the source I quote: “Kathakali dance-drama is a distinctive genre of South Asian performance which developed during the sixteen and seventeen centuries in the Malayalam speaking coastal region of south-west India known today as Kerala State. […] The vast majority of these performances have been Kathakali’s dance-drama versions of episodes from the Indian epics (Mahabharata and Ramayana)…” 948 Brook, The Shifting Point, 160. 949 The decision to adapt the two-thousand-year old story of Mahabharata into a play was made after listening to Lavastine’s description of the stories in the poem. Over a period of six months, Brook and Carrière have regularly met with Lavastine to learn and take notes about the story. Two years later, Carrière finished his first draft of The Mahabharata without actually reading the poem. In a certain way, the tale followed the same path, going from oral telling of the story by Lavestine to the production of a first script. However, this script was never used. 950 "V'la L'Mahabharata."

189 religious mind.”951 By the end of the trip, Brook and Carrière realized that they could not, as foreigners, imitate the Indian performing arts, they could only suggest.952

3.2.1. Script Writing for The Mahabharata

Although several films, plays, and books have been inspired by the original Mahabharata, the story has never been performed as a complete unit.953 Writing of the script and its adaptation into a theatrical play spanned over several years, including several trips to India.954 The timeless values of the story and the endless hours of studying Sanskrit made this work of particular importance to Brook and Carrière. The ultimate goal was to transform the Hindu myth into ‘universalized art’ that would be accessible to any culture.955 Carrière faced the problem of the extent and enormity of the poem: digressions and side stories needed to be expunged, while the main plot and characters were to be enriched. The dialogues and spoken word in the poem had to also be curtailed. In addition, the detailed research on the language was hindered by the lack of French poems and literature that related to Indian culture and motives. The eighteen books of Mahabharata were effectively reduced to three parts for the performance. He conscientiously narrowed down the vocabulary and used five monosyllabic key words that permeate the play: Life; Blood; Heart; Fire; and End. In the end, Carrière describes that the stories from Mahabharata are filled with poetic force, and, at the same time, they embody wisdom and offer life lessons. Rather than the emotional aspect of the stories, it was their ‘taste’ that mattered. They tried to capture and convey the “fleetingness of this taste in the mystery that is all representation.”956

951 Garry O’Conner, The Mahabharata: Peter Brook’s Epic in the Making, Photography by Gilles Abegg (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1989), 56. 952 See Carrière, Interviews with author, this thesis. 953 Edward Behr, "A Three-Night Epic Play," Newsweek, Theatre, Aug. 19, 1985. 954 The first meeting between Brook, Carrière and Lavastine took place in Paris in 1974. The premiere of The Mahabharata was realized ten years later in the Callet Quarry in 1984. 955 Margaret Croyden, "Peter Brook Transforms an Indian Epic for the Stage," New York Times, Aug. 25, 1985. 956 Armelle Heliot, "Avignon: Mieux Vaut S'En Laisser Compter," Le Quotidien, Paris, Jul. 13, 1985, my translation.

190

The brutal war and the annihilation at the end of Mahabharata may appear to contradict the Hindu principle of dharma. Dharma is a set of moral and ethical rules that define the righteousness and piety of each individual. These rules are different for different people and different cultures, depending on a person’s beliefs and demeanour. The differences may often lead to conflicts between people of different dharmas. Indian culture, however, is a landscape of tolerance and acceptance. As Aldous Huxley put it: “Going a good deal further than do the Catholics, with their doctrine of vocations, the Indians admit the right of individuals with different dharmas to worship different aspects or conceptions of divine. Hence the almost total absence, among Hindu and Buddhists, of bloody persecutions, religious wars and proselytizing imperialism.”957 Garry O’Conner notes that according to Carrière the annihilating war at the end of the story and the ‘destruction of dharma’ was sine qua non and the main reason for Krishna to descend upon earth to restore order.958 Carrière describes: “I have written this poem to inscribe dharma in the hearts of men. And I hope it was my dharma to write The Mahabharata.”959

From time to time, Carrière reached a saturation point from the immense volume of information and the torrent of impressions and images.960 Nonetheless, he finished the script of The Mahabharata in 1984, after ten years of hard work.961 At the first rehearsals, Carrière produced a script containing nine hours worth of text. John D. Smith, who edited the English translation of the original Sanskrit poem, Mahabharata, opined that not only was the script true to the meaning of the original Sanskrit, but also to the wording.962 Ned Chaillet concurred with Smith on the adaptation of the story into a play, stating that “Mr. Carrière has managed

957 Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1972), 153. 958 O’Conner, The Mahabharata: Peter Brook’s Epic in the Making, 58,59. 959 Ibid., 59. 960 Brook, The Shifting Point, 162. 961 See "V'la L'Mahabharata." In a sense, Jean-Claude Carrière assumed a role of Ganesha/Krishna (the scribe in Mahabharata). For information about the scribe refer to this thesis, 197. 962 See O’Conner, The Mahabharata: Peter Brook’s Epic in the Making.

191 to fold in the philosophical debates charming anecdotes that dot the epic without disturbing interruptions in the plot.”963

Twenty-one actors and five musicians were chosen by Brook and Carrière after a long audition period. Together, the actors and musician represented sixteen nationalities, portraying “the universal power of the cycle”964 and “mirroring the universal proportions of the poem.” 965 Unlike the project Orghast that was specifically created and performed at the tombs of Achaemenian kings in Iran, the project The Mahabharata toured across different countries and was performed in many different places.966 The places for the production of The Mahabharata were ‘found spaces’ that included quarries, depots, boat houses, museums and theatres. One of the most notable places is undoubtedly the Callet Quarry in Boulbon (France) near Avignon that hosted the premiere of The Mahabharata in 1985. The performance at the Callet Quarry was part of the main venue that shaped the 39th Avignon Festival and also presented one of the theatrical achievements of the twentieth century.967 The performance of The Mahabharata at the Callet Quarry turned out to be a great success visited by a thousand spectators for each show.968

963 Ned Chaillet, "Avignon’s Festival Brings Indian Epic to France," Wall Street Journal, Jul. 26, 1985. 964 Hill, "Brook Goes Quarrying for Eternal Verities." 965 Behr, "A Three-Night Epic Play." 966 The first performance of The Mahabharata was in French, at the Avignon Festival in July 1985. Later, they performed in the Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris (1985); The Petroupolis Quarry in Athens (1985); The Bockenheimer Depot in Frankfurt (1985); The Studio Bronson in Madrid (1985); and The Mercat de les Flors in Barcelona (1985). The first English version of The Mahabharata was premiered two years later in a boathouse in Zurich in 1987 and went on a tour to BAM Majestic in New York (1987); The Hudman Quarry in Perth, Australia (1988); The Adelaide Quarry, Australia (1988); The Old Museum of Transport in Glasgow (1988); Grundwald’s Gaswork Theatre in Copenhagen (1989); and a skyscraper in Tokyo (1989). 967 Hewison, "Universal Meanings Revealed." 968 Thomas Quinn Curtiss, "Brook’s Indian Epic, A Decade in Preparation, Wows Avignon," Variety, New York, Jul. 24, 1985. During the whole festival in Avignon, twenty-five thousand tickets were sold; however, another sixty thousand people were turned away. France’s first lady at the time, Madame Mitterrand, was among the visitors. T.Q. Curtiss, a critic of the performance at Avignon, called The Mahabharata “a milestone in production pioneering.”

192 3.2.2. The Callet Quarry: Discovery, Observation and Transformation

Mahabharata – one of the greatest stories of all time, with its sheer volume of verses, its mystical character and its religious and moral messages – forms a formidable combination of constraints and requirements that one has to face and negotiate if one desires to adapt this poem into a play. Brook and Carrière had to take all these essentials into consideration for their production of The Mahabharata at the Avignon festival in 1985. One of the major concerns for Brook was the question of the place of performance and its relationship to the narrative. Not every theatre, not every quarry, not every cloister and not every warehouse was suitable to host The Mahabharata. Some places, such as the courtyard in the Papal Palace in Avignon, had too much history imbued in them. Brook found those places incongruous with the twenty-five-thousand-page Indian poem and was reluctant to stage its first premiere in such an environment. For Brook, there was no relation between the grandness of Hinduism and the impressive chapels of the Middle Ages.969 The group strove to find a perfect place for the production of what turned out to be one of the masterpieces of his career. The discovery of a place and its preparation for the play was not a straightforward task. Discovering the site and its modification and transformation for the play are processes that not only elevate the 20th century theatre to a special place in the pantheon of theatrical achievements, but also cross boundaries into the domain of architecture.

Not considering indoor theatres for the production of The Mahabharata, Brook and his ensemble searched for an appropriate place within the Avignon area. The outdoor places chosen for Brook’s productions, which first started at Persepolis and Naqsh-e-Rustam for Orghast970 and continued later at other sites, including the Adelaide Quarry for The Conference of the Birds 971 and the Roman

969 Gilles Costaz, "Avignon, Acte IV," Le Matin, Paris, Jul. 5, 1985, my translation. 970 See this thesis, Part II: Orghast. 971 See Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 76,77.

193 Amphitheatre in Cagliari and The Odeon in Pompeii for La Tragédie de Carmen,972 were an inspiration to the quest to discover an ideal place for The Mahabharata. Relying on his past experience, Brook decided to place The Mahabharata within the confines of a quarry. For him, quarries are spaces that are “not marked by particular cultures.”973 Provence is the land of quarries, with the region of Avignon known for its granite production. As such, fifteen quarries in a sixty-kilometre diameter with Avignon in the centre were available. After numerous visits to the quarries, testing acoustic and visual qualities, surveying wind direction, observing sun movement and light qualities, the best option for the production of The Mahabharata yielded a quarry near Boulbon located fourteen kilometres south-west of Avignon, owned by local construction and road builder Jacques Callet.

The place was abandoned and appeared to be ideal for the production of The Mahabharata: “neither too large, nor too small, rounded just right, near a river with second quarry for supplies and technical equipment.”974 The quarry forms a round space contained within high walls that loom above like a sort of ‘cathedral apse’.975 The quarry is closed from three sides by the rock walls and the fourth side is open, leading to another quarry and then further down toward the river (see Figure 3.1). The space of the quarry is one hundred and thirty-five metres long and fifty metres wide. The space narrows gradually, creating an “increasingly

The Conference of the Birds was performed in the Adelaide Quarry in 1980. The quarry was well proportioned, the floor was leveled and the walls were high with earth-red colour tones. The performances were took place either at night or under the full sun. 972 See ibid., 111-115. La Tragédie de Carmen toured almost continuously between 1983-1989. Only two outdoor places were used during the tour: The Odeon in Pompeii in and the Roman Amphitheatre in Cagliari. The Odeon, a small outdoor Roman amphitheatre, hosted its first performance after 1,907 years after the infamous natural disaster that killed all Pompeii’s citizens and buried the city in volcanic ash. The space of The Odeon was transformed to resemble the proportions of the Bouffes du Nord. In Cagliari, a new wooden stage had to be built in the place of the original seating area on the hillside, otherwise the audience would not be able to see the performers clearly against the panoramic view of the city. New stands for the public were also erected. 973 Costaz, "Avignon, Acte IV." 974 Laurence Liban, "Les Métamorphoses de la Carrière Boulbon," L’Express, Jul. 3, 2008, my translation. 975 John Barber, "Brook’s Epic Contest: ‘The Mahabharata’, Avignon," Daily Telegraph, Jul. 16, 1985.

194 intimate, enclosed volume.”976 Once the decision was made, the preparations began in the form of what can only be described as a “marathon feast of engineering: opening roads, bringing water and electricity, providing food, preventing fire hazards, securing unstable rock with nets, diverting air traffic, pacifying mosquitoes, etc.”977

The extent of the search for a suitable space for the performance of such epic proportions and the scale of the preparation, appropriation, and inhabitation of the Callet Quarry with respect to the character and needs of the play marks one of the crucial features of the creation of The Mahabharata in this place. The best description of the process of finding, discovering and inhabiting the Callet Quarry can be found in The Open Circle written by Andrew Todd and Jean-Guy Lecat.978 They describe that Monsieur Callet placed personnel and machinery, free of charge, at Brook’s disposal to transform the quarry to an open theatre. The quarry was cleared of rubbish, the floor was raised and evened out,979 and a berm was built at the entrance to prevent noise disturbance and to keep the notorious hundred-kilometre-per-hour mistral winds out. The berm enclosed the place of the quarry, creating an intimate space. An artesian well was dug up to supply water for a restaurant and a river was created inside the quarry. A generator was brought in, and a village for the actors and the crew was erected. Boulders were brought in for the actors to hide behind between appearances. The seating stands, borrowed form the Papal Palace in Avignon, followed the same shape of the seats at the Bouffes du Nord theatre but on a larger scale. Thus, the empty space of the theatre became surrounded by the semi-circle of the audience (see Figure 3.2). Two smaller berms980 were raised on either side of the acting area, between the first row of the seats and the back cliff, in order to articulate the depth of the acting

976 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 131. 977 Liban, "Les Métamorphoses de la Carrière Boulbon." 978 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 129-136. 979 As Todd and Lecat describe in The Open Circle there were many ‘finishing touches’. The stage floor needed to drain water from frequent summer storms. The rock floor was covered first with gravel followed by crushed limestone. Then these layers were covered by fine earth that added a ‘good color relationship with the rock face’. 980 The two berms are similar to the side walls of the Bouffes du Nord.

195 area and to offer a double depth quality in the space, similar to that at Bouffes du Nord.

Figure 3.1: The Callet Quarry in Boulbon, near Avignon. Preparations for the performance of The Mahabharata.

It is immediately evident from The Open Circle how much effort went into transforming and rearranging the quarry for the theatrical performance. A fleet of bulldozers and trucks and an army of workers clearing, levelling, building and transforming the space demonstrate the effort exerted to appropriate the place of performance. Built elements were kept in accordance with the needs of the play, yet remained compatible with the architectural space of the quarry. All this endeavour went to create a place where a Western audience would be able to connect with an Indian epic. “This lovely and lyrical production converts local notable Jacques Callet’s stony property into an India of the mind. The elements of air, earth and fire summon up the Indian landscape, or a heroes’ battlefield, with complete success.”981 The events that transpired in the Callet Quarry took on architectural shape: the observation and meditation over the site, the evaluation of the shape and spatial presence of the quarry, the testing of the site’s acoustic and visual qualities, the studying of wind direction, the contrasting and matching of the colour of the ground with the cliffs and the spirit and character of the space,

981 Chaillet, "Avignon’s Festival Brings Indian Epic to France."

196 and so on all resemble poetic processes of site observation in an architectural creation. The preparation of the quarry for the production of The Mahabharata is an exemplary case of the interrogation of a place and its alignment with Brook’s theatrical creation.

3.2.3. The Play: The Mahabharata

The whole performance ensemble of The Mahabharata comprised twenty-eight actors and six musicians. The play was divided into three parts: The Game of Dice; Exile in the Forest; and The War. Since the play, to some extent, reflected the length of the poem, it literally took from dusk till dawn to perform the play in its entirety. Because of time limitations, the play was occasionally divided into three three-hour performances spread over three consecutive days.

Figure 3.2: The Callet Quarry before sunset (left) and after sunset (right) during the performance of The Mahabharata.

The play begins with an old wise man, Vyasa, describing the history of mankind to a boy who is to witness a re-enactment of the ancient story. Vyasa is believed to be the creator and the author of Mahabharata. The boy cannot write, but God Krishna wearing the elephant head customarily worn at the beginning of a play in India,982 comes to the rescue and volunteers to document the epic story. At the end of the play, the written story is handed to the boy for safekeeping. This

982 Croyden, "Peter Brook Transforms an Indian Epic."

197 unknown, unnamed boy, constantly present on the stage throughout the play, is in fact, the representation of the audience within the play. As Andrew Todd describes: “Throughout the whole drama the links between us and the boy, the boy and the play and us remain elastic and open to redefinition.”983

Part I: The Game of Dice The epic story comes to an abrupt halt immediately after it has commenced. A young king dies, leaving his two wives without an heir. The hereditary line is broken and the story reaches a dead-end. Krishna is surprised and inquires whether this is the end of the story because he has nothing more to write about. Vyasa relinquishes the role of a narrator and enters the play. Because the kingdom cannot be without a future ruler, as part of a tradition, a man is to be selected to father children with the two widows. Incidentally, the step-mother of the late king is also Vyasa’s mother984 and she requests that Vyasa will be the father. Vyasa fathers two sons: Dhritarashtra who becomes the father of the Kauravas clan, and Pandu who becomes the father of the Pandavas clan. Hence, Vyasa is the grandfather of both the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The play resumes. It begins to introduce characters of the story and elucidates the deterioration in the relationship between the good Pandavas, and the evil Kauravas. Part I ends with the game of dice in which the Pandavas are cheated out of everything and are condemned to exile.

Part II: Exile in the Forest The Pandavas languish in exile for 12 years in poor conditions; for thirteen years, they are obliged to remain unrecognized by anyone. The failure and their recognition would lead to a punishment of another 12 years in exile. The Pandavas’ pride is hurt and their feeling of indignation ignites a righteous cause (dharma) for revenge. They start to muster their arms and strength, getting ready

983 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 126,127. 984 Vyasa is Satyavati’s son from her first marriage.

198 for a battle against the Kauravas. One of the Pandavas brothers acquires ‘an absolute weapon’ from the god Shiva, capable of destroying the entire world.

Part III: The War The two clans, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, engage in a battle of attrition. Krishna gets involved in the war and helps the Pandavas to win back their respect. Finally, the doomsday weapon is released. It is told eighteen million people died in the eighteen-day war, including the main protagonists. In the final stage of the play, the Pandavas and the Kauravas are reunited in heaven.

Although the story is set in the ancient past, the characters and their behaviour are vivid reminders of our own strengths, faults and foibles. Along with the unknown boy, one can watch and witness the story unfold before his or her eyes. Margret Croyden describes that Brook combined in The Mahabharata all knowledge and experience gained on his travels in Africa and Asia. His goal was to tell a tale of Indian classical theatre, utilizing “the broad scope of epic staging, the tone and timbre of Shakespearean tragedy and the savagery of the theatre of cruelty.”985

A Place Apart

As for Orghast at the Shiraz Arts Festival, the spectators once again underwent a journey:986 the audience was invited to reach the Callet Quarry before sunset in an unusual fashion. The journey commenced in Avignon, some fourteen kilometres away with a choice of a bus/car ride or a boat ferry along the Rhône River. Those choosing the road followed a path parallel to the river through orchards of apricots, cherries and peaches. They crossed the river and continued up to a quarry adjacent to the theatre where they had to abandon their vehicle and walk, amidst the strong smell of thyme and the sound of the insects, along a white path of stones to the Callet Quarry.987 Others, taking a specially organized boat from Avignon, docked

985 Croyden, "Peter Brook Transforms an Indian Epic." 986 Irving Wardle, "Images of Tenderness, Triumph and Death," Times, Jul. 13, 1985. 987 Armelle Heliot, "Avignon: Les Indes Claires," Le Quotidien, Paris, Jul. 9, 1985.

199 about one kilometre from the theatre. For them the final stretch of the journey consisted of an uphill walk on a dusty trail to the heart of the quarry in the golden light before twilight.988 “[D]ust and the scent of lavender and thyme fill the evening air on the walk up from the river; pine, cypresses, vineyards and olives fill the valley below.”989 Getting to the quarry for the all-night performance of The Mahabharata was a challenging event during which the audience undertook a ‘pilgrimage’.990 One could suggest that the path to get to the place of performance is part of the performance itself; this quality signifies the importance of the context and temporal unfolding in architecture. The path to the Callet Quarry was ambiguous and layered in its configuration, not revealing anything about the final destination of the amphitheatre “facing a towering, craggy cliff-face,” 991 “a blasted cliff-side.”992 The encounter with the place containing one thousand two hundred seats within the tall walls of the quarry occurred through a process. The steep walls seemed to recede to form a space within which the spectators could experience something extraordinary. “A shadowy, black figure, high up on the ridge, trumpet[ed] a skin-tickling series of chords to warn those still on the pathway that the stage [was] set for one of the greatest stories ever told.”993

Brook invited the audience to depart from the familiar places and traditional theatres of the city and led them on a journey that gradually placed them outside of the city texture. David Williams describes his experience in reaching performance sites located in quarries, like those in Perth and Athens, as a sort of ‘collective displacement’ from ‘everything-everyday’ to something that is somehow both, connected and separated; there is a kind of ‘secular ritual bridge of the everyday to take us toward this other place’. Leaving the city creates the sense of a ‘gentle rapture’ that moves the spectators outside the ‘cartography of

See also Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 134. 988 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 134. It would take three quarters of an hour by boat from Avignon to the dock. See Heliot, "Avignon: Les Indes Claires." 989 Michael Ratcliffe, "Hindu Magic in Provence," Observer Review, Jul. 14, 1985. 990 Wardle, "Images of Tenderness, Triumph and Death." 991 Hill, "Brook Goes Quarrying for Eternal Verities." 992 Wardle, "Images of Tenderness, Triumph and Death." 993 Hill, "Brook Goes Quarrying for Eternal Verities."

200 the city’ and leads them to a collective experience in a new place. The process of the journey to reach the place of performance obscures the real beginning of the play.994 For the spectators, the ‘real’ performance of The Mahabharata started long before the actual play began.995 A performance like this originates from everyday life and start at the very moment the spectators embark on the journey. At the same time, through the device of the journey, they separate the spectators from the city and from everyday life, to reunite them at a theatrical performance in another place.

In the case of The Mahabarata, this actual journey offered moments for observation and contemplation, self-readiness and meditation prior to the sunset. With each step along the way, the spectator developed a feeling of anticipation, longing, uncertainty, self-awareness and circumspection about surroundings which intensified the expectation and heightened the enigma surrounding the play and its place. These extensive processes of arrival and preparation prepared the audience to discover the scale and importance of the place that was to accommodate a play based on the longest narrative epic poem of the world. This exceptional mode of arrival created inimitable ties between the audience, the place and the play from the very first moments the journey began. Examining the experience with the eyes of an architect, one is reminded of the importance of temporality in architectural events, of the fact that architectural meanings are always given in time, and that properly considered, a well modulated temporal experience can contribute immensely to the revelation of wonder in an emplaced building, prompting the participant’s sense of gratitude for being alive.

The quarry’s dimensions suggest, perhaps, the moment of revelation upon the audience’s arrival at the site. Thirty metres deep, resembling a giant, bowl carved into mountain, the scale of the quarry connected metaphorically with the longest poem in the world, Mahabharata. The play also – whether it was performed in its

994 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010. 995 Curtiss, "Brook’s Indian Epic."

201 entirety, lasting from sunset to sunrise, or in three parts on three consecutive evenings – with its twelve hours of acting presented an epic-scale theatrical performance compatible with the dimensions of the quarry and the poem. Unlike many other quarries in the region, the Callet Quarry offered the essential environment not only to host the lengthy play, but also to accommodate an audience over one thousand-strong. The scale, the proportions, the spatial presence and the vertical height of the quarry suggested an ‘epic location’996 for the epic play.997 This ‘epic’ quality and the notion of proportion weave perceptible threads between the play, place and narrative. Within its vast space, walled in by the cliffs and the erected berm, it contained a semi-circle of audience. Under the night sky, the audience was presented with a play that unravelled the two- thousand-years old poem from a carefully attuned distance.

‘Elemental Opera’ under Open Sky

The four essential elements, earth, water, fire and air, participated in the scenography of the play. The whole acting ground was covered by luminous yellow sand. “It lies before us like the benign universe, its golden colors changing with the night, enveloping all the action, reminding us of its mysterious essence.” 998 The ground represented the Mother Earth and becomes a very important mediator between audience and narrative. Water was present at two locations: a river aligned with the cliff at the back of the stage and a small pool of irregular shape on the left. The river represented free-flowing spirit, while the stationary pond reflected the action around the site, functioning like a mirror. Water was an essential part of the scenery used by the actors to rest, to wash themselves, to fight in and to drink from. The small pool was a place of “ablution, rest, and a place to die.”999

996 Hewison, "Universal Meanings Revealed." 997 The concept of the epic war and the scenes of battle displayed in Part III conform well to the size and proportions of the battleground the quarry has to offer. 998 Croyden, "Peter Brook Transforms an Indian Epic." 999 Ibid.

202 An arsenal of fire was used in the quarry. Some of the fires were “used for religious ritual or ceremonial scenes,”1000 as the “trails of fire race[d] across the sand and ignite[d] the waters;”1001 “some burn[ed] through the night to evoke the divine forces.”1002 Fire provided an indispensible narrative in the dark of the night as it appeared and disappeared during the play, creating scenographic and special effects. Besides fires, some of which came from the ground at predetermined moments, numerous candles and torches were lit and scattered around the set. There were a presence of “candle flame as illumination, invocation, purification and creativity and ball of flame as weapon, injurious to humanity”1003 The fourth element was the air in the quarry that was shared by the audience and by the actors. Strong winds, the mistral, are not uncommon in Provence during the summer days. In fact, to prevent the destructive force of the wind, a high mound was built to deflect potential winds over the stage and the seating area. During the play, the wind moans above the quarry and continues its perpetual journey.

These “basic elements of the universe”1004 present as the main scenographic features also took part in shaping the events of the play. Brook speaks about the fire, earth and water as characters in the story: “…the story comes out of an outdoor society, a very highly developed society, a society in which the constant elements behind the people and behind the events are the relationship with the sky, with the earth, water and fire. To tell the story without these elements, on the boards of a theatre or on a carpet as we have done, would be leaving out central characters.”1005 For this reason, the relationship of this civilization to the natural elements, the presence of fire, earth, water and air was pivotal in The Mahabharata. It brings the audience closer to the story with help of these four basic elements of the universe.

1000 Ibid. 1001 Wardle, "Images of Tenderness, Triumph and Death." 1002 Croyden, "Peter Brook Transforms an Indian Epic." 1003 David Williams, ed., Peter Brook and The Mahabharata: Critical Perspectives (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), 356. 1004 Wardle, "Images of Tenderness, Triumph and Death." 1005 Williams, Peter Brook and The Mahabharata, 54.

203 Margaret Croyden explains about the quarry: “when it grew dark, the lighting transformed the rocks, water, sand and cliffs to gold yellow, deep beige and slate blue, so the terrain appeared as a unifying image in a dream expressing the enigmatic, primitive beauty of the elements.”1006 Brook also remarks that the quarry was ‘a particularly good site’1007 for The Mahabharata because of the primary relations between the earth, the fire and the water present in the quarry. The quarry, Brook believes, offered a “concentrated elemental bowl,” a found space inescapably connected to the natural surroundings that possessed the “spirit of a civilization’s relationship to its environment.”1008 The caldron of the quarry, created by the industrial processes of blasting, crushing and mining the stone, was a hollowed-out void, giving birth to a new place with a furrowed rock face and sheltered land protected by the cliffs. The quarry did not result from a premeditated design, but a process whose sole purpose was to provide stone. Therefore, the quarry as place appeared rough, austere, exposed and unclad without a trace of embellishment. After hollowing out the place, voiding it, the rock face of the cliffs, the earth and the sky could be felt with elemental, immediate urgency.1009 These austere features were the essential characteristics of the place, emphasizing the organic relationship of fire, earth, water and air in the quarry, deftly exploited in The Mahabharata. The rough atmosphere of the quarry accentuated the presence of the four elements in the play and intensified relationships between audience, place and narrative. There was an ‘elemental’ feel to the play: the actors playing on sand recalling a primitive earth, with spaces of water in a magnificent semicircle of rock, the use of magical fire, strange rituals, sunset, sunrise and even the quality of air coming into play, created what was in some ways “an elemental opera.”1010 Through the power of the poetic imagination, Brook revealed the mythic reality of the elements, lost to our technological eyes accustomed to scientific explanation. In a totally original way he ‘recovered’ the

1006 Croyden, "Peter Brook Transforms an Indian Epic." 1007 Williams, Peter Brook and The Mahabharata, 53. 1008 Ibid., 21. 1009 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010. 1010 Armelle Heliot, "Le Mahabharata: Eau de Roche de Reves," Le Quotidien, Paris, Jul. 15, 1985, my translation.

204 possibility of an architecture mimetic of the structure of the cosmos, framing a dramatic work in which the same elements were at play.

In Part II, Exile in the Forest, the Pandavas are condemned to exile for twelve years. They struggle to provide for themselves in an inhospitable, barren environment. They live impoverished with a dearth of food and a lack of means, but they persevere by relying on the four basic elements. They are presented “with an immediate vision of a world of great simplicity, religious devotion, respect for interdependence with the natural world.”1011 As mentioned, fire played important roles, from illumination all the way to sacred and religious roles.1012 The candles, torches, open fire, fire emanating from the ground, and circles of flame invoked different messages at different stages of the play. The quarry’s quality of impoverishment intensified the connection of these elements with the actors and the audience. The crater of the quarry, the fortitude of the rock cliffs, the golden- yellow earth and the starry sky offered silence and a sense of solitude. The reduction to simple elements suggested an environment through which qualities of poverty and exile are transmitted. Inside the quarry, one felt suspended in a void surrounded by a sheer wall. The scale and the shape of the quarry stimulated the sense of awareness – an impression of being exiled. Thus the place of performance in the Callet Quarry unequivocally wove intimate experience from the theme and scenographic elements of the play.

With the help of fire, powerful yet elusive places could be created on the stage. In the darkness of the night, “a small blue tongue of fire snakes its way through the sand in the wake of a celestial nymph, like a comet’s tail.”1013 (See Figure 3.3). Another time, a group of fighters was completely surrounded and trapped around the pool by a circle of flaming fire. The encircled characters were unable to escape the place encircled by the fire and were forced to observe their ‘flaming’ reflection in a pool, an image they do not desire to see. The circle of fire in the

1011 Williams, Peter Brook and The Mahabharata, 139. 1012 Williams, Personal communication the author, Jan 2012. 1013 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 357.

205 darkness of the quarry under the open night sky with the characters imprisoned by the flames were poignant and suggestive images. The trail of fire racing across the sand and flaming up the water in the pool, creating a ring of flames, was among those scenes in the play that created an immediate effect, to “imprint images that lodge[d] in the memory forever.”1014

Figure 3.3: The snake of fire during the performance of The Mahabharata.

The tail of the fire snake wrapped around the pool, creating a noose resembling the circular shape of the quarry. The circle of fire where “the protagonists are surrounded by a snakelike flame that moves along like a giant fuse, trapping them in the center of the stage”1015 became analogous to the walling-in of the audience by the quarry cliffs. The image of the flaming circle within a greater circle was as a double vision. The quarry as a place, with its intense concentration of space beneath the silent, dark, open sky formed a striking location for this scene. Within these constrains, a lucid vision of the circle of fire invoked a state of self- confrontation, presenting the audience to themselves as they were, present within the void of the quarry. The place of the quarry itself had a very particular relationship to fire. The Southern region of France around the Callet Quarry is parched during the scorching midsummer days, and the imminent danger of a

1014 Wardle, "Images of Tenderness, Triumph and Death." 1015 Behr, "A Three-Night Epic Play."

206 raging fire is omnipresent.1016 Unleashing and taming the blaze in the quarry had particular cultural implications connected to the character of the play. The fire was imbued in the history and scenography of the quarry, while the subconscious notion of the threat of fire lingered in the public’s mind.

The grand quarry caldron surrounded by the tall cliffs enhanced the spectators’ experience of the theatrical event. One of the key features of the quarry was the presence of sky which makes the performance differ from, for instance, staging it in the Bouffes du Nord. Similar to the production of Orghast at Persepolis, the audience was confronted with the phenomena of sunset and sunrise. The arriving spectators began to experience the changing light conditions at sunset during their uphill walk toward the Callet Quarry. The performance was timed to start at the moment the sun dipped below the edge of the quarry cliff. The first time, however, because of daylight-savings time, the audience arrived one hour earlier. This error proved, in fact, to be advantageous for the spectators as they had more time to get accustomed and familiarized with the new environment and the stage in the quarry. The setting sun introduced a threshold to the place, leaving the spectators drowned in the shadow of the quarry.

The light changing in the quarry, embraced by the darkness of the night, was compatible with the essence of the narrative. During the play, the tension between the two families grows in strength and inevitably moves the Pandavas and the Kauravas toward darkness, destruction and war.1017 The spectators experienced changes of light as they travel through the depth of the night in parallel with the play that brings them progressively to the dark, devastating battles of its conclusion. The “protracted, dynastic war of Shakespearean complexity leading to universal destruction”1018 culminated in the demise of the two families.

1016 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010. 1017 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 255. 1018 "Peter Brook Directs a Sanskrit Epic," New York Times, Jul. 31, 1985.

207 In the marathon version of the play, believed by some to be the only way the play should be experienced,1019 the performance finished early in the morning with the singing of birds, as if they also were part of the play. The sunrise became present in the play and represented a new beginning, a new hope that commented upon by the storyteller, Vyasa: “This was the last illusion.” Out of universal destruction “[sprang] a vision of a paradise where music, food and gentle conversation prevail[ed] and where reconciliation [was] the key note.”1020 The play concluded with a vision of paradise and the main characters, now calm and smiling, were illuminated by the rising sun.1021 After the lengthy performance, the actors washed in the river and shared food that was distributed around. The play finishes with “an intense Shakespearean feeling that, after the dark night of the soul, comes the overpowering human need for renewal.” 1022 In the quarry, the thematic transformation in the play coincided with the rising of the sun as the narrative and the performance connected to the first rays of light and the beginning of a new day.

It was not only the sunrise and sunset that made the presence of the sky important in relation to the narrative, but also the presence of stars and moon: “The velvet intimacy of a clear Provencal night sky covering a venue fit for the Gods.”1023 The upper perimeter of the cliffs framed the dark sky, thrusting the actors and spectators deeper into the void of the quarry. “[T]he décor is the earth and the sky and the history of the world is told through the strange and difficult comings and goings between these two universes.”1024 Unfolding the story in the quarry under the glimmer of the stars suggested a sense of an encounter with philosophical questions concerning the human condition in the world. These are deeply rooted in The Mahabharata: “…what is the mystery behind man’s motivations and his relationship to destiny and choice? Will mankind survive? ...what is God’s

1019 Michael Billington, "Krishna Comes to the City of the Popes," Guardian, Jul. 16, 1985. 1020 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 255. 1021 Ibid. 1022 Billington, "Krishna Comes to the City of the Popes." 1023 Hill, "Brook Goes Quarrying for Eternal Verities." 1024 Shanta Serbjeet Singh, "The Second Coming of the Mahabharata," Indian Express, Bombay, Sep. 1, 1985.

208 game?”1025 The presence of the moon and the stars during the play made a metaphorical connection with the creation and destruction of the world and all of the planetary objects above us, 1026 which is thematically connected to The Mahabharata. Brook believes that there is balance, harmony, in the universe, and it can be discovered and explored or destroyed. It is a task of each individual to seek and preserve the ‘cosmic harmony’.1027 During the performance of The Mahabharata, the presence of the night sky with glowing moon and flickering stars along with the elemental quality in the void of the quarry created an opportunity for the audience to contemplate the meaning of the play and their relation with the cosmic order and the creation of the universe.

In Part III, the War, the story culminates with the battle of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Brook masterfully builds up the intensity of the plot according to the potentiality of the place. As the battles progress in the early hours before sunrise, the Pandavas unleash the ‘ultimate weapon’ they had received from Gods. The deployment of the ‘divine secret weapon’ was transmitted through “a terrible white explosion, a magnesium flare of positively nuclear dimension at the foot of the cliff.”1028 Half way up the rock face, a ball of brilliant, radiant flame blinded the audience, followed by a deafening explosion. The intense explosion “burst out of the quarry and fill[ed] the stage with sulphurous smoke.”1029 The dark stage of the quarry was suddenly inundated by the intensive bright light, and the noise and clamour of the fight was silenced by the thunderous explosion. “A blinding, magnesium flare which explode(d) into life on the rock face with the force of a nuclear warhead”1030 generated bright light filling the space and challenging the visual perception of the audience. The blinding flash, like that of a nuclear explosion, remained for a while on the ‘audience’s retina’.1031 The air was suddenly filled with an acrid smoke drowning the stage and the actors and

1025 Croyden, "Peter Brook Transforms an Indian Epic." 1026 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010. 1027 Croyden, "Peter Brook Transforms an Indian Epic." 1028 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 357. 1029 Billington, "Krishna Comes to the City of the Popes." 1030 Hill, "Brook Goes Quarrying for Eternal Verities." 1031 Hunt and Reeves, Directors in Perspective, 259.

209 spectators.1032 For the audience in the quarry, the explosion was “a reminder of the looming destruction under which we all live.”1033

It is crucial to realize how the play intertwined with the characteristics of the place. A quarry is the result of dynamite detonations and stone-mining operations. Created by numerous blasts and explosions, a quarry is not unaccustomed to upheaval. The story of The Mahabharata revived the notions of total destruction through the war and the release of the ‘ultimate weapon’. The ‘ultimate weapon’ recalls the ever-present threat of nuclear destruction. The developments in technology which made modern weapons possible, especially nuclear weapons, stem from an attitude toward nature that consider it, as Heidegger puts it, a “standing reserve.”1034 That is, nature only exists to serve us, to extend our power, as we develop (and become more and more trapped/enframed by) technology. In a way an atomic bomb, which treats even the most fundamental piece of matter, an atom, as a reserve of energy, epitomizes this attitude. A quarry, especially a modern one, represents exactly the same attitude: stone is the reserve, awaiting our use. Those explosions, the role they play in the quarry and their relationship to other uses of technology that they resemble in effect and in origin, seem representative of a particular attitude toward Being, that the play at some level warns us about. Brook’s staging of the play in a quarry is significant: it uses the discarded product of our attitude toward technology as the setting for a work which brings myth back to life and somehow finds it in the detritus of technology, despite everything: terrible yet redemptive. Thus, the explosions that created the quarry are about more than just explosions, they are about something the play is trying to save us from. As far as the battle between the two families goes, in light of the use of explosions and ‘the ultimate weapon’ in the play it seems to be an allegory for the cold war.1035

1032 Williams, Peter Brook and The Mahabharata, 174. 1033 Billington, "Krishna Comes to the City of the Popes." 1034 Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays (New York: Harper Perennial, 1982), 17. 1035 It is of great importance to note that The Mahabharata is about history of mankind which encourages one to contemplate the questions of world creation and destruction, the role of the

210 Thus the concept of an explosion in the play, The Mahabharata, was congruous with the history and the character of the place of performance. The ‘bowl’ of the quarry surrounded by the tall cliffs under the dark, silent sky created an atmosphere of awe in the immediate presence of the cataclysmic explosion. In the marathon version of The Mahabharata, played literarily from dusk till dawn, the explosion occurred early in the morning just before sunrise. In the three-part version played over three consecutive evenings, the explosion happened very late at the acme of the night. This prominent event, in both cases, created an intense and immediate action that instilled alertness in the darkness of the quarry, enhancing the audience’s experience and enabling the spectators to participate more intensely in the event through their senses. The pungent smoke initially engulfed the whole stage and the audience area. The audience could observe the white smoke swirling around the quarry before it started to rise gradually and eventually disappeared over the rim of the quarry in the sky. The slow, sinuous movement of the rising smoke had a ‘dispersal ritual and metaphorical presence’.1036 The sound of the explosion echoed in the space of the quarry and the rock seemed and was felt to be resonating after the blast. The space of the quarry with the high cliffs amplified the sound and the bowl-shaped, natural amphitheatre preserved the sound for some time after the explosion.

Durational Experience – Imagination in the Stone Quarry

The performance started at eight o’clock in the evening as soon as the sun disappeared behind the ‘jagged quarry-face’, and it ended at the break of dawn.1037 The ‘unforgettable experience’ in The Mahabharata can be likened to

human kind in the world, the relationship of humans and the universe and when and how the world will come to an end. It is not the first time the connection between today's superweapons and the apocalyptic imagery of Indian literature has been made. The famous quotation from the Bhagavadgita (a section in Mahabharata), which was cited by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project after the first atomic test: “Behold, I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.” See Robert J. Oppenheimer, Trinity Test, Atomic Archive (Retrieved May 23, 2008), 1965. This also all seems to related to The Chained One, where the making of weapons by the blacksmiths is connected strangely to the light within all of us. 1036 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010. 1037 "Peter Brook Directs a Sanskrit Epic." New York Times.

211 those ritual events in Athens in the 5th century BC.1038 Anthony Curtis describes that “nine hours is a long time, admittedly, to be sitting still watching characters whose name you can not pronounce and whose ancestry is obscure doing horrible things to each other, but with a magician such as Brook in charge it passes like a dream.”1039

Beginning with the audience’s journey to reach the place of performance at sunset until the ‘last illusion’ of paradise, the spectators experienced different rhythms of the plot throughout the night. The captivating story of the ‘cycle of human affairs’ and the rhythm of the narrative drew the audience and allowed the spectators to forget the tiredness and discomfort.1040 The audience’s sacrifice made by sitting in the quarry on the same place for nine hours to see and experience the performance of a massive Indian epic while exposed to the elements under the open, night sky in the presence of the moon and stars allowed for the development of a special relationship between the spectators, the actors, the place and the creation of the world.

The paramount journey throughout the night took its toll on the eye, ears and mind as the spectators were overwhelmed by the epic poem.1041 Yet, no one in the audience was able to stop watching because the narrative itself had “a poignant human dimension as well as a sense of cosmic upheaval.”1042 To stay up the whole night in the stone quarry to watch the performance was “a rare experience and beyond words.”1043 Brook has stated that the audience “received something that was extraordinary.”1044 For anyone who ventures to face the marathon version of The Mahabharata, his or her customs and ‘patterns are broken’. As the story unfolds, the intellectual forms of the energy gradually diminish as one liberates

1038 Billington, "Krishna Comes to the City of the Popes." 1039 Anthony Curtis, "The Mahabharata/Avignon Festival," Financial Times, Jul. 16, 1985. 1040 Billington, "Krishna Comes to the City of the Popes." 1041 Hill, "Brook Goes Quarrying for Eternal Verities." 1042 Billington, "Krishna Comes to the City of the Popes." 1043 Sunil Kothari, "Avignon Bells Ring for Mahabharata," India Weekly, London, Jul. 25, 1985. 1044 Jonathan Kalb, "The Mahabharata Twenty-Five Years Later: Peter Brook in conversation with Jonathan Kalb," Journal of Performance and Art, no. 96 (2010).

212 his or her mind from rationality.1045 This condition activates the imagination and offers a collective experience with respect to the concepts of “birth, death, love, hate, war and peace.”1046

Brook describes that it was not their intention to duplicate the story and restore the symbolism of Hindu philosophy in the performance of The Mahabharata. In the performance, the music, costume design, choreography and configuration of the movements attempted to only suggest the ‘flavour of India’.1047 No effort was made to veritably present ‘ethnic realism’1048 and the form Brook used was not “that of the Indian stage with its traditional rites.”1049 While western theatre has become “increasingly dominated by the scenic designer and by the new apostles of sound and light technology,”1050 Brook’s theatre has employed imagination, “not by décor and scenery and realistic detail but by evocation and suggestion.”1051 For instance, an outstretched silk sheet can become a lake; an unrolled carpet with a vase at each corner can represent a royal bed; a heavy wheel can suggest a chariot;1052 terrible battles can be suggested by a few bamboo sticks, straw screens and whirling ladders.1053 One can “trace the flight of the mimed arrows, and visualize the horses from the sight of chariot drivers whipping a single heavy wheel over the desert.”1054 The stage setup was ‘an imitation’ of a Shakespearean theatre with a succinct and vibrant ‘chronicling of history’.1055 “Simplicity contribute[d] to the spell, but it’s a deceptive simplicity, the product of extreme sophistication honed down to purity of presentation, language and technique.”1056 Carrière and Brook eliminated secondary stories to an extent that

1045 Williams, Personal communication the author, Nov. 2010. 1046 Hill, "Brook Goes Quarrying for Eternal Verities." 1047 Williams, Peter Brook and The Mahabharata, 44. 1048 "Peter Brook Directs a Sanskrit Epic." New York Times. 1049 Curtiss, "Brook’s Indian Epic." 1050 Michael Smith, "All Humanity in just 9 Hours," The Age, Melbourne, Feb.16, 1988. 1051 Ibid. 1052 Ibid. See also Carrière, Interviews with author, this thesis, 246. 1053 Catherine Lockerbie, "Epic Spell-Binder," The Scotsman, Glasgow, Apr. 19, 1988 1054 Wardle, "Images of Tenderness, Triumph and Death." 1055 Curtiss, "Brook’s Indian Epic." 1056 Lockerbie, "Epic Spell-Binder.".

213 the focus was on “lucid storytelling, simple magic, the evocation of the universal through the particular.”1057 The surface of the cliffs did not ‘trap the imagination’ of the audience, but with its temporal and suggestive appearance, the quarry offered an environment which was compatible with the spirit of the play. The spatial character of the quarry matched the fertility and vitality of the scenes embodying “choreography of enchanting fluidity”1058and Brook’s determination to not impose images, but instead preserve conditions which stimulated the imagination and left an opening for each person’s own interpretation. The performance’s “long-term effect is the imprint [of] images of tenderness, triumph, and death that lodge in the memory for ever.”1059

3.3. Eleven and Twelve

After investigating Orghast and The Mahabharata that were produced in the second half of the twentieth century, it is important to explore Brook’s theatrical creation in the twenty-first century. At the age of eighty-five, Peter Brook created a theatrical performance Eleven and Twelve based on the novel Life and Teachings of Tierno Bokar: The Sage of Bandiagara by Amadou Hampaté Bâ.1060 The story is based on Tierno Bokar Saalif Tall (1875–1939) who was a Sufi mystic and an Islamic spiritual teacher in a small African town of Bandiagara in Mali. He became renowned for his teachings of religious tolerance and universal love. During a religious conflict in the Sufi community, he decided to diffuse the tension by siding with his opponent, Cherif Hamallah, for which he was severely criticized and ostracized by his family and followers.1061 The life story of Bokar was documented by Amadou Hampaté Bâ (1901-1991), a Malian writer and ethnologist. Hampaté Bâ, born into an aristocrat family, initially attended Bokar’s

1057 "Peter Brook Directs a Sanskrit Epic." New York Times. 1058 Singh, "The Second Coming of the Mahabharata." 1059 Wardle, "Images of Tenderness, Triumph and Death." 1060 See Amadou Bâ Hampaté, Vie et Enseignement de Tierno Bokar: Le Sage de Bandiagara (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1980). 1061 Michael Billington, "11 and 12," Guardian, Feb. 12, 2010.

214 school before being transferred into a French school. He was greatly inspired by Bokar, who later became his spiritual master. The play Eleven and Twelve embodies ideas on space and performance spawned from Brook’s rich experience. As he has many times before, Brook presents to the audience, through a theatrical creation, a mystical story of bygone times that resonates and relates to the present as though re-lived here and now, at this very moment. The novel was adapted into a theatrical performance by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne and produced by the Barbican Centre, Bouffes du Nord and the Grotowski Institute. The English-language version of Eleven and Twelve1062 premiered at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris in November of 2009.1063 After the Bouffes du Nord, the performance embarked on a tour starting at the Barbican Centre in London1064 and then continuing to Poland, New Zealand, Spain, Singapore, South Korea and Australia. The whole play was performed by a group of seven actors of different religious and ethnic backgrounds: Middle Eastern, African, and European.

3.3.1. The Narrative of Eleven and Twelve

The book1065 reveals the captivating story of Tierno Bokar, a renowned Sufi sage, who was the spiritual master of the author Amadou Hampaté Bâ. Born and brought up in a traditional village in Western Africa, Amadou studied Islam and learned the Koran during his childhood and youth from the great master Tierno Bokar. After the French invasion, Amadou was forced to enter French school and, afterwards, work as an administrator for a French colonial institution. Amadou set the story of the novel in the 1930s, trying to capture and illustrate the social, political and cultural upheaval brought upon a small, peaceful city in the heart of Mali by the French colonial power. The story centres on the religion, that of Islam,

1062 The French version of Eleven and Twelve was premiered in the Bouffes du Nord four years earlier in 2005. 1063 The account of the play at the Bouffes du Nord was documented by the author in forty episodes. See this thesis, Appendix. 1064 See Peter Lamborn Wilson, "Making Room For The Mystery: Peter Brook’s Tierno Bokar," Parabola 30, no. 30, (Fall 2005). 1065 See Bâ Hampaté, Vie et Enseignement de Tierno Bokar.

215 that was exploited by the colonizers to create a rift in an otherwise harmonious, congenial community, leading to the demise of many of its inhabitants. In the opening scene, an actor playing Amadou looks incredulously at a bead – a prayer bead – which he holds between his index finger and thumb. He questions how such a small, seemingly insignificant bead can cause so much hatred, violence, cruelty and slaughter; he continues to reveal to the audience that he saw with his own eyes how this tiny particle got bigger and bigger and bigger, metamorphosing into a bomb. Then the play starts to draw the story of two African tribes during the time of French colonialist ambitions. What are the numbers ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’? The number ‘Eleven’ and the number ‘Twelve’ represent two schools of thought, two ‘abstract figures’ which embody mysterious divine concepts. One Sufi tribe believes that a particular prayer should be repeated ELEVEN times during the prayer, the other believes it should be repeated TWELVE times. Before this seemingly unimportant discrepancy can get resolved, the revered wisest man, a leader of both tribes, dies. Which one is the true number: ‘eleven’ or ‘twelve’? And so the seed of quarrel has been insidiously planted in the hearts of the people.

Haphazardly, the French colonial rule embraces the number ‘twelve’, requiring the Sufi sage Cherif Hamallah to renounce the number ‘eleven’. He disobeys the arbitrary law, refusing to honour the number ‘twelve’, as he does not find any difference between praying eleven or twelve times. Consequently, Cherif Hamallah is exiled by the French authorities. Meanwhile, the French colonizers persuade the followers of these two groups of the importance of the difference, stressing the gravity of improper prayer. Discussions around the numbers ‘eleven’ and ‘twelve’ flare up, followed by skirmishes and violence. Aiming to solve the dispute, the Sufi sage Tierno Bokar takes Cherif Hamallah’s side and converts to the number ‘eleven’ in order to highlight the triviality and non-essentiality of the difference between the numbers of prayers recited. Influenced by the French colonial powers, his own family disowns Tierno Bokar and all the followers of his tribe castigate him. Determined, the two Sufi sages elect to tolerate the injustice

216 and severe punishment imposed on them not only by the French colonialists but also by their own people. They vow to support one another to the very end and even to forgo their lives should the circumstances arise. Stemming from a trifle prayer variation, the story leads us towards destruction and annihilation. The theme of Eleven and Twelve, Brook points out, “vividly illuminates the question that concerns us all - the power of violence and the true nature of a tolerance that is more powerful still.”1066

3.3.2. The Play at the Bouffes du Nord

The main scenographic elements of Eleven and Twelve consisted of a sand-filled stage, a non-traditional carpet woven from crimson yarn, three wooden statuettes of trees with wheeled bases, a loose piece of ochre-coloured rug and a few fragments of wood. The enigmatic architectural space of the Bouffes du Nord theatre offered a backdrop to this seemingly simple display that expressively and sensuously participated in the scenography of the play. The aged, stained walls of the theatre, the height of the ceiling, the cauldron of a place with its inimitable sound qualities, the lights, colours and shades all connoted the engaging conditions for shaping the narrative of Eleven and Twelve.

In Eleven and Twelve, the red carpet was placed in the middle of the first acting area with the trees on wheels situated inside or outside of the limits of the carpet (see Figure 3.4). The sand was mainly strewn around the edges of the carpet but also in the center and underneath it. Sand was also randomly scattered in the second acting area beyond the prominent proscenium arch. There was no clear design for the arrangement of sand in either of the acting areas. The pattern of the sand changed every day after each rehearsal and after each play. The trees were moved about during the performance and their position changed according to the narrative of the play. The few wooden elements were mostly grouped around the

1066 Peter Brook, "Eleven and Twelve: A theatrical research by Peter Brook," Internal Bulletin of Theatre des Bouffes du Nord, (Fall 2009), 15.

217 carpet, and were moved onto it at various occasions throughout the play. The back of the stage, in the vicinity of the majestic arch, was where the ochre- coloured rug found its place.

Figure 3.4: The stage layout with a carpet and three statuettes of threes before the performance of Eleven and Twelve in the Bouffes du Nord.

The carpet, present on an empty stage, is surrounded by the semi-circle of the audience (see Figure 3.5); in the right-hand corner of the stage, just in front of the spectators, the sound composer Toshi Tsuchiotori1067 sat on the floor with his musical instruments. He used different instruments in Eleven and Twelve, many of which come from the East. Tsuchitori, possessing familiarity with Eastern origins and knowledge, created not just music, but also a collection of sounds that reverberated within the walls of the Bouffes du Nord, depending on each specific episode of the play with all of their singular incidents and dramatic occurrences.1068 During the play, the sound, along with the ground surfaces, the walls and the stage settings and objects (the carpet, sand, trees, etc.), related to one another in unison. What is called scenography in Eleven and Twelve is not just a matter of composition or adding objects inside of a delimited place; it is

1067 Toshi Tsuchitori worked with Peter Brook for many years in the capacity of music composer and player. 1068 The occurrences of different sounds created by various musical instruments are followed in Episodes of the play. See this thesis, Appendix.

218 about the interconnection of elements and objects within the space and the story of the performance, creating significant environments or atmospheres that resonate with the qualities of particular and appropriate emotive characteristics.

Figure 3.5: The stage of the Bouffes du Nord before the performance of Eleven and Twelve.

Threads of Silence, Poverty, Destruction and Life

The theatre of Bouffes du Nord becomes resonant with the play. The relationship between the play and the theatre cannot be thought of as absolute because scores of different plays have been performed there and the play itself was performed at many different places around the world after its opening at the Bouffes du Nord. However, it is crucial to mention that the architecture of the theatre is intimately in consonance with the architectural dimension of Brook’s performance Eleven and Twelve, as has been the case of so many other plays since 1974. Through Brook’s creation the threads of narrative, place and play are interwoven, allowing the audience to participate in a temporal experience of the space, narrative and performance as a whole.

The play Eleven and Twelve profits from the very fundamental quality of the Bouffes du Nord, which is ostensibly ‘biased’ toward the vertical dimension. The

219 ceiling is high, as if absent, which allows the theatre to feel intimate, yet equipped with immense sound qualities and potentials. The walls of the theatre offer vertical surfaces which both visually and audibly interact with any play performed in the theatre. In Eleven and Twelve, the walls were expressively involved in the play. At the beginning of the performance, after the unexpected sound of a tam- tam broke the silence,1069 the walls of the theatre allowed the sound to reverberate through the space long after the tam-tam had stopped; the surfaces of the walls and ceiling reflected the sound waves directly back, allowing the sound to be more vibrant and more alive in the space. The powerful sound of the tam-tam was intensified and amplified by the walls which acted as a sound board.

In Episode 32,1070 Tierno Bokar described his dream to Cherif Hamallah, after which he utters: “la elaha ella llah (there is no deity except God).” Tsuchitori, the sound composer, also begins to chant la elaha ella llah and, at the same time, he created a pulsating wave of sound with his violin. The incantation and the sound of the instrument reverberated, as though sacredly, through the space of the theatre. The phrase la elaha ella llah was one of the key expressions during the performance that conveyed an important message embedded in the core of Tierno Bokar’s teachings. Because of the acoustic qualities and the height of the theatre, the sound and the chanting were experienced from a distance very close to the audience, and the meaning of the message could be felt with great intensity. The chant filled the volume of the theatre and the sound bouncing between the walls accentuated the image of Tierno’s dream in the play. The verticality of the walls and their distance from one another created a prolonged vibration of sound in the space, which was instrumental in conveying particular meanings in the narrative.

Near the end of the performance, the audience could hear lucidly a mournful, sorrowful song by Tsuchitori which spread out through the entire volume of the Bouffes du Nord. The song was then followed by a long, striking silence.1071

1069 See Episode 1, 267. 1070 See Episode 32, 292. 1071 See Episode 40, 301.

220 Brook emphasizes the ‘degree of silence’ that a performance can offer.1072 The importance of silence could be intimately felt in this scene: the created silence was alive and interactive.1073 The theatre itself, with its walls surrounding the empty space of the stage, enhanced the quality of silence. Because of the remarkable acoustic quality of the theatre, the walls embrace the silence created at the end of the play. Due to the equal depth/height proportions of the theatre, the sound travels uniformly in space. This is also true for silence as it is ‘propagated’ equally through the space; the silence advances symmetrically, with equal quality horizontally and vertically, engulfing the entire audience. Jean-Guy Lecat points out that silence at the Bouffes du Nord is not merely an absence of noise but is an active entity. 1074 It is (a) silence that offers “openness to different possibilities.”1075 It becomes alive and its presence can be felt by the spectators, leading them to think of the narrative on the one hand, and their own stories in contemporary time on the other hand. Brook believes that Eleven and Twelve is not only a remarkable, dramatic narrative, but it is also close thematically to many people. 1076 The long-lasting, dramatic, moving silence at the end of the performance offers a moment of confrontation with one’s inner-self as well as with respect to others and to what is happening in the world. In Eleven and Twelve, the ‘animated silence’ affects our perception and is a powerful gateway through which the spectator’s mind transits from the temporality of the scene to contemplation of his/her own contemporary existence: justice and injustice; good and evil; tragedy and comedy and so on.

The story of Eleven and Twelve ventured deep into the African continent to a small peaceful village that became subject to a religious strife. From the very beginning of the play, the set veritably emulated the essence of African village life. The scenographic elements offered an image of a ‘poor stage’ that was

1072 Brook, There Are No Secrets, 35,36. 1073 For discourse on silence with respect to Brook’s theatre, refer to this thesis, 1.5.4. Expression of Silence, 89. 1074 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 30. 1075 Ibid., 27. 1076 Peter Brook, "Director’s Note," Cite 10: Program of 11 and 12 for Barbican Theatre, London, (February 2010), 6.

221 compatible with the poor living conditions in a small African village. The theatre itself does not, with its ruined appearance, contradict the ‘poor state’ of the African life; as a whole, the theatre reflects Brook’s direction toward asceticism and desire to create conditions close to a ‘poor theatre’.1077 Bouffes du Nord offers an unobtrusive backdrop, a neutral preface to the play that does not impose any formal manifestation; instead it complements the scenography and allows the audience to focus on and connect with poor, traditional, African village life throughout the play. The audience is immersed in the created ‘poor’ place whose character is in resonance with the narrative. The frugal seating arrangements for the audience formed by fold-out chairs and wooden benches seamlessly convey the ideas of functionality and Spartan asceticism.1078 The theme of poverty and austerity that echoes within narrative, play and theatrical place also intertwines with the audience’s physical experience of unembellished, comfortless seats.

‘Destruction’ is a theme that resounds throughout the narrative and the play. As the observer moves through the scenes progressively, cruel conflicts arise between two religious factions – followers of ‘Eleven’ and followers of ‘Twelve’ – and disagreements eventually escalate and “lead to massacres and to martyrdom.”1079 A tragic and horrifying moment takes place in a graphic scene1080 when followers of ‘Twelve’ burn the feet of a member of ‘Eleven’; it is a scene filled with screams and pain that eventually leads to an annihilating war between the two groups. The carpet becomes a battlefield and a place of war and destruction. The violent scene is further intensified by the vehement percussion of Tsuchitori on his instruments.1081 A plume of dust and sand in the air generated by the intense, violent fight vividly conveys the image of a battle. In another scene, the audience is witness to a scene of destruction and the demise of Amadou’s former commanders.1082 The character of Amadou sees each of his former commanders

1077 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 243. 1078 Williams, "A Place Marked by Life," 41. 1079 Brook, "Eleven and Twelve: A theatrical research by Peter Brook," 2. 1080 See Episode 34, 294. 1081 Billington, "11 and 12." 1082 See Episode 26, 287.

222 in a horrific situation: falling, fainting or dying. The military commanders, previous figures of great power, are now scattered on the carpet, each facing a dreadful situation and imminent death. The wooden logs, laid down on the carpet, accentuate the meaning of downfall and demise.

Besides the obvious physical expressions of destruction, like those of the battle between the religious groups or the downfall of the commanders, there are other forms of destruction that are more subtle and inconspicuous. The colonization of a poor African country leads to corruption and erosion of the traditional, moral values of the African people. By choosing arbitrarily the ‘correct’ number of prayer repetitions, ‘Twelve’ over ‘Eleven’, the French government deliberately creates a division in a peaceful Moslem community. The population, unable to deal with the religious disparity, is forced to “live through its frightening contradictions.”1083

The sand scattered on and around the carpet traces the footsteps of savage battles and devastating wars that occurred through the play. The sense of demolition is embedded within the space of the theatre itself, where it metaphorically relates to the experience of death and destruction in the narrative and the play. When the theatre was first discovered, it was in a process of ruination due to disrepair and fire damage. Brook likened the state of the theatre to “a bomb site.”1084 During renovations, an effort was made not to erase the memory of fire or hide the signs of destruction in the place. And thus, the theatre preserves its ruined quality (see Figure 3.6). The walls still bear witness of neglect and the dilapidation of the past, with cracks running each and every way and stains tracing maps of imaginary continents. The “traces of a decadent aristocracy in decline are in evidence in the theatre.”1085 Throughout the theatre, wall surfaces have crumbled away, exposing the layers below. On the back wall of the theatre, a sinuous crack has ventured from the bottom to the top. The paint also accentuates the decrepit state of

1083 Brook, "Director’s Note," 6. 1084 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 6. 1085 Williams, "A Place Marked by Life," 40.

223 Bouffes du Nord. The reddish color of walls changes gradually to light ochre and then returns back to red, highlighting the cracks and stains on the walls. The back wall reveals peeled layers of colours as if this wall has been created piece by piece, colour by colour. It is “scarred and pitted by the wear and tear of the years, like an aged human face.”1086

Figure 3.6: The prominent proscenium arch in the Bouffes du Nord divides the stage into two acting areas.

Although the quality of destruction is unequivocally embedded in the theatre, the space is enigmatically very much ‘alive;’ the theatre ceaselessly lives at the ‘present moment’ and offers a ground for creation. It is impregnated with life or, as Williams suggests, “marked by life.”1087 The walls feel full of life and one has the impression that if one puts a hand on the wall it would go ‘through’ into an imaginary world. Life and death are two entangled entities in the space of this theatre. As one observes the quality of ruination in the space, at the same time, the space offers a state of rejuvenation. The walls were painted and repainted many times. In certain areas, the walls have again started to decolourize, being ready for a new layer of a fresh paint. Age and decay of one layer contrast with renovation

1086 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 242. 1087 Williams, "A Place Marked by Life," 40.

224 and rebirth of a different layer. The theatre “bears the marks of transition from an old to a new world […] we are witness to the death of one kind of tradition and its forms; yet they are visible signs of the birth of another form of life.”1088 This reconciliation of life and death in the poetic imagery of the theatre and the plot of the drama reveal space as a transient state, a state of transformation that inevitably conveys the temporality of the place.

The question of transition and temporality – between life and death – becomes the nucleus of the narrative of Eleven and Twelve. The play demonstrates ‘a process of a spiritual quest’.1089 Near the end of the play when Cherif Hamallah is arrested and interrogated by the French guards,1090 Cherif is mocked by an officer to whom he answers a question with “enna lelah va ena elayhe rajeoon (we are all from God and we all return to God).” This sentence represents a key concept of Cherif Hamallah’s and Tierno Bokar’s beliefs. They see this world as a transitional state that is only a passage to a new, true life. Since for them the world is a temporal place, they accept all the pressure imposed on them and tolerate the hardship, injustice and punishment brought upon them by the French. This is why the concept of tolerance, as a human virtue, becomes very crucial in the narrative. Cherif and Tierno sacrifice their lives “in the name of a supreme tolerance that can encompass violence with an ever greater power.”1091 Their minds are free and detached from the materialistic world and, as such, their spirit is not attached to any specific place in this world. The transitional state and perception of our being as a threshold leading one to a new life – discernable through thoughts of the two spiritual masters in the drama – is experienced bodily by the spectators: the events unfold in a space imbued with temporality, a sense of impermanence and the fleetingness of life, and a condition is set up in which the spectators can partake in the play’s catharsis and experience sacredness in a secular world.

1088 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 242. 1089 Wilson, "Making Room For The Mystery," 90. 1090 See Episode 35, 296. 1091 Brook, "Director’s Note," 6.

225 Ephemeral Place Creation – Events and ‘Lines of Force’

Scenographically, the story unfolds through forty different episodes using only a few elements; there is no curtain and the entire experience happens in full view of the spectators.1092 As the audience is presented with the events and incidents of the play, many movements and rearrangements of the scenographic objects on the carpet complement the action: actors and narrators enter and exit the red carpet and its limits; the three abstract tree props move from outside to inside of the carpet and vice versa; the wooden logs are brought inside and outside of the carpet and rearranged to create different patterns; the shape of sand changes through the play. The audience sees “a distillation of a particular world accomplished by pure craftsmanship.”1093 The carpet creates a zone, a horizontal surface wherein most of the action takes place accompanied by many movements and rearrangements.

By exploring the episodes in Eleven and Twelve, it is evident that the plot has been crafted through rhythmical movements of objects and actors inside and outside of the carpet limits.1094 The carpet, situated in the empty space of the theatre, provides an empty zone in which the play can develop. Intermittently, the spectators can perceive the creation of different places through the choreography of trees, objects and acting. The trees are repositioned through a balanced relationship to one another and with a compatible arrangement to the events and incidents of the play. The human figures change their location and, at times, new objects are brought in and the present objects reconfigured. The carpet is inextricably connected to all these elements and offers a welcoming surface to

1092 When the spectators enter the theatre they become immediately aware of the empty space of the theatre auditorium. Just before the play commences, the space of theatre is immersed in silence that allows one to contemplate the presence of the few objects in the space of theatre. There is a humble and pure character of the scene that can be perceived through these objects: for example the simple and yet profound gesture of the carpet laid out on the floor as it portrays a purely horizontal dimensions in a space accentuated by the unadorned floor of the theatre. On the other hand, the three elements of trees act as vertical gestures in the space, emphasized by the verticality of the walls of the auditorium. 1093 Billington, "11 and 12." 1094 For tracking the flow of the movements, refer to this thesis, Appendix.

226 host various object movements, positions and meanings in the performance. With the presence of the carpet and other objects, and through movement and the act of theatre, Brook consecutively establishes thirty new places during the performance.1095

… A ground for storytelling … A religious public place (a mosque) … A ground for narration … An outdoor meeting place … A school … A playground … A French territory … A place of education … The outdoor space of a mosque … A home … A river … A trench … A river … A ground for narration … A French governmental office … A ground for storytelling … A home … An official military place … A place related to commanders … Two homes … A commander’s office … A ground for narration … A home … The yard belonging to the home … A ground for meeting … A place of war … A place for narration … A sinister governmental place … A place for narration … A mosque … A cemetery

These observations on the creation of different places through the choreography of trees, objects and human figures in relation to the carpet and the walls indicate a significant characteristic of the play Eleven and Twelve: constantly shaping the

1095 The created places listed above are in chronological order as we move from beginning to the end of the story.

227 events and narrative sequences of the play by establishing transitory places.1096 The role of the carpet here is absolutely crucial: like the Elizabethan stage, the carpet portrays a platform, an open stage, a free space for re-creating life.1097 As Brook states, “if you say on the carpet we are at sea, we ‘are’ at sea. The next moment, a person says we are in a forest, we ‘are’ in a forest.”1098 The audience, with the help of a few movements and actions, can enter different places; in the absence of theatrical conventions, the set does not resist the play of imagination.1099

One could point out that in architecture, we may not necessarily have an empty space and ‘are told’ that it is a forest, or a home, or a sea… However, the issue important for architecture in this context is not to somehow ‘read’ the character of the spaces in the play through simple elements on the stage/carpet. Rather, what is crucial here from an architectural perspective is the underlying poetic image created through human dwelling. The ground established by the carpet within the space of the theatre partakes of that quality of a space – a ‘free space’ – which, as David Williams suggests, frees and activates the imagination of the spectators.1100 It is essential to emphasise how Brook’s theatre makes sense in the present and, in this way, becomes very important for architects.

The stage of the Bouffes du Nord is an ‘empty space’ in Brook’s sense that offers ideal conditions for the creation of different places. The empty space and the walls of the theatre conform and adapt harmoniously to the formation of different places and facilitate the fluid changes of scenery. The open space of the Bouffes du Nord can be described as open to transformation;1101 it does not impose any formal restrictions on the play. The ‘temporality and openness’ of the space in the theatre enables and encourages spectators to vividly imagine newly created places.

1096 The notion of place-making is not a new concept in Brook’s theatre. What is remarkable here and distinguishes Eleven and Twelve is that only by simple rearrangement of a few objects, different places are immediately created on the stage. 1097 "Conversation between Peter Brook and Peter Stein," 5. 1098 Ibid. 1099 Ibid. 1100 Williams, A Free Space Frees. 1101 Williams, A Theatrical Casebook, 242.

228 Through this fluidity and elasticity of the space, the scenography and the performance, a complex and emotion-filled story of colonial exploitation and religious intolerance that changes a peaceful, harmonious community into a cruel, violent, intolerant society is being told. The ephemeral creation of place in Eleven and Twelve relates to the state of transition between decay and renewal in the space of the theatre and the theme of temporality embedded in the narrative of the play.

In Episode 19,1102 the carpet represents a place for storytelling. The two small trees are pushed to the sides of the carpet, next to the left and right edges. The bigger tree, rotated by 45 degrees, is placed close to the far edge of the carpet aligned with the small tree on the left. When Cherif Hamallah comes to the stage from the back left entrance, he enters on the carpet through the space between the small and the tall trees. After he passes in between the trees and steps on the carpet, he starts narrating. Through this action, the audience has no difficulty understanding that the carpet has become a ground for narration. The space between the trees becomes a threshold, a passage for entering this ground. The two trees standing close together generate an image of an entrance or an arch. Hence, Brook employs the principle of an entrance by aligning the two vertical elements of the trees in the far left corner of the carpet, creating a doorway through which the actors enter the play.

Just after this scene in Episode 20, 1103 the audience witnesses a different arrangement of the trees and experiences the creation of a governmental office. It is imperative to explore signs, hints and clues through which the spectators recognize the transformation of the place. The three trees are placed next to one another in a line close and in parallel with the far border of the carpet. There are two wooden logs that are laid between the trees: one end leaning against the middle tree while the other end rests on the ground. A chair brought in by a

1102 See Episode 19, 279. 1103 See Episode 20, 280.

229 military officer is situated on the right side of the carpet; and one wooden log is placed on the left side of the carpet.1104 The gesturing, mannerisms and expression of the officer, who furiously steps onto the carpet and sits on the chair resting his legs upon the wooden log, introduce a place that is under the full control and power of the French officer. The encircling of the officer with sand by one of his servants is a dramatic representation of safety, defence and protection, and is a symbol of authority and dominance in a place that belongs to the military commander. The skeletons of the three abstract vertical figures of the trees standing in a row on the upper edge of the carpet are the most important transmitters of the image of a governmental office. The close distance between the trees allows them to represent a ‘vertical surface’ or a section of a ‘solid wall’. The two wooden logs placed between the trees instil the sense of a secured wall: a wall that protects the place from harm and shields it against intrusion, displaying the defensive attributes of this place. The wall also exemplifies the severe, cruel character of the place and, within the context of the play, complements the scenography. While in Episode 19, the two trees on the left portrayed an entrance to a zone for storytelling, in Episode 20, by building an imaginary wall with the three vertical elements of trees and the logs between them, Brook creates a secure, fortified perimeter and sets up the premise of a governmental office.

The play Eleven and Twelve is filled with occasions when the trees are repositioned and with the help of acting and the narrative a different meaning and atmosphere are created. Another example of such a transition takes place between Episodes 13 and 14. In Episode 13,1105 the two small trees are situated on the left and right side of the upper border, just outside the carpet limits; the tall tree is stationed near the centre of the carpet. The trees portray architectural elements1106 that together create a triangle which points toward the audience, forming a focal point where Tierno sits down encircled by his students. Through the action and

1104 This wooden log represents a vertical element, a column standing at the edge of this place. 1105 See Episode 13, 273. For the arrangements of the trees see page 271. 1106 The three tree elements could also represents three real trees in an outdoor space related to Tierno.

230 tree arrangement, the carpet illustrates a place of ‘learning and education’. In Episode 14,1107 the meaning of the place is changed by repositioning the trees. The two small trees are moved to either side of the tall tree to form a row parallel with the lower and upper edges of the carpet. A group of devout men align themselves with the tree line. The row of the trees emphasizes the meaning of the place as a mosque and engages spectator’s attention on the row of religious men standing and praying next to one another. The image of a line of trees spaced at an equal distance from one another and the supplicants standing in a line in front of them encourages the audience to perceive the row of the trees as an array of columns and to imagine the architectural layout of a mosque. By rearranging and aligning the vertical tree elements and actors in lines, Brook changes the character of the place from a place dedicated to learning to one dedicated to prayers; he establishes the principle characteristic of a mosque.

Transformation of the character of place, contributed profoundly by the movement and positioning of the trees inside and outside of the carpet, is a crucial characteristic of Eleven and Twelve. This is relevant to architecture wherein the observer becomes imaginatively responsible for the momentary reconciliation of language and place. The performance lasts about one hundred minutes, during which the position of the trees changes about twenty times; each time the trees are rearranged, a new place and a new meaning is established through action. What make this possible are the exemplary live and dynamic relationships between tree props and the carpet in the context of dramatic action. Through practice and rehearsals, Brook and his ensembles explored ‘good relations, tensions, and lines of forces’1108 between these entities. As Brook postulates, “each good relations – which is among the many possible relations that can be discovered – from any perspective look right; whenever the spectators sit or move the good relation will be dynamic.”1109 Through an intimate, balanced relationship between the tree elements and the carpet in the space of the theatre, the spectators are transported

1107 See Episode 14, 274. 1108 Brook, Interview with author. 1109 Ibid.

231 to different places in accordance with the action and the events of the play. One could also suggest another important observation regarding the tree movement in the performance and their role in the creation of new transitory places. Brook reminds us of the importance of the location of objects; by moving an object, the meaning around it changes in perception, revealing the primary reality of qualitative place and challenging a scientific (post-Galilean) understanding of space.

The creation of the place in Eleven and Twelve is achieved by other means than the trees, as their position does not change in some scenes, but a new place is created by other objects and/or through acting. In Episode 15,1110 through actions and gestures, the audience realizes that the layout on the carpet portrays Tierno’s private place. In the next episode, Episode 16,1111 Amadou is to cross the river. A large blanket, folded in half with the open side up, is transformed into a boat. The carpet beneath the blanket becomes a river, across which Amadou is carried in the boat. The carpet comes to represent a new meaning and a new place with the help of an object and the actors’ movements that transform the character of the carpet from a private place to a river. In Episode 2,1112 Amadou enters the stage and begins his narration. The carpet suggests a ground for storytelling where Amadou stands isolated on the carpet. In the next scene, Episode 3,1113 the position of the trees does not change, but a group of five men sits on the carpet, gathering for a prayer with their master. The carpet is transformed by the image of the pious men to a religious, public place (similar to that of a mosque). Another example of place creation is in Episode 24.1114 The scene of the officer sitting on the chair with his feet placed on the log conveys a place of authority and power. In Episode 25,1115 four logs, placed on the carpet vertically to form a semicircle, serve as

1110 See Episode 15, 275. 1111 See Episode 16, 276. 1112 See Episode 2, 268. 1113 See Episode 3, 269. 1114 See Episode 24, 284. 1115 See Episode 25, 286.

232 stools for Amadou’s former commanders. The scene becomes a flashback to Amadou’s past and the carpet becomes a ground for reminiscence.

One should perhaps underline that the elements of the scenography would not characterize space if it were not for actions and dialogues of the actors and audience’s perception. In fact, the “meaning” of the “architectural signs” is dependent on the dramatic plot within the participatory space of theatre. This issue addresses the question of architecture: its meaning is not independent and autonomous but it depends on the narrative – not only the narrative of the architectural programme, but also the narrative and action taking places within it. It is us and the world around that give meaning to architecture. There is a reciprocal contribution between us (as observers/participants) and the architecture, between the world and architecture for the generation of meaning.

Thickness and Depth Created Through an Event

The flowing, yielding quality of theatre space, stage set-up (or mise en scène) and its relation to action and the audience’s participation during the play can also be grasped through the notion of depth (horizontality and verticality) and its temporal emergence in the performance. In Episode 16,1116 Amadou is supposed to cross the river in a boat made of a large folded blanket. The blanket is held by two men, and as Amadou gets in, the two actors start to gently rock the blanket, simulating the rocking of the boat. The boat starts moving slowly, suggesting that it is floating on the water. Here, the carpet represents the surface of a flowing river. Sand scattered on the carpet, with some areas devoid and some with copious amounts of sand, accentuates the texture of the current. The carpet, a planar object – without ostensible thickness – conveys the impression of a transparent layer suspended just above the stage.

1116 See Episode 16, 276.

233 In Episode 17,1117 the character of the carpet as an evanescent, suspended surface of flowing water abruptly changes. The carpet is transmogrified into a mass grave. It is crucial to examine how the planar character of the carpet is converted into a deep trench. In the play, Amadou and his companion lift the edge of the carpet closest to the audience while their bodies are obscured by the carpet. As the carpet edge is hoisted up, the carpet represents the vertical dimension of a trench. The creation of the trench is accompanied by Amadou’s narration explaining the character of the place to the audience. The floor underneath the lifted carpet is black with patches of scattered sand, representing a mass grave full of dead bodies. While the carpet portrays a vertical depth, the black sandy ground of the theatre becomes a surface with spatiality. The image of Amadou hiding behind the carpet edge accentuates the image of a foul place and stimulates the audience’s imagination at the same time that the carpet changes from a two-dimensional surface to a three dimensional space. In this episode, Brook exposes the possibility of interchanging the characteristics of horizontality and verticality in quick succession by a simple manipulation of the carpet. While in Episode 16 the carpet was initially a horizontal surface of water, moments later in Episode 17, it became a surface imbued with verticality, portraying the depth of the trench in the space of theatre; within the performance, the vertical dimension is created temporarily through an event in the space.1118 Thus, horizontal and vertical depth appears and disappears through the actions and happenings of the play.

Among the greatest features of the architecture of the Bouffes du Nord theatre relating to the events of the play is the horizontal depth of the stage. In Episode 38,1119 Tierno Bokar is near death. He sits next to the tree in the middle of the carpet, telling his last story about the butterflies. At this particular moment, the action feels as though it is unfolding very close to the audience. The scene of Tierno in the middle of the empty carpet surrounded by the semicircle of seated theatre-goers amplifies the proximity between the acting area and the audience.

1117 See Episode 17, 276. 1118 See this thesis, section on Carpet in the Desert, 46. 1119 See Episode 38, 298.

234 The walls and the height of the auditorium also intensify the intimacy between the action and the audience. In this particular scene, Brook created a ‘close-up’ image of the dying Tierno.

After Tierno finishes his story, he is brought to the tall tree situated in a space beyond the proscenium arch close to the back wall. As he is moved, with each step the distance between Tierno and the audience increases. While the area in front of the proscenium arch emphasizes the intimacy between the actors and spectators, creating a ‘close-up’ effect, the area beyond the proscenium arch distances them: by moving into it, the actors withdraw from the audience. The spectators are distanced from Tierno and he begins to be lost to them. The distance between the spectators and the back wall of the theatre is significant,1120 and when the action takes place in the volume behind the proscenium, the action feels far from the audience and retreats to a distant view. These are the features of the Bouffes du Nord theatre that Brook finds “very special and unique which is that in the natural structure of the space the depth is articulated. […] There is a new principle that could be used, which is that of a double-depth theatre space. The first area has its front and back surrounded by the semicircle of the audience; when an actor passes in front of the plane of the proscenium by a matter of only 2 metres there is an enormous gain in intimacy […] like going into close up. […] Then the second zone has the very back, the middle and front; but, because it is always framed, the impression of distance is greatly increased wherever one goes.”1121 These qualities of the stage are in accord with the nature of this particular scene. Tierno transmits his final message to the audience in the ‘close up’ view before retiring to his final resting place in ‘long-shot’ view.1122 The horizontal depth of the stage appears and feels greater as Tierno steps beyond the

1120 The depth of the stage is 17 meters. 1121 Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 26,27. 1122 Andrew Todd and Jean-Guy Lecat refer to this ‘cinematic fluidity’ in the Bouffes du Nord theatre thus: “the world of the play can be concentrated on the space in front of the proscenium arch; then the scale can be suddenly amplified by occupying the whole depth, or by changing the accent of lighting in the ‘back’ zone. The proscenium arch, rather than cutting off the world of the play, now has the role of a flexible threshold, a kind of diaphragm whose ‘focal length’ can be precisely controlled.” (Todd and Lecat, The Open Circle, 23).

235 proscenium arch and lies down. Brook manipulates these characteristics of the space in Eleven and Twelve to fashion a harmony between the double-depth quality of the theatre and the nature and meaning of the play.

Shadows, Surfaces and Sand

The back wall of the theatre beyond the proscenium arch as well as the side walls of the first acting area offer vertical surfaces where the shadows of objects and actors can be animated. In Episode 39,1123 Amadou and the grave-keeper leave the cemetery, while their shadows are projected first on the back wall and later on the right-side wall of the area beyond the proscenium arch. The shadows, several times larger than the actual height of the actors, follow the actors and gradually disappear as they slowly leave the stage. Brook uses the shadows on the walls to match the concept of temporality of time and space and to shape and emphasize key moments of the performance.

Sand, as one of the important scenographic elements in Eleven and Twelve, plays a role in shaping the plot. There is sand scattered on the carpet, under the carpet, around the carpet edges and on the ground beyond the proscenium arch.1124 The sand is scattered on the floor without any premeditated design. Unlike most of the props that are carefully placed and choreographed, the presence of sand is more improvised. During the performance and rehearsals, the sand moves and creates different, spontaneous shapes on the floor. Actors leave footprints in the sand when they enter, exit, or move through the sand-covered areas as part of the action: building temporal, enticing images on the black sandy ground. The spectators sitting at different vertical levels are likely to discover different shapes and patterns in the sand scattered on the dark floor.

1123 See Episode 39, 300. 1124 The sand distribution is mostly random. The sand is moved, pushed and redistributed during cleaning, rehearsals and performances.

236 In Episode 6,1125 Cherif Hamallah and an elder are involved in a conversation in the middle of the carpet. To substantiate the meaning of his words, Cherif draws letters and characters in the sand. Non-permanent and fluid, the shape of sand changes with writing, erasing and rewriting messages. This creates an ephemeral condition for transmitting secret messages and sacred knowledge between Cherif and his master. In Episode 31,1126 Tierno Bokar and Cherif Hamallah meet in the middle of the night, carrying only flashlights and canes. The flashlights, the only source of light in the theatre, cut through the darkness illuminating the two figures, generating evanescent images of long shadows on the sand.1127 As they stroll, they pause to draw shapes in the sand with their canes. The drawings, etched in the surface of sand and illuminated by the hand-held light, create a texture that compliments the narrative and suggests a private ground for the exchange of secret messages between them.

1125 See Episode 6, 270. 1126 See Episode 31, 291. 1127 In Eleven and Twelve, all the actors change their costumes but remain barefoot during the whole performance. It appears that by being barefoot, the actors can move around freely across the sandy ground of the theatre and the carpet, and in this way, their movement relates to the ground⎯the pure sandy floor⎯more intimately. This creates a closer connection between the world of the play and the ground of the theatre. (The Mahabharata was also performed barefoot.) In an associated way, the concept of “living art” proposed by Adolphe Appia, which underlines the importance of the actor’s movement, simplicity of the stage settings and the meaningful role of light and sound in creating a close relationship between the actors and the audience, resonates with this performance. See Adolphe Appia, The Work of Living Art: A Theory of the Theatre. Man is the Measure of All Things, ed. Barnard Hewitt, trans. Barnard Hewitt and H.D. Albright (Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 1975).

237

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The Present Moment: Chora, Creation

Perhaps the most significant characteristic of Brook’s theatre that addresses the question of architecture is the creation of a ground or ‘space’ that allows human action to take place or things to be created within it, while also stimulating profound involvement and interaction. The approach to theatre developed in the three plays deconstructs the rules, codes, formalities and preconceived images impressed upon us by tradition, gradually creating a void in the spectator’s or actor’s mind. This enables the activation of imaginative faculties, evoking an invisible world or propelling one into deep, subconscious layers of memory: allowing one to remember and relate to a distant past. Through ceremonial and mythical elements and concepts, Brook’s performances put one in touch with one’s ambiguous, fleeting shadows and the distant memories of one’s soul, activating a dead or dormant memory in the farthest area of one’s mind and enabling one to draw a continuous line from primordial man to modern man.1128 The goal is not to revitalize an obliterated civilization or a forgotten tale through a performance; it is to activate and energize the dramatic, powerful residues of those civilizations and narratives and, by creating pure theatrical moments, to transport the audience and direct them towards the truth and possibilities within each of them. It is a question of realizing the qualities of the invisible world, recalling them from history or pre-history, and associating them with the present moment. Brook’s endeavour offers a possibility to bring one’s mind and spirit back to a qualitative primordial moment, to situate one in a state of being that is commonly shared among all humans regardless of their cultural, linguistic, or religious upbringing or individual inclinations, and then use this acquired knowledge and ability to discover the present moment.

These qualities of the ground or space of action created in Brook’s theatre, I would suggest, align closely with the qualities of chora described in Plato’s

1128 Ghasem Hashemnejad refers specifically to this quality in Orghast. See Hāšemi Nežād, "Orghast: Yek Ḵaṭar Juʿiye Qahremāni [Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking]."

238 Timaeus as the third ‘form of reality’.1129 Situated by Plato as ‘space,’1130 chora is referred to as ‘the receptacle of becoming’.1131 Alberto Pérez-Gómez describes chora as “Plato’s space of ontological continuity, the ground that makes it possible for Being and beings to relate and to share a name, in language and in human action.”1132 In Built Upon Love, Pérez-Gómez emphasizes that chora “is properly human space. It is the space of human communication that is inherently bounded and ambiguous.”1133 This resonates with the space created in Brook’s theatre: a space that brings spectators and actors together through wordless communion and leads them to the possibility of a deep, shared level of human experience.

This theatre brings forth the dichotomy between our daily, ordinary life and a higher unseen world, positioning us in an emptiness, a medium, between history (or pre-history) and the present which offers possibilities for discerning and exploring the unknown. It is crucial to point out that this is a conception of emptiness that differs from the conventional notion of ‘absence’, ‘nothingness’ (or ‘the void’). It is rather, as Williams points out, a space of potentiality, attunedness, readiness, availability – like ‘ma’ 1134 in Japanese aesthetics – and has the possibility of ‘fullness;’1135 it is a virtue that resonates with the sense of poverty in Sufism. This state of dynamic emptiness created within human beings (actors/spectators) relates to the spatial quality and the question of ‘empty space’ in the places of performance. Williams observes that Brook’s ‘free space’ engages “our complicity and participation in our imagination, inviting us to experience spectatorship as a celebratory and empowering action.”1136 Referring to quarries,

1129 Plato, Timaeus and Critias, trans. Desmond Lee (England: Penguin Books, 1977), 67. 1130 Ibid., 71. 1131 Ibid., 67. 1132 See Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1997), 10,11. 1133 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Built Upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006), 46. 1134 A term which means an interval in space or time, a space of potential, of fullness in emptiness. It is used in architecture, music, fine arts, crafts, and other creative fields. 1135 Williams, Personal communication the author, Jan 2012. See also Williams, A Free Space Frees. 1136 Williams, A Free Space Frees.

239 Williams writes, they are a genre of ‘free space’ that “operates as interactive microcosm, perhaps even the temporary eco-system, places of contact and meeting, places of both individual and communal experience.”1137 The places of performance reviewed in this thesis, like many other ‘found spaces’ in Brook’s theatre, become such places of engagement and human participation and I would propose that they are chora-like. For instance, at Persepolis the literal emptiness of the central space in the tomb of Artaxerxes between the stone walls, the raw cliff faces, was a space that amplified our awareness and offered a volume of sonic, visual and felt interaction engaging our auditory/visual perceptions and inviting our participation through imagination as part of a community. The vast desert area and ceremonial façade of Naqsh-e-Rustam also, unlike the artificial separations and hierarchies of so many conventional theatre buildings, attuned our alertness and presence to the space and left our imagination free to assume an active role amidst the plurality and flux of the performance, celebrating the free- ranging plot. The Bouffes du Nord with its temporal spatial quality and enigmatic verticality offers an empty space surrounded by the semi-circle of the audience which embodies a ground for creation: an arena that allows for extending individual and communal imagination and enhanced participation. The Callet Quarry’s non-Euclidean space1138 emerged not as static, fixed and closed, “but as process in a state of flux: active, generative, interactive and, potentially transformatory for us.”1139

The notion of chora can also be brought to bear on our earlier observations about the engagement of time. The notion of ‘empty space,’ ‘free space,’ or emptiness in itself embodies a crucial temporal quality: the ‘present moment,’ Brook believes that the “real present moment” is not a “moment.”1140 Through the passage of time, one is led to a point “where there is no time:” it is time-less. This is the present, lived, moment that is a threshold into an entirely empty space and

1137 Ibid. 1138 David Williams refers to space of quarries as a non-Euclidian space. See Williams, A Free Space Frees. 1139 Williams, A Free Space Frees. 1140 Brook, Interview with author.

240 into eternity. Eternity does not lie in the future, nor is it in the past – it is just an empty space. This is why, “when one talks about the present moment, the word ‘moment’ [becomes] a trap:”1141 the moment as experienced in chora has instead a quality of suspension.1142 Brook postulates that one of the crucial aims of theatre is to lead one, gradually through different stages, ‘valleys’ and levels to a point where there is ‘non-form’ and ‘non-time’.1143 In this sense, architecture can be likened to playwriting: it has to find basic levels, strata or anchoring points that enable one to frame the forms that draw us beyond form and time.1144 This architectural process is the same process as that used by Brook and his troupe in discovering, exploring and transforming settings and realizing their potential for the framing of human actions in a performance that brings the spectators momentarily in touch with the invisible and a quality of presentness.

In my view, the space of Brook’s theatre, which like chora is a ‘receptacle’ of becoming and action, seems to embody conditions of ‘non-form’ and ‘non-time,’ bringing spectators to a suspended eternal moment. The “empty space” in Brook’s theatre resonates with Plato’s description of chora as “invisible and formless, all- embracing, possessed in a most puzzling way of intelligibility, yet very hard to grasp.”1145 Within Brook’s empty space, any event, any happening, is possible; a miracle can take place through a set of theatrical conditions that are not fundamentally amenable to analysis. The events cannot be dissected and interpreted scientifically or rationally. If anything, they reverberate with a chemical reaction, unpredictable, wet, and messy. It is from this condition that the alchemical magic of Brook’s theatre emerges.1146 The space (in Brook’s theatre) can be perceived as a smooth surface upon which action and events can occur; it resembles Plato’s chora as a “neutral plastic material on which changing

1141 Ibid. 1142 I borrowed the term “suspension” from Peter Brook where he mentions: “…in theatre one works toward these moments which are moments of suspension.” See ibid. 1143 Ibid. 1144 Ibid. 1145 Plato, Timaeus and Critias, 70. See Pérez-Gómez, Built Upon Love, 46 for emphasizes on this description of chora by Plato. 1146 Ghasem Hashemnejad refers to this quality with respect to Orghast. See Hashemnejad, "Orghast: A Heroic Adventure Seeking."

241 impressions are stamped by the things which enter it.”1147 However, like chora, which receives all things but never itself accepts a permanent imprint of any kind,1148 the virtual surface of the performances creates an ephemeral world without a permanent impression. It could be thought of as a soft medium that rejects any lasting forms yet, for the fraction of time required for a given action, readily conforms to impulses and stimuli in the form of sound, fire, and dramatic actions whose traces linger briefly before vanishing. As in chora, “an empty gap that is not nothingness, assumed by common sense to be the exclusive space of action, is the meaning of architecture.”1149

Within this amorphous empty space, the spectators are in an occult and mysterious relationship with the action and the actors. Contrary to conventional ‘picture making’ in a proscenium-framed theatre, Brook’s empty space provokes the audience’s involvement: the journey to ‘found spaces’ brings the spectators to a space of readiness and potentiality which evokes alertness and activates imagination and connects the audience with myth in the present. While the performances share a common ground, each performance has also its own way of engagement with the audience. In the absence of a recognizable language, composed of utterances of uncertain meaning, Orghast at the first instance created a sense of separation, solitude or loneliness in the spectators in relation to the action. One could observe that a sense of ‘alienation’ occurred in the actors and spectators of Orghast while listening to Avesta, because they could not perceive the exact meaning of the words and sentences; but that within this halo of alienation the language’s impact and power led them towards an inward and esoteric knowledge and perception.1150 While one might say the play’s use of all of its languages provoked an opacity or a distance between audience and actors, that distance could contract. In Brook’s empty space, the distance between the spectators and the action can approach zero. Like the space between two lovers, it

1147 Plato, Timaeus and Critias, 69. 1148 Ibid. 1149 See Pérez-Gómez, "Chora: The Space of Architectural Representation," 32. 1150 Tajaddod (Jahān Beglu), Terāžedi Āfarineš [Tragedy of Creation], 5.

242 is fluid and elastic, both full and absent at the same time: a space of participation momentarily and eternally bridged in sound and movement. It is within the boundaries of this distance (or perhaps non-distance) that a play takes place. Its ‘primary depth’ offers a condition in which dormant meanings from the invisible world can be recalled.

The formless ‘empty space’, impregnated with potentialities, offers a ground for constant events and happenings. In its emptiness lie infinite possibilities for extension of the imagination and experiencing the invisible. More than “actual” aspects, one could suggest, the space brims with ‘potential’ prospects. In its specifics, Orghast was a piece of music or better to say “pre-music”1151 in a historical setting with a group of directors and skilled actors employing movement, fire, and the implements of theatre. But undoubtedly, beyond that ‘actuality,’ Orghast as a “work in progress” was a ‘potential’ work in many senses. It was a work of art that inherently possessed an immense potential power that could engage and transform its spectators.1152 In Eleven and Twelve everyone in the audience could perceive a river or a boat, while no water and no boat were present. Three statuettes of trees, a few wooden elements, a carpet and scattered sand, through the action, offered numerous potentialities for creation of various places. A simple wheel, a ladder, bamboo sticks and screens, earth, air, water and fire conveyed the entire imagery of the epic play The Mahabharata: chariots, armies, weapons, wars, palaces, forests were created in spectators’ imagination.1153 In the nine-hour performance, countless invisible phenomena were created out of these ‘actual’ simple elements. The play that situates the audience in contact with elements under the open sky – the ‘elemental opera’ – offered a condition that reached beyond the ‘actuality’ of the performance through which the spectators are being transformed. Williams describes that “we are invited to negotiate and inhabit those liminal spaces – between, say, illusion and disillusion – dynamic

1151 Ovanessian, Interview by the autor (unpublished). 1152 Ebrāhimi, "Orgast va Tamāšāgar [Orghast and Spectator]." 1153 Carrière, Interviews with author.

243 spaces of make-believe.”1154 Brook’s theatre works through the ‘potentiality’ opened up by the performance. It works through what is not there as much as through what is there – through poetic imagery. Wilson recounts his experience in Orghast as potent and powerful: “I experienced it as a purified calm.”1155 He refers to Hughes who found Orghast ‘cathartic’ in the sense that “the action t[ook] the audience up a certain observed path of violence and ritual, enduring in the meditation–in–the dark, and resulting in a change of consciousness, a coming out different on the other side” (my italics). The word ‘up’, Wilson emphasizes, is fundamental and crucial here. As he points out, for both Brook and Hughes, it was of great importance to reach a level of transcendence and to engage the spectators along the way.1156

The understanding of Brook’s space as a space of chora is borne out by Oida’s observation that the play Orghast restored ancient Greek theatre.1157 Human actions and events playing out on its stage resembled a small world within the immensity of the universe: a microcosm.1158 Theatre, he continues, is like a bridge between two worlds: if we look up we see an expanded cosmos; and if we look down, we see the realities of daily life full of social, political, and economic problems. 1159 The inhabitants of Brook’s theatre are placed on a threshold between the two worlds; from here they slip back and forth from one to the other.

Wilson talks about his dream of a certain theatre, something close either to Kafka’s last unfinished chapter “The Great Theatre of Oklahoma” or Artaud’s “Theatre and the Plague.” He never saw such theatre except in his imagination. Orghast, perhaps, was an attempt “to make the dream emerge into the world of

1154 Williams, A Free Space Frees. 1155 Wilson, "Interview with Ted Hughes Author of Orghast." 1156 Ibid. 1157 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 41. This view resonates with Brook’s suggestion that Orghast explores “the taste of the tragic experience.” See Helfer and Loney, Oxford to Orghast, 159. 1158 Oida, "Namāyeš Orghast dar Jašn Honar Širāz [Play 'Orghast' in Shiraz Arts Festival]," 41. 1159 Ibid.

244 form.”1160 The research of the ICTR, he points out, is directed toward reaching that ‘ultimate’.1161 As he puts it, “[t]onight I have come away from a modern play feeling, if not lifted to heaven, at least clean and calm. I have been reminded, not that man is a sick animal, but at least a fallen God.”1162 Wilson believes that the theatre Brook wants to make is about man’s becoming divine, although Brook himself, as Wilson writes, describes the difficulty of a modern artist who wishes to search for “spiritual alternatives to our stale heritage of one-dimensional creativity.”1163 We can see in Brook’s theatre the same dichotomy bridged by chora: a transcendent cosmos and man’s condition in finitude; Being and being. This is the task of architecture: “touching, moving, and recollecting, opening for the spectator a gap to catch a furtive glimpse of Being in the vivid present of experience.”1164

The experimental quest in Brook’s theatre reveals that, contrary to Cartesian philosophy, meanings are not created in one’s mind. Rather they are ‘out there’ and can be discovered not only by visual means, but also with all of one’s external senses and internal feelings about a place and the performance. The exploratory work disclosed by Brook’s theatrical process of creation points to the vitalizing if nebulous realities of the world, reminding us of our capacities to engage with and respond to Being. It represents an architecture ‘for the good’ that is not based on the action of a ‘subjective genius,’ but which valorises at multiple levels a place and an environment and nurtures a fragile awareness of its reciprocal relationship with an embedded reality.

1160 Wilson, "Orghast, Part 1." 1161 Ibid. 1162 Peter Wilson describes his impression after experiencing Orghast. His ‘ultimate’ theatre, Wilson points out, will never come to exist without such a work as Orghast. See ibid. 1163 Ibid. 1164 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, "The Modern City: Context, Site or Place of Architecture," in Constancy and Change in Architecture, (Colleage Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992).

245 Interview with Jean-Claude Carrière (Paris, June 2009 and May 2011)

ND: From the architectural point of view, I am very interested in Peter Brook’s theatre; I believe it embodies a profound potential for opening a discourse for architects in a multitude of directions and offers possibilities for rethinking architectural creation. The terms Holy, Rough, Immediate and Deadly Theatre, revealed in his book The Empty Space, seem very inviting and provoking for any architect. The spatial features and the quality of present and temporal moments are very crucial.

JCC: Empty – is the word in what you are describing. However, there is a paradox because there is no space. Every moment of the show, every movement of an actor, even the simplest one, has to create a ‘new space’. The space is virtual. We have been helped greatly by the theatre (the Bouffes du Nord) itself and the Bouffes du Nord is a very welcoming space and place. If you want to build up a concrete wall, anything that is supposed to be space, the theatre rejects it immediately. It is a very strange feeling because the very moment you put a very simple thing to block or to close some angle, the theatre refuses it.

ND: This relates to the significance of the question of imagination and how incomplete and elliptical information in Peter Brook’s theatre is left to the observer to interpret and complete. No scenery is designed to ‘trap the imagination’, but it leaves room for imaginative activation.

JCC: Of course, it is an empty space. The empty space has nothing to do with real space if there is real space.1165 Any realistic looking décor in theatre can never be really realistic. It depends very much on the imagination of directors and set

1165 In the view of this author, Jean-Claude Carrière refers here to ‘real space’ as existing geometric, objective space which differs from the true meaning of Brook’s “empty space.”

246 designers how far they can go and how much room they leave for the audience to imagine.

ND: This is one aspect that is important for me from the architectural perspective. I am interested in the question of experience of observers in such a space, as if they are part of the creation of the space through their own imagination. For instance, in the play Eleven and Twelve, the audience clearly understands that a river and a boat are created by minimal means on the stage. Although no real river flows through the stage and the boat is made of a folded blanket, everybody in the audience is aware of the presence of the river and the boat on the stage. So to me, one of the important questions is where exactly the play takes place: is it in the observer’s imagination or is it on the stage?

JCC: The play takes place in the theatre. We share for one moment in our lives something which is another space. The so-called space that scientists discuss is a space that can be separated from time. But any good theatre director tries to create his own space which is like a little pocket inside of the other space. When you go outside of theatre you find yourself in the other space. When you enter the theatre like for The Mahabharata, where are you? Nobody can really say. All of a sudden, you are in a forest, then in a palace, next, near the river. And it is not only the identities of location, but also the proportions. I remember one rehearsal from The Tempest when Peter Brook took a little boat in his hand while an actor was reciting a passage from Shakespeare, and by doing this, it was extraordinary, you had a feeling that you were on the boat. All of a sudden, you have become very small. Similarly, if you create appropriate sound and noise, you do not need all the Hollywood machinery to create a tempest because everybody knows what a tempest could look like, the small boat in the hand gives the impression that the boat is in the hand of God and He can move the boat, break it down or, all of a sudden, He can save it and drive it safely to the shore. All this is possible, and it is a question of theatre that evokes, but does not show entire images, which is completely different from the movies, for instance. In the play The Mahabharata,

247 Peter Brook created a chariot using just a beautiful wheel that one of the actors was pushing and the rest, the horse, the reins and the chariot itself, were in the imagination of the spectators. The actor on the chariot was just with a whip and the wheel. The rest of the images were completed by the spectators, or they were not, it depends. But in a film, like the film The Mahabharata, it was impossible because it would otherwise look like filming theatre tricks. So we had to use a real chariot with real wheels and a real horse. I could describe many details like these. Peter went very far, but he was not the only one. I remember, before Peter, I worked with Jean-Louis Barrault, who once told me to write whatever I wanted to and he would make it. What Barrault meant was that he could evoke images and people would see it if it was well written and well acted. In theatre, an actor in the right situation and in the right mood can evoke images by saying, for instance: “Look at my twenty thousand elephants there, they are breathing and screaming and dying.” If you have an actor in a film, and he says: “Look at the elephants”, and if you do not show the elephants, the audience is frustrated. You have to show what you say. And that is the whole history of theatre in the 20th century. What fascinates me is that at the turn of the century you had two kinds of directors: theatre directors like Stanislavski in Russia and film directors like Méliès in France. They died the same year; they were exactly contemporaries. One changed everything in the theatre, and the other one invented the film images with tricks and special effects. It is not just a coincidence that at the moment the movies, the films, the cinema, whatever you may want to call it, appears and says now I am going to show you the “real” reality, the theatre has to take another way. It cannot compete with the cinema in that realistic view. In the 19th century, when you had a salon or whatever on the stage, it looked as “real” as possible. But with the emergence of cinema, such theatre was finished. And that was sort of liberation and the theatre felt free to go in many different directions of explorations, the way Peter and some others did.

ND: It is important to think about the concept of imaginative complicity, and I would like to talk about it in the context of architecture.

248 JCC: Of course, the question is to share in the same vision. For instance, if you talk about twenty thousand elephants, people cannot see them, but they see them well only in their imagination. And that is the real art of directing: it is to reach that perfect complicity, perfect unity between the audience and the actors.

ND: In The Open Circle you have been quoted that the theatre does not force any meanings, and it does not impose any statement.

JCC: There is a person who understood it very well – Chloé Obolensky. She worked with us since The Mahabharata. She perfectly understood the play. For instance, in the tragedy Bérénice, the question was how the theatre of Bouffes du Nord could become a Roman palace from the 2nd century. She had an idea that without changing anything, she only put on the floor a beautiful Roman mosaic. That was the only thing, and it changed everything. It was like a mirror for the rest of the walls, the ceiling, and all the ornaments of the theatre itself. Only that element, plus two or three stones here and there, changed all, and the theatre became a palace. If she had tried to build up a real Roman palace, it would not have worked at all. She is the one who painted the top of the Bouffes du Nord with elements like those from Persia. It was not there at the beginning, that was her idea.

Once I went to India with Chloé. She is a person who knows everything about fabrics. She goes to the most remote mountains to find certain wool which exists only there. In India, I went with her to four or five different places just to see the fabrics: cotton, wool, silk, etc. It was fascinating because she would explain to me how it was made. I could, through a simple piece of fabric, see a scene and I was telling myself: “Maybe some scenes have to be written in wool, other scenes in silk, other scenes in cotton.” That is one of the most beautiful memories about The Mahabharata. The texture of the fabric has a sort of correspondence with the texture of the scene and maybe even the play.

249 If you think about The Conference of the Birds, for instance, it is not a narrative or a tale that we use in the West to talk about inner relations. It is an intricate poem. You have seen sometimes in the streets or on a sidewalk exposed telephone cables. All wires of different colours are all mixed. And you follow one yellow line which goes and disappears and reappears a little further. And then a red one, and a green one. And that is exactly the way the poem is written. And I was trying to follow the lead which tells the story, and then it disappeared. But not forever. It seems that the story is over, and then it reappears again, all of the sudden, at a moment you do not expect it to. This is another example of how for a writer, writing is the only thing I can talk about, practical and concrete examples can help in a certain way. So, for instance, when I wrote The Mahabharata or The Conference of the Birds, I never said anything about space. I was preventing myself even to imagine a place. A lake, forest, …I knew very well from the very beginning that the set should be evoked and not fully realized. The only element, I knew we could use, was the light, the change of light. When I think of The Mahabharata today, and when I try to remember some of the scenes and some of the images, I see a real forest and I see a real lake, which were not there. But the power of evocation was so strong that the scenes that were in the forest, I really see in the forest. I can really see mountains when I think of the scenes in the mountains. I see the mountains, but they were not there. I do not know how to explain it. That is the miracle of Peter’s directing. Using words, of course some of the elements have to be in the words themselves, when talking about the high mountains, snow and the wind, you must give some elements to the audience to imagine. Then is the light. And the third one is the way the actors behave and act. And that is something that really belongs to Peter.

In The Mahabharata there is a scene with the greatest architect of all, Maya, who is a semi-god. Maya creates a palace where, when you think of something, it appears. And that is absolutely like theatre. It is the invention of theatre. You think of a wall, you bump into a wall. That is absolutely marvellous. Think of a well, and you fall into water, being soaked wet. We had long talks about it. We

250 made a long series of experiments and trials how to make the invisible visible. That notion of Maya, the greatest architect ever, is to create a fantastic place in one moment and to disappear it in another moment… To me, the dream of Peter is to be Maya.

ND: The idea of invisible becoming visible is holy and at the same time immediate, and it is very important for contemporary architecture.

JCC: Sometimes, the contrary is true – the visible becomes invisible. Sometimes, one of the actors does necessary gestures related to that character, for instance, he acts too old. And that appearance of the act disappears and you see the character, not the actor. It is another process to make the invisible visible and the visible to sometimes erase, to get rid of. I can give you an example. For a long time, with Chloé (Obolensky) and Peter, we were wondering how to dress the actors in The Mahabharata. Nobody knows and there are absolutely no documents how people from India dressed one thousand years before Christ. Then Chloé had that beautiful idea to make a sort of imaginary Mongolian style for all the characters which gave us some uniformity. But we did not know what kind of shoes they should wear. We went to India and chose some Indian shoes, all very well made. Everybody had a pair. For some reason, the shoes were too visible, too “Indian”. Until the very last moment, the question about shoes remained. And I think that it was just a few days, three or four days, before the beginning of the show, Peter decided – no shoes at all. Everybody will be barefoot, without any shoes, even during the scenes of the war, which was totally impossible that they would go barefoot and fight on the battlefield in war. But nobody ever asked us why they are without shoes, ever. That was the right idea. It was perfectly natural for the actors. The shoes were too visible and the bare feet were not. This is a perfect example of Peter’s work. It was not a decision that he had made in advance at all. It is instinctive, one-moment decision – no more shoes. And everything went so natural, so easy. And also, I must add, the fact that they had no shoes gave the play a sacred character as if we were in a temple, a sort of respect. The actors had

251 taken off their shoes before they entered the stage. The real contact of the feet with the earth and the water that was there was much greater and larger than any formal shoes could ever give them.

ND: How do you deal with cultural issues when you adapt a poem or a play? It must be challenging to adapt a poem, a text, of a specific culture to a theatre that is universal and should belong to all.

JCC: I must be a little bit more precise. If you think about culture and when you talk about architecture, the main problem about The Conference of the Birds, The Mahabharata, Carmen, The Cherry Orchard is always the same when a play comes from another country. For instance, The Mahabharata, what must be the part of India in it? It is unthinkable to make it without anything Indian. On the other hand, it is unthinkable to make it an Indian show because we are not Indian. We are European, American or Japanese actors. The question is which part of India must remain in the show, including the writing and the storytelling. The writing, the direction, the costumes, the music, the light, everything at every moment you ask must be at the right place and in right proportion with the original country.

Even in Carmen, the place was that of Spain. We wanted to add a scene, which is not in the opera, where Don José and Carmen get married. It is a silent scene. But for that scene we got in touch with gypsies living in France that I knew. I went to get them and we took them to the theatre and we asked them about the rituals of a gypsy wedding, including some words just to get the authenticity. It looks like nothing, but it was absolutely important. I will give you another example in Carmen because it is very useful. The husband of Carmen comes back from jail. They just got married, Don José and Carmen. I had no possibility to write a single word because of the music and it was unthinkable to add a dialogue to the opera. How could we make the audience understand that this man is Carmen’s husband, that he has got out of jail and he is dangerous? So we went through improvisations

252 of the act. And one of the actors formed something absolutely beautiful. On the stage, Carmen and José are just lying in bed making love. They just got married. And then we hear footsteps, ‘shick’, ‘shick’, a man is arriving without looking at them at all. He is going directly to a bucket full of water. It was not there on purpose, it was there by chance during the improvisations, the rehearsals. And the actor went to the bucket, put his hands in the water and started washing himself without paying any attention to Carmen and Don José. That was so useful and it had everything, that he was sad for being in jail, that he was home, that it was his place. A gesture like that one replaces the end lines and says a lot of things. That is precisely the work of Peter and that is exactly what he is doing. The same applies to a Sufi culture of the poet Attar who wrote The Conference of the Birds. How can you, not even in the Persian tradition you cannot, realize the seven valleys? It is impossible. It is purely an adventure of the mind. It was very difficult to get from one point to the other, even in writing.

ND: A very important point about Attar’s poem The Conference of the Birds, in my view, is that we are brought to a moment of discontinuity or a gap, to something one may call emptiness between the stories; in fact, the main story embodies multiple stories within itself, it is layered and sometimes we, the readers, are being told stories, but we do not know why. But as we continue reading we can discover the whole story and fill the gaps between the stories by ourselves.

JCC: This is another question. Which part of the elements of the story can we leave to the audience? Where shall we stop explaining? Demonstrating? If we demonstrate too much, we ruin the show. We have to leave something open for the audience to penetrate into, to bring something in, to get inside of. And that is one of the secrets of Peter.

ND: Attar does not present his poem for the reader only to read it. The poem challenges the reader’s mind to participate, imagine and get involved as you described.

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JCC: Absolutely. You know very well that in the beginning of the poem in Persian, Attar speaks about how the birds, step by step, become human beings. In an indiscrete way and without proper timing, he could not say there is no God and what you see in the mirror is exactly what you see in it, and there is nothing more, which is very Buddhist by the way.

ND: I feel a strong connection between the content and texture of The Conference of the Birds and the theatrical work of Peter Brook, in general. I would like to ask you about the role of the carpet in Brook’s theatre.

JCC: The use of the carpet is very simple. It comes from a very common-place expression that Peter, and me too, likes very much, which is the idea of a “carpet show”. The fact that he (Peter Brook) uses a carpet, not all the time but sometimes, comes from the carpet show. Once we went to Venice and we went through the streets of Venice with a carpet. And we would unroll the carpet and play. The carpet is a portable stage. Sometimes, for instance, in The Mahabharata, there were a few carpets. In The Conference of the Birds, I do not remember how many were there. In The Cherry Orchard, absolutely, it was a house carpet. But Peter did not use carpets all the time.

ND: Was there a special atmosphere the carpet brought to the performance?

JCC: Theatre is a carpet show. You can go everywhere with the carpet, but the important point is what you play, how you play and how you act. The rest is not important. Peter is very practical and with him, the carpet either works or it does not work. If he sees that it works like in The Cherry Orchard, which was beautiful, he uses it. If things do not work, there is no problem; like the shoes in The Mahabharata, he takes them off and throws them away.

254 ND: It seems very significant that in Brook’s theatre a performance can move from one ‘found space’ to a different ‘found space’. In a sense, the theatre possesses a nomadic character.

JCC: Let me tell you the best way to say what you are trying to say. Peter is trying to create direction that can move from one place to another. It does not mean that he is going to adapt the direction to a new space or to a new theatre. No, the direction is exactly the same, the place has to adapt itself to his direction. Peter refused, many times, to play in some places and some theatres too classical, which were not adaptable to his direction. When he works, he thinks all the time not only about the Bouffes du Nord or Avignon, but he also thinks about all the places where he could play. The direction must go from a place to place without changing too much. Of course, the dimensions of the theatre will be different and he can very well ask an actor not to stop here, but to go there. But that does not change the theatre direction, and it does not change the deep feeling, the main feeling of the direction. That was absolutely important and it is still very important today.

Every good theatre direction can go anywhere, any place under one condition: that this place is not typical. It would be pointless and very difficult to play The Mahabharata in a Christian church. The place has to be, in a way, anonymous. But the real direction, what we call a direction, is the relation between the actors and spectators. This is well established and it goes for The Mahabharata and all the other plays. It is like an invisible direction that can go to any place if you keep this, if you protect this. The set, if there is a set like a convent, or seashore, something too typical, can be disturbing for this invisible direction.

ND: This idea of invisible direction is inviting and challenging from the architectural perspective. It is remarkable to think about this concept of invisible direction in a play such as The Mahabharata that allowed it to move to different locations around the world. The process of writing The Mahabharata must have

255 been an epic experience. You worked on the play for eleven years. Could you describe how this vast project started?

JCC: When we first opened the Bouffes du Nord in 1974, we had no idea what we were going to do. The first thing was to look for new ideas for shows, plays. And The Mahabharata was one of the very first ones, but it took eleven years before we reached the time to present it. Meanwhile, we did Ubu, two Shakespeares, The Cherry Orchard, The Conference of the Birds, we did an African play, a lot of things without really knowing when we would make The Mahabharata. At the beginning, when we made the decision with Peter one night at 3 o’clock in the morning, we shook hands in a street on the left bank (of the Seine in Paris), and we said that we will do The Mahabharata. Peter told me two very important phrases. Because it was a mountain, the amount of work to be done. The first phrase was: “We’ll do it when we’ll do it.” So there was no time limit, and at that time we were young, you know? And the second phrase was: “It will be as long as it will be.” I did not have to worry about the length, which gave me a real freedom of writing.

ND: The epic story of Mahabharata has many side stories inside of the main story. To what extent could you preserve these side stories in the main plot?

JCC: What is not in the play is the origin of the story, all the mythical beginning of India and Indian mythology. There were many stories before the king Shanthanu, but Shanthanu is really the beginning of our story. Mahabharata is the complete story of one family and that is what makes it so strong and powerful. Once it starts, we have everything until the end. In the original story, there are two or three tournaments, but we kept one, there are two exiles in the forest, but we kept one. We spent one year reading in English and in French just to see how we can condense the eighteen songs in Mahabharata. One of the eighteen songs was Ramayana that we removed. Another was a long story which had absolutely nothing to do with the main characters of the story, so we removed it. Step by step,

256 little by little, we went to the end and we simplified it like this. Then, I started writing. The most difficult part was to transition the poem into a play. That was really difficult.

ND: I have read in a book that the transition from the Indian to the Western culture was inspired by Victor Hugo.

JCC: No, not for The Mahabharata. Victor Hugo wrote a poem called Suprématie in La Légende des Siècles. It is a beautiful poem, but it has nothing to do with The Mahabharata. It is an adaptation, a strange adaptation that is quite interesting and brilliantly made. It is just a six-page adaptation of Kena Upanishad that was written before Mahabharata.

ND: The place of the quarry in Avignon and its relationship with the play The Mahabharata opened up many architectural questions. It started with an intriguing and unconventional way of arrival of the audience. They were removed from the texture of the city and had to embark on a journey to reach the place.

JCC: Yes, they came by a boat. There is a kind of temporality, a ritual in this journey. The audience had to decide and undertake a certain effort for three consecutive days to arrive to the quarry. It required certain desire on their part.

ND: It is as if the journey makes them both separated and connected. It separates them from the city and connects them to a new place, which is the quarry, and because the journey starts from the city, so it is inherently connected to the city.

JCC: When you go to Petra in Jordan, you have to go through a very narrow valley before you lay your eyes on the city itself. This is what you are saying – you have to take the path to the quarry in Avignon….

257 ND: As if the beginning of the performance The Mahabharata is very obscure. The actual beginning of the performance starts when people get on the boat.

JCC: It is possible. Yes, of course, and it never ends. One day, I was going to see The Mahabharata in the quarry and on the path there, I saw a girl about twenty two, twenty three years old. She was sitting on the ground and she was crying. I went and asked her what was going on and who she was. She said that she came from Australia and she cannot see the play because she does not have a ticket. Of course, I took her in and she did not have to pay. But it was almost like a pilgrimage for certain people. The very first time I saw the play, I said to myself that it is exactly the show that I wanted to see since I was a kid. Exactly the story, everything, everything is there. I decided to see it as many times as possible. I saw it fifty, sixty times knowing very well I would never see another show like this in my whole life. Because of the effort we did for that show, I said to myself, now, I have to enjoy it. And I forgot totally that I had written it. I was everyday like any of the spectators.

ND: Could you explain why you chose a quarry? What was the role of the four elements?

JCC: From an architectural point of view, the Avignon quarry has no real identity. It is not a palace, it is not a desert, it is not a forest, … it is everything at the same time. It is very natural and it is beautiful. But the place is not like a mirror where you can see yourself, you cannot recognize your house, your neighbourhood. You are just in front of a pure landscape. Exactly like in the Bouffes du Nord, it was absolutely no question to paint or to build any set for a palace or anything. The only thing that we have been working on were the elements. We had air, we had fire, water and earth. But the water was necessary and that is why we had two zones of water: the river at the end near the bottom and the lake, pond, whatever you call it. The water was absolutely necessary and sometimes in Avignon at the

258 end of the play, some of the guests would go on the stage and put their feet in the river.

ND: So the quarry becomes an amphitheatre which is very connected to the four elements.

JCC: You are in open air and you see the stars and moon. When we played the whole night, we went from one sun to the other sun. We started from the sun and we ended at three o’clock in the morning when the sun rose.

ND: What was the role of the cliff in the background and its verticality? Was it used by the characters in the play? Were they stationed at different heights of the cliff?

JCC: No, not as much. We did not use the space of the mountain. The cliff was beautifully lit in the night. From time to time, one of the characters would climb a rock during the scenes in the forest, for instance, but we did not use the mountain because we would have to cross the river to get there and also it takes such a long time to climb or descend a cliff. That would slow down the show.

ND: The space of the quarry is very rough, Spartan-like. It is interesting to think about the connection between the place and the narrative of Mahabharata. Could you talk a little about the scenography and the settings of The Mahabharata (or architecture of the play) in this place?

JCC: For The Mahabharata, one thing was obvious from the beginning. We were not going to make an authentic Indian show because we cannot. We are not Indians, even though one of the actresses, in fact, was of Indian origin. It was impossible to try to imitate any Indian tradition, writing or acting. It was just impossible. We had to find our own way. But we could not forget India the way the programme was and how it intervened with the architecture, which had to be

259 the part of India in the show. It concerned me how I could write in an Indian way without imitating India, without imitating the music, the clothing or everything. Could I present a play in French in Paris, and later in English with characters named Dhritarashtra? The audience had never heard such names. I could not call them Peter or Jean-Claude. I had to absolutely preserve the Indian names. If I changed them or even if I simplified them ever so slightly, I would betray a part of India. It is exactly the same question about the total, the complete non- existence of architecture.1166 For The Mahabharata, The Tempest, also for The Conference of the Birds, in most of Peter’s best directing, architecture is left to the audience. Of course, the text indicates that we are in a palace, field or forest, but the architecture is what the audience has to bring in. Even now, after so many years past, when I try to remember some of the images, for example, I think about the scenes in the forest, I see a forest. It is very strange that I see the forest. I can see palaces, I can see lakes and rivers, I can see blood, battlefields and armies which were not there. I see all of these. So it means that the power of evoking was quite strong, even to me.

ND: It is very interesting to think about the power of invisible architecture.

JCC: Yes. The performance gives to you what we made, but what is left to you are the images that were invisible, that were not there at the beginning. I suppose we all do the same activity from time to time in the real life. When we remember some events from the past, we may build imaginary sets, a house or a landscape. Sometimes, I remember going back to some places that I had known before, but they were not at all like the memory I have kept. The scenery is, if you think of Maya, an invisible set inside of another invisible set.

1166 In the view of this author, by “non-existence of architecture”, Jean-Claude Carrière refers to the absence of sets or buildings conventionally construed as “architecture”. In fact, the true architecture here is that created through the interaction of the audience’s imagination, the few material objects on stage, their spatial relationship and their role in the narrative.

260 In the beginning of The Mahabharata, the Kauravas are invited by the Pandavas to visit their new palace. They arrive and see a palace that Maya had built with his many magical workers in one night. They arrive in a real palace, but it is a palace of illusion. How is it possible to recreate this by working with the actors, the text, and the director, to give the audience the possibility to see what the others do not see? There were many beautiful moments, but that was a real challenge that we kept in the theatre, which was totally impossible to realize in the film because it would look like a mime, a pantomime.

ND: Is there any documentary about The Mahabharata in the Avignon quarry?

JCC: None that I know of. Maybe they shoot some moments for the television. But you have to be very careful because once you shoot directing of theatre, it weakens your participation in it and it is no longer a theatre experience.

ND: The presence and importance of sky in the Avignon quarry seems also very meaningful, particularly, in the marathon version of The Mahabharata where the audience was subjected to durational experience. It seems that the movement of sun – from light to darkness – is followed by the mood of the narrative.

JCC: Yes, of course. We did it only three times in Avignon in July. And the last time we played, the night was longer than the first night due to some changes in the play and it turned out to be slightly different. The first night was the best because all was perfectly synchronized. The end of the play when Krishna died finished almost at the start of a new day. One of the actors says that Krishna is not any more among us, and, at that moment, a bird cried, screamed in the rocks. It was just extraordinary and it never happened again. The feeling was that you started late afternoon maybe around 6 pm, but it was sunny. Then the sun is slowly setting from 6 pm to 9 pm., and at 9 o’clock, it was already dark. After the first intermission that took half an hour at 9:30, we entered the second part that was the Exile in the Forest. That went until 11:30 or midnight. It was night, we

261 were far from everything. We had one hour of intermission from 12 pm to 1 am to eat and drink. And then, the third part, the War, began which was longer than three hours. The War is at the blackest point of the night, deep in the darkness, and this was perfectly studied before.

ND: After spending 11 hours in the void of the quarry under the open sky with the presence of moon and stars, one could ask what happens for the audience. It seems that, at some point, they were exposed to the same questions that have been asked in The Mahabharata such as what is the relation of human kind with this world and the question of God. However, this contemplative state is disconnected from rational thinking.

JCC: That was the idea behind playing the whole night. If you consider that we started preparation in the afternoon at 2 pm, had one hour for dinner, and finished at 6 am in the morning when the sun appears again and the birds sing and the Earth has almost turned once, you may not realize or come close to such feelings in any other show. Many people told us that that night has never happened in their life because they forgot about the time completely. They lost the notion and the sense of time.

ND: Could this be a reason why the durational experience of the marathon version of The Mahabharata is more challenging and enlightening than the three-part version played over three consecutive evenings?

JCC: It was more challenging, but at the same time it was totally different. The three-part version was another feeling, which was not bad either. The challenge was for the actors in the marathon version because actors like Arjuna had to remember so many things worth of 9 hours, gestures, actions, words. That was a real challenge. Although I did prefer the marathon, I must admit that for some persons in the audience it was tiring. Of course, when you approach 4 o’clock in the morning in the middle of the war, you feel exhausted.

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ND: What happened for the audience of The Mahabharata in the Avignon quarry, the sense of audience forgetting time, as you pointed out, and the non-rational, meditative state, in my view, is also connected to the freedom and openness during the process of theatrical creation that one cannot analyze, theorize and size to a fixed form in Brook’s theatre.

JCC: Yes. You mentioned theory. Peter is the contrary of the theoretical man. We all know all the theories of theatre, but the moment you have a theory and you apply that theory to a practice, you fail.1167 You fail because there is no way. You must start with practice and try to reach some elements of theory, but the moment you try to be faithful to a certain idea of theatre, you are lost. And I suppose it is the same for architecture. Also I have a “theory” of my own, which I could verify many, many times. The theory – when you are a group of people working together – always divides, and practice always puts together. “La théorie divise, la pratique unit.” It is classical. The moment you have to do something together and you try to do it, you see when it works and you see when it does not work. Everybody agrees because there is no other way than to accept the evidence.

ND: I fully understand this point. I believe the true meaning of theory in Brook’s theatre is a theory that is not prescriptive and cannot be considered as a ‘methodology’. It is rather a weaving of stories that articulate a praxis. One could suggest, it is a “practical philosophy” of sort. Thus, I think it is nearly impossible to formulate or define something as the theory of Brook’s theatre, as a ‘method’.

JCC: It is impossible anyway. And even if you tried, you would fail. The expression Peter uses all the time is ‘direct theatre’ – ‘immediate theatre’. And I think that is the way it is.

1167 In the view of this author, what Jean-Claude Carrière here means by theory is in fact methodology, and not the articulation of a practice through words and stories.

263 ND: There is a sense of temporality in this theatre where nothing is permanent.

JCC: Yes, and it changes every day. I saw once, for The Conference of the Birds in Paris, Peter rehearsing the last scene in the afternoon on the very last day of the performance. Just for that one, for the last day. Somebody asked him”: “Why are you rehearsing again for this last performance?” And he said: “Because there is absolutely no reason to deprive tonight’s audience of a possibly better experience.” And he was absolutely right. You do not play every day for the same audience. It changes every day. Even probably the images that you share between the actors and the spectators, they change every day.

ND: What is very interesting from an architectural perspective is that Brook’s theatre does not attempt to present static imagery for the spectators. It is about experiencing the theatre and participating in the play.

JCC: The secret, the key word is ‘movement’. Every actor entering the stage brings his set. He enters and the way he enters, the way he looks, the way he speaks, it changes the set. That is the idea. It does not work all the time. It is helped by the lights and sometimes by the other actors the way they look at him, the way they respond to his entry, how they react to his presence.

ND: There is also the question of silence, like in the Bouffes du Nord, which is very interesting.

JCC: The silence and sharing silence is the maximum of what a good director can hope for. A good theatre performance is a perfect union between two ‘consciousnesses’: one of the audience and one of the actors. One has to explain clearly what is required and the other has to receive it clearly. It is also a union of two ‘sub-consciousnesses’. When the whole circle is completed, then we can reach that perfect union between the actors and the audience. I remember that I often watched the audience and I could see how their expression was changing

264 until you felt as if they themselves were entering the action. That was simply wonderful. One day, the mother of my wife Nahal, at the end when the play stopped and they started to play music and actors sat down, stood up from the audience and went and joined the actors and sat down between them. It was very natural and she did not even realize that she had done it.

ND: You mentioned that a good theatre, the way I understood, could move to different places. Is this the reason why The Mahabharata could be performed in different places? It seems the play displays a sort of nomadic character.

JCC: Yes, this is when the direction is inside, inside of the actors. Peter loves to bring to the play an inside direction. But to reach this nomadic quality, and Peter was concerned about this, it needs a real contact between the audience and the actors. No fences, no barriers, no high stage and the audience down below, everything on the same level just like in the Bouffes du Nord. Almost nothing from the Italian theatre tradition. For me, the Bouffes du Nord is a masterpiece. The way the Bouffes du Nord is designed is extraordinary. Never before, I imagined or saw a perfect contact between the actors and the audience. For instance in The Tragedy of Carmen, opposite to all the traditions and rules, the orchestra was stationed behind. The singers could sing like I am talking to you. The speakers were hidden in the audience area and the music was directed toward the singer.

ND: Another important point that comes to my mind in this discussion is the question of distance. One could say the theatre eliminates or reduces the distance and gap between the spectators, the actors and the action.

JCC: Peter always says that his idea from the very beginning was to go from the two-room theatre, one dark room for the audience and one lit room for the actors, to the one-room theatre in which the actors and the spectators are in the same place. And even more. They laugh when I say that in other theatres, the actors and

265 the audience are in the same room sometimes, but in the theatre of Bouffes du Nord, they sleep in the same bed. That is very nice and that is the idea of Peter. They are all in the same bed, which is also a question in architecture in some way! Nevertheless, I must say that Peter dislikes rectangular proscenium separation between the theatre itself and the stage. He likes very much this surround form of semicircle which penetrates and obliges the spectators, a part of them, to be around the actors. And he does it every time when he goes to a foreign country, to another place.

ND: Thank you very much for your time.

JCC: Think about Maya. Maya is the key. Architecture that you can imagine. The moment you think of it, you will see it. The invisible becomes visible. Peter is a unique experience in theatre. He creates a theatre without any built set.

266

APPENDIX

A Personal Account of the Play Eleven and Twelve at the Bouffes du Nord (December 2009)

The following is a personal account of the theatrical performance Eleven and Twelve I have attended five times at the Bouffes du Nord, each time at a different location and vertical height. The account is based on notes and sketches that I made during the performances. The intention of this section is not to provide an exact documentation of a theatrical performance, but rather to offer a ground for contemplating temporal spatial experience in Peter Brook’s theatre. The plot is outlined in forty episodes, some of which are preceded by drawings of the stage layout and some are followed by notes on my interpretation of scenography. Any inaccuracy and errors are my own.

Prelude

Large crowds await for the gates to be opened with a sense of excitement and trepidation. This is the last evening that the English version of Eleven and Twelve is played in Paris before taking off for an international tour. Thirty minutes to show time… people start to file in. Corridors, hallways, passages, stairs… further up, gradually, people enter the theatre. The dome of the main auditorium always moves the spectators by its magnitude and vertical height. Rows of white chairs form a tight circle around the stage, patiently awaiting their guests.

Episode 1

A tall tree is situated on the carpet near the upper edge; the two smaller trees stand outside of the limit of the carpet near the upper border. Some wooden elements are situated outside of the left and right edges of the carpet. A zone marked with sand is in the middle of the carpet.

The play Eleven and Twelve begins when the unexpected, sonorous sound of the tam-tam shatters the silence. Tapping the drum skin with skilful fingers and the

267 palms of his hands, Tsuchitori, who is stationed for the whole performance in the far right corner of the stage, produces precise, distinctively firm and exhilaratingly thrilling rhythms and sounds. Released sound travels around the circle of the audience before it reverberates between the stoic walls and ceiling of the theatre. Thirty seconds pass and the sound gets stronger and more powerful, rising higher and higher. Suddenly, as it started, the drum falls silent: only the echo resonates through the auditorium for a moment before it dissipates into thin air.

Note: The carpet, the sand, the logs and the trees stationed are arranged for the prologue of the performance. The high walls of the theatre with their acoustic qualities offer an exemplary condition for the travel of sound and its reverberation through the space.

Episode 2 An echo of the sound still lingers in the air and space after the rousing introduction. Amadou slowly enters the stage from the left entrance at the back of the stage. His eyes are fixed on a small bead he is holding between his fingers: a deep, intense gaze upon the tiny bead in his raised hand. Amadou’s solemn appearance and his utter disbelief as he looks at the bead are complimented by the suspended waves of dying sound. Amadou walks between the trees as he enters the red carpet. He approaches the audience looking intermittently at them and the bead. The narrative starts. Amadou reveals to the audience that it is a prayer (rosary) bead he carries. It used to hold and embody many fond memories of his childhood. But then, the bead started to change, it grew in size. Fondness became malice and then it was transformed into a murderous weapon. Beyond all imagination, the prayer bead caused hatred, devastation, death, …. And all this time Amadou helplessly watched and witnessed how the holy prayer bead metamorphosed into an instrument of evil. The sad voice of a solo violin softly fills the air.

268 Note: The two small trees outside the carpet edge and the tall tree in the middle appear to create an entrance or a passage through which Amadou is welcomed, almost as a trusted friend, into the play. The red fabric welcomes Amadou by its bare openness and its closeness to the audience. The carpet presents Amadou with a ground for narrating.

Episode 3 One by one, a group of six men enter the stage as the backdrop to Amadou’s narrative. Five of them sit on the carpet in a neat row counting prayer beads; the sixth, their master, sits in front of them. Every day, they gather for a prayer. Every day, they recite eleven times the prayer with their master, the Sheikh. The master leaves the stage. Then, one day, for the first time, the master does not come. Confused and bewildered, they discuss what they ought to do. Eventually, they start without him. Reciting the prayer eleven times, they spontaneously continue to repeat the prayer a twelfth time. The Sheikh returns the day after. At the end of reciting the prayer eleven times, the men hesitate before carrying on one more time. The Sheikh remains motionless as if condoning twelve repeats. And so, it became the ritual from that day forward.

Note: The row of those praying, sitting next to one another, and the presence of the master sitting before them, permits the audience to understand that the carpet had transformed into a public, religious place: a gathering place, perhaps a mosque where people converse and pray together along with their master. The trees along the back edge of the carpet help to define the limits of this place. The sand in the middle of the carpet identifies a circular area where the Sheikh sits everyday and prays. It emanates a sense of possession, a spiritual zone belonging to the master.

Episode 4 The melancholic music of violins continues on from the scene before. The Sheik sits in the middle of the red carpet. His followers sit around him. Amadou watches

269 the play from the corner of the stage. A disciple asks the master whether the worshipers should pray eleven or twelve times. The Sheikh sits silently. His body starts to slowly tilt backwards and continues to descend grotesquely before resting on the sandy zone in the middle of the carpet [the audience laughs]. The master passes on without answering the question. The calm music stops.

Episode 5 Amadou steps back on the carpet to narrate. After the Sheikh’s death, a new school emerged, the School of Twelve, practicing twelve prayer repetitions instead of eleven. Light music starts with the sound of a dulcimer.

Episode 6 The light sound of a dulcimer consists of sporadic notes joined together. An elder from the School of Eleven and Cherif Hamallah enter the stage, walking towards the carpet. The elder asks Cherif whether he knows the secret word. Cherif nods and starts drawing letters in Arabic in the sand that is sprinkled in the middle of the carpet. Cherif writes a word and then he erases it… he draws another message. A well-situated overhead spotlight focuses on the drawings in the sand. The elder realizes that Cherif Hamallah was given the intuition of knowledge and that he has reached the required level of spirituality. The elder announces that after his death, Cherif Hamallah will become the next master of the School of Eleven. The sound of the dulcimer stops.

Note: The spotlight focus on the sand in the middle of the carpet and the drawing in the sand lead the audience to realize that the scene is taking place in an outdoor space. The carpet and the trees circumscribe the outdoor space where Cherif Hamallah and the elder person meet. The trees mark out a border for this place; the zone of sand on the middle surface of the carpet becomes a place for writing sacred messages and participates in shaping the play. By writing and erasing and rewriting the holy script, the shape of the sand changes dynamically, emphasizing temporality in the scene.

270 Episode 7

The tall tree is moved to a spot near the middle of the carpet while Amadou is narrating on the carpet area.

Amadou continues narrating. Tsuchitori starts playing the dulcimer at a brisk and lively pace. Amadou describes his childhood in the small town of his birth, Bondiaga. He speaks about the greatest influence on him, his teacher Tierno Bokar, a modest, respectful, venerable man. The music stops when Amadou speaks about his teacher, emphasizing the importance of the moment. Amadou talks about his teacher from the bottom of his heart, deeply and passionately. Tierno made Amadou’s youth distinctive and meaningful. “Today when I speak”, Amadou says, “I cannot tell if I am speaking or Tierno through me”.

Episode 8 The music of the dulcimer resumes. Tierno appears on the stage with a flock of students. Amadou, who was the storyteller up to now, for the first time, very fluidly steps inside of the play and becomes part of the story. Tierno sits at the base of the tall tree. The pupils encircle him on the red carpet. Tierno elaborates on the difference between ‘writing’ and ‘knowing’. He explains that writing and knowing are not the same. Writing is an image of knowing which, like drawing in the sand, can (vanish) be erased. Knowing, on the other hand, is a light that is already lit inside of man. It is a rendering of the instinct of human knowledge, one that has to do with inner knowledge or intuition and perception.

Note: The scene of the teacher, Tierno, teaching the pupils who sit around him, projects the image of a class. The two smaller trees represent an entrance to the classroom. The base of the tall tree signals an important location, as it becomes the teacher’s place. The students scattered around the teacher squat on the surface of the carpet. The tall tree in front and the two small trees behind form a symmetrical triangle which funnels the attention to the teacher’s place. This visual

271 focus on Tierno’s place is enhanced by the pupils who sit in a semi-circle around Tierno. The red carpet and the trees transform the scene into a school.

Episode 9 The sound of the dulcimer continues with a brisk tempo. The students are leaving the school happily. Amadou, while among them, also acts as the narrator. “No School… we are free…”, he says. The students play energetically on the carpet, throwing invisible objects at the spectators.

Note: The students are running and playing impetuously. The enthusiasm and unruliness convey a sense of children playing in an outdoor space. Hence, the carpet in this scene suggests an outdoor area, a playground for the youth outside of school.

Episode 10 The dulcimer pauses. Amadou begins to recount a revelation from his youth. The thunderous beat of an African drum fills the space of the theatre for five seconds and then stops abruptly. In between, a few young students enter the stage quickly and sit nonchalantly on the carpet, conversing. A student describes a tale he and his cousin had overheard. His father and his uncle talked one day, saying that the excrement of white people is just as black as theirs. This anecdote shifts the scene towards a naughty and playful atmosphere that is maintained in the following few scenes.

Episode 11 The sound of the tam-tam in the background springs to life. Amadou narrates. The French-controlled area on the other side of the river is the only place to find the white’s excrement. The tam-tam gets louder. The students sneak across the river. Meanwhile, a white person appears out of an entrance situated within the audience area. The white man, hauling a trash bin full of excrement, steps on the carpet and empties its imaginary content. Then he leaves. The sound of the tam-tam softens.

272 The students approach and examine the area. They realize that these things came from the digestive system of the white people. Now certain that it is as black as theirs, they ponder why the white people use the white sheets of paper. As they argue, suddenly the white person returns. The sound of the tam-tam grows loud. The white man shouts angrily at the African youth. Irritated, the white man removes the garbage and departs. The sound of the tam-tam gradually disappears.

Note: The carpet represents territory across the river that is under French control. The pile of unwholesome garbage left on the carpet turns the carpet into a foul, unpleasant outdoor place. The clandestine movement of the African youth around the garbage amplifies the feeling of a sordid, objectionable place.

Episode 12 Silence is interrupted by the young pupils looking for Tierno. They find him and reveal to him their discovery about white and black people. Amadou adds that white people use white sheets of paper! Tierno smiles. He explains the purpose of the white paper. He elaborates how paper is made and different things to use it for. The white men make books, a large sheet of paper they read daily, called a newspaper. They also use it for their bottoms because their skin is very fragile. [A comic scene].

Episode 13 The rhythmic sound of a tam-tam springs to life. The sound signals a scene transition and then it fades away gradually. Tierno and his students remain on the carpet. A French official enters the stage. He walks up to Tierno. The music stops. Tierno stands and welcomes him. The young pupils disperse to different corners of the carpet, busying themselves with chores and games. The French official states that France respects Tierno for his teachings and wisdom. He asks Tierno to use his influence and ability to cooperate with the French government. Tierno is given a treaty to sign to show his loyalty to France. Tierno responds politely and

273 gracefully that no man can have two masters and he, as a servant of God, cannot be the servant of France. The French representative, furious, leaves the stage.

Note: The carpet is seamlessly transformed from the foul place of the last scene to a positive place. The presence of graceful Tierno and his eager students and few changes in their gestures transpose the scene, urged on by the flute. The carpet with the trees resembles Tierno’s home or a classroom.

Episode 14

The two smaller trees outside of the upper edge of the carpet are placed on either side of the tall tree. The three trees now stand in a straight line.

The sound of a flute breaks the silence. It is smooth and soothing, yet somewhat gloomy. An actor, who previously played Tierno’s disciple, spontaneously and fluidly without changing any gesture starts singing azan (a prelude for Namaz, the Muslim daily prayer). The sacred words of azan diffuse the sound of the flute and both harmoniously mingle in the space of the theatre. Sacred presence is established. The actors, still present on the carpet from the last scene as pupils, stand up and begin prayers.

With the final sounds of azan and the flute, an Imam (a spiritual prayer leader) enters the stage. From the opposite side Tierno arrives. Tierno advises the Imam that it is too early to pray because the sun has not yet set. The Imam becomes angry, calling Tierno inflated and pretentious [the audience sees this as a comical altercation]. Tierno points at his watch. The Imam is incredulous that Tierno trusts a Christian machine, rather than him. When the Imam claims that night is near, a spotlight representing the sun lights up the upper balcony above the audience. It is too early for the Imam to begin the prayer. The sound of a dulcimer springs to life for just a few seconds. The religious crowd discerns the truth in Tierno’s claim

274 and vacates the stage. Tierno asserts that he deserves no compliments, and if anyone does, it should be the watch inventor.

Note: The three trees positioned in a straight line and the row of praying men standing in a parallel line to the trees suggest the religious space of a mosque with its rigorously defined routines and customs. The vertical elements on the stage – the trees – stand in for architectural elements resembling columns. The carpet represents a ground for praying, and the linear trees draw attention to those at prayers, standing next to one another. The edge of the carpet is the defining border between the inner and outer limits of the mosque. This distinction of the inner and outer space can be discerned from the way the Imam and Tierno cross the carpet edge by pausing and slightly bowing before entering the inner space.

Episode 15 The scenery is modified: the tall tree moves to the middle at the far end of the carpet. The two small trees remain standing in their positions, in the top half of the carpet near the carpet edges.

Amadou steps onto the carpet to narrate accompanied by the sound of a flute. An important event has happened. Amadou was chosen by the French to attend the white school. His mother, Khadijeh, is heart-broken and seeks out Tierno’s advice. As soon as Tierno steps onto the carpet, Amadou assumes the role of his own mother. Tierno sits at the base of the small tree on the left, leaning against its trunk. Amadou deftly converts part of his loose dress into a head scarf [a light- hearted moment stems from the simplicity of the character transformation]. Khadijeh laments, “Ayeeeee” [Amadou changes his voice to accentuate Khadijeh’s lamenting voice; he faithfully mimics the mannerisms of a woman]. Khadijeh refuses to allow Amadou to enter the French school. Tierno questions her as to why she wants to deny Amadou the chance to learn and receive more knowledge. Khadijeh finally acquiesces.

275 Note: The trees create a symmetrical triangle pointing away from the audience. The area on the carpet within the triangular space, along with Tierno’s relaxed gesturing while sitting next to one of the trees, gives the impression of Tierno’s home. The trees situated at the three edges of the carpet create a limit on the carpet; they represent three architectural elements that underline the borders of Tierno’s place.

Episode 16 A light-hearted melody springs out of the dulcimer. Tierno has left the stage. Two young actors enter onto the carpet. Gradually and gently, but without any delays, the scene is changed. Amadou is supposed to cross the river. The two actors create a boat and Amadou gets aboard. The music in the background continues while Amadou is carried away by the boat.

Note: This scene manifests one of the most expressive moments of the whole play. A boat is created on the stage by the seemingly simple manipulation of a blanket. The two actors sit in the middle of the carpet some distance apart. They fold a large blanket in half and stretch it. The folded blanket, open side up, represents a boat. The two men gently rock the boat by swaying the blanket back and forth. As the boat moves, the audience realizes that the carpet here represents a river; the sands spread on the carpet gives texture to the water’s surface. The expedient scenic arrangements generate a vivid image of a moving boat floating on the river. The whole transformation takes only thirty seconds. No words are uttered. Suddenly, the two actors let go of the blanket and the boat disappears. Amadou has crossed the river. This sudden appearance and disappearance of the boat and the river convey passage of time in the scene.

Episode 17 The scene is changing. Amadou continues simultaneously narrating and acting. Another actor joins Amadou on the carpet. The sound of the tam-tam starts. The sound grows louder and then almost disappears. The same sequence is repeated

276 several times. They walk toward a deep trench and stop. Inside the trench, they see many dead bodies on top of one another − a mass grave. They are frightened. The sound of the tam-tam fades into the background. The audience is left to imagine the scene through Amadou’s narration.

Amadou and his companion are about to escape from the gruesome place. Cruel- sounding voices stop them in their tracks. First heard and then seen from the right entrance, a procession makes its way through the circle of the audience. Two evil- looking men carrying a dead body approach the trench. One holds the feet, and the other the shoulders of a man. A scattered beat from the tam-tam follows the procession. Amadou and his friend are horrified. The men carrying the body laugh and joke as they approach the trench. The sound of the tam-tam suddenly stops. Amadou watches in silence. The ruffians reach the trench. At the very edge, they start to converse in gibberish, rough and harsh. They dump the body into the trench. In a macabre image, the body is thrown on the sand that had been previously covered by the carpet. They resume their chat and laughter while leaving the stage thorough the door on the left.

The sound of cymbals comes to life with one thunderous beat. And as it slowly dies away it accentuates the sense of fear, becoming attuned to the horrific scene. The soft sound of the Japanese taiko drum, coming from a distance, underlines the tragedy. Amadou and his fellow traveller approach the mass grave to see the body. Amadou explains with a tortured, anguished, distraught voice the horrible experience. Suddenly, the dead body comes to life with a harsh cry. The half-dead man stretches his hand towards the sky, trying to grab onto something invisible. Amadou proclaims that at this moment it is as if a dream is coming out of his mouth. In this last attempt to cling to life, the body suddenly loses all its senses and the outreached hand falls listlessly to the ground. The man has passed away. The vibrating sounds of cymbals and the taiko drum disappear, drowning the audience in silence. Amadou, in anguish, comments: “Life has left him. He is already among the dead.”

277 The distant sound of the tam-tam creeps in. The sound grows louder, drawing closer. Amadou and his companion walk fearfully within the carpet boundaries. The tam-tam erupts loudly and unexpectedly for a few seconds. Amadou and his friend must find cover quickly. They are running around the carpet, searching for a place to hide. The sound stops abruptly. Emotional, with a desperate but loud and dramatic voice, Amadou questions why so many of these poor people are dying in such dreadful and wretched conditions, why they are being treated like garbage after their death...?

Note: From Amadou’s narration it is understood that the carpet and the trees depict the land on the other side of the river. Brook offers in this scene a few clues, signs and movements for the audience to imagine the newly created place: the trench is created by Amadou and his companion by lifting the edge of the carpet that is nearest to the audience, exposing black floor with scattered sand symbolizing dead bodies. By folding the carpet and holding it up, a vertical depth is established in the space. The created trench adds a vertical perspective to the carpet. The image of the dying man and the two figures, Amadou and his companion, hovering over him create an astonishingly powerful visual scene.

Episode 18 Amadou and his friend arrive in a village. The light and floating sound of a xylophone is heard. They rush back to the river they need to cross. The same folded blanket creates the boat once again. Amadou jumps inside the boat and starts to sing mournfully. The sound of the xylophone becomes soothing and attuned with the lyrics of a lullaby. Three days have passed since the terrible scene. They have reached the world of whites. Amadou disembarks and the boat and river disappear.

278 Episode 19 The tall tree is moved from the centre to the back border of the carpet closer to the left side and rotated by 45 degrees. The small trees remain stationary. The taller tree is closer to the small tree on the left, forming an alignment across the far left corner.

Tsuchitori starts playing a violin in a tranquil mood. The sound, sad and moving, fills the space poetically. Cherif Hamallah enters from the backstage on the left. He passes between the two trees (tall and short) and arrives on the carpet. Nobody else is present.

After standing on the carpet for a while, Cherif Hamallah starts a narrative. The music continues calmly. He first tells the tale of a woman named Rabee who was the first person, two hundred years after the death of the prophet Mohammad, to have said that she was in love with God. The next story is situated a hundred years after Rabee. A man, Hallaj, whose official name was Ebne Mansour, claimed: “Anal hagh” (I am the truth; I am God). [Cherif pronounces the words from the depth of his heart]. For saying these blasphemous words, the man is sentenced to death. Before he is burnt alive on a stake, the man keeps repeating anal hagh. As a punishment, his feet and hands are severed. The blood gushing out of his body turn his body and face pale. Cherif pauses for a few moments. Then with a determined and firm voice he announces: “Today, I, Cherif Hamallah, will be arrested. Stay in peace… I will be back…” Then he leaves the stage.

Note: The two trees standing on the carpet closer together represent the borders of an entrance or an arch. Cherif Hamallah enters the carpet through this passageway. The carpet becomes a place for narration. As Cherif describes the blood leaving the tortured sinner’s body, the aged walls of the Bouffes du Nord turn red with the help of a red light that accentuates the cruelty.

279 Episode 20 All trees are repositioned. They are moved and placed close together in a parallel line with the far edge of the carpet. The tall tree is in the middle. Two wooden logs are placed with one end at the base of the small trees; the other end rests against the trunk of the tall tree. Other logs are inside and outside the carpet, either standing or lying down.

The same calm and gloomy music continues until the scene is transformed. A French military officer enters the stage, bringing a chair with him. He comes to the right-hand side of the carpet, puts the chair down with a heavy thud and sits on it. A servant moves one of the logs under the officer’s feet. The officer exudes authority and commands respect by sitting on a chair and being served. Another actor scatters sand around the sitting figure. A circle made of sand is drawn around the officer.

Accompanied by a guard, Cherif Hamallah is summoned to see the authority. There is no music as he enters. The officer asks Cherif if he knows why he has been detained. He answers no. A long interrogation starts. During the whole scene, Amadou sits on the ground outside the limits of the carpet on the left-hand side of the stage. He surveys the scene. The officer inquires whether Cherif is in support of or against France. He asserts that the followers have a great faith in Cherif because they consider him as the representative of God on Earth. The officer rebukes Cherif for praying eleven instead of twelve times. The French authorities consider the number eleven forbidden and therefore Cherif breaks the law. As a punishment, Cherif is forbidden to see or contact either his family or his followers.

Cherif concedes that he has become a ‘French subject’, but he does not fear being exiled and separated from his family and followers. The officer is displeased with Cherif’s indifference to the punishment. To exacerbate the situation, Cherif begins to tell a complicated tale full of metaphors and amusing satiric remarks that

280 strikingly contrasts with the barren and grim atmosphere of the government palace. The officer contemplates the meaning of the tale and finally replies that no one can insult France because it is strong and just and it is there to bring happiness to the poor and the sick. The officer begins to contemptuously taunt Cherif that he should call on his God to strike him dead at once for exiling Cherif. He calmly responds: “Ena lellah va enna elayhe rajeoon (we are all from God and we return to God).” The officer summons the guards to escort Cherif out of his sight. The sound of the violin starts slowly again while Cherif Hamallah is led away by the guards.

Note: The three trees positioned next to one another on the far edge of the carpet are joined together by the two wooden logs placed diagonally between them. This arrangement distracts the audience from seeing each tree as a separate element, but instead encourages them to view them as a whole creating a barrier or a wall. The two wooden logs joining the trees together instil the notion of fortification of the fence or a wall. The presence of the interrogating officer sets the scene in a governmental or military or police office. The chair that the officer sits on and the log under his feet unmistakably signal the pretentious, contemptuous mannerisms of the occupying nation. The circle of sand around the officer implies his position of strength and power. The drawing of the circle in time intensifies our sense of the temporality of the scenography: it unfolds over time. The fortified wall behind emphasizes the dark and harsh atmosphere of this place.

Episode 21 The trees previously positioned linearly next to one another are now moved to different places. The two small trees are situated on the middle axis parallel to the front and back carpet edges. One tree stands on one side and the other on the other side of the carpet. They are rotated by 45 degrees. The tall tree is placed to the left, well past the far edge of the carpet.

281 The melancholic music continues…. The military officer is alone on the stage. Suddenly, he becomes a narrator, addressing the audience. In the background the scenery is being modified. The narrative subsides after the stage has been readied.

Episode 22 The sound of the xylophone gently breaks the silence. Amadou enters and animatedly describes that after he finished his studies he was to be sent to work for the French administration. The sound of the xylophone grows in strength. Gradually the rhythm of the tam-tam joins the xylophone, instilling a sense of transition. The two instruments play louder, faster, happier and sharper, foretelling the start of a comic scene. A French administrator enters the play wearing loose plain African clothes below a formal jacket. Amadou switches from a narrator to his role. The bureaucrat hands Amadou new attire, item by item, emphatically articulating each word as if Amadou has never seen a suit, a shirt, socks or shoes. The rhythm of the music underlines the comical scene, intermittently pausing to focus on the items given to Amadou.

The French employee leaves. Amadou, holding his new uniform, switches back to narrating. Before he departs, Amadou’s mother pleads with him to find God through Tierno Bokar. She warns him to eschew bad women, alcohol and tobacco. In a background, the violin plays a number of flat notes sotto voce. Amadou is determined to follow his mother’s wishes. The music gradually subsides as Amadou leaves the stage.

Episode 23 Tierno Bokar emerges shrouded in silence. Amadou enters. Both meet on the carpet greeting one another. Tierno welcomes Amadou sincerely: “Besme llah (in the name of God).” They stand in the proximity of the smaller trees.

No music. Amadou tells Tierno about his mother’s advice to put himself into God’s hands through Tierno. He repeats it once, twice showing his desire to

282 entrust his life to Tierno. Tierno reprimands Amadou that he is no longer a child and he should talk to him like a man. He inquires if Amadou is in a ‘state of purity’. Amadou’s response is negative. They seat themselves at the foot of a tree. Tierno wants to convert Amadou to Islam. Astonished, Amadou explains that he already is a Moslem. Tierno opines that being born to this world, as a Moslem, is not sufficient to be really a Moslem. Amadou decides to choose the path of true Islam. The sound of the violin starts. Amadou stretches his hands towards Tierno. It is a solemn moment of change and transition. Tierno pours water over Amadou’s hands and feet and allows him to wash them. A poignant sound from the violin hovers in the air for a few seconds. No dialogue, just the ceremonious process of purification and ablution. Tierno utters sacred sentences in Arabic and Amadou repeats: “Ashhado an la elaha ella llah (I swear that there is no deity except God). Ashhado an mohammadan rasoola llah (I swear that Mohammad is the prophet of God)”. Amadou’s conversion has been completed. The music stops, engulfing the two figures in sacred silence.

After his acceptance of true Islam, Amadou casually relaxes on a patch of sand in the middle of the red carpet chatting with Tierno who sits to the left at the base of the small tree. He sifts the sand through his fingers. Tierno counts the prayer beads with his hand. Amadou first requests that Tierno answers his question based on his experience. After a long pause, Amadou asks: “What is God?” Amadou asks a difficult question in a simple, naïve manner, provoking the audience’s amusement.

“God?!” Tierno asks. He contemplates for a long moment and then replies gently: “God is the embarrassment of the human mind.” [The surprising answer astounds the audience]. Amadou is startled and insulted by the reply. He asks Tierno indignantly what he means by this. Tierno retorts that Amadou’s question was too vague. [Audience laughs].

283 [A key moment in the performance]. Tierno explains that God is the embarrassment of the human mind because, on the one hand, if we accept His existence, it does not help us to prove it, neither materially or scientifically. On the other hand, if we deny that He exists, we then repudiate our own existence that is merely an emanation of His Being. But we do exist. [A pause filled with grave silence]. Tierno adds: “And if you can’t prove God materially, you must remember that the non-visibility, the non-palpability and the non-sensibility of a thing aren’t proof that it does not exist.” Tierno continues that God is the embarrassment of the human mind because all we perceive in our thought and express in our words as God, for this reason stops being God; it is our own way of perceiving Him. Tierno emphasizes that God is beyond any definition.

Note: The two small trees situated linearly on the horizontal axis of the carpet have a certain distance from the edges of the carpet. They appear to represent columns or elements that create open, special surroundings. After Tierno pours water over Amadou’s hands and feet, Amadou sits on the ground and plays with sand which gives the audience the impression that it is happening in an outdoor space. The layout of the carpet and the trees and the nonchalant way Amadou and Tierno act represents a private place, possibly Tierno’s yard. The carpet also becomes the place where Amadou becomes a Moslem.

Episode 24 The two smaller trees are moved from the central horizontal axis of the carpet next to each other near the upper edge of the carpet. They stand close to each other and also near the tall tree that remains stationary. The small trees are rotated back by 45 degree to their original position. Two wooden logs are brought on the carpet, and one chair.

The sound of the tam-tam comes in quickly from a distance. The sound grows in strength and then subsides. Again and again this pattern is repeated… The scene is transformed. A military commander enters. He is angry and agitated. A formal jacket over his loose African attire looks comical. Simultaneously, another actor

284 comes to the stage bringing a chair, setting it down near two wooden logs on the left side of the carpet. The commander sits on the chair and rests his feet on top of the two logs. He is brought a newspaper. Sand is spread to encircle his chair. His bare feet are sprinkled with sand that trickles through his toes before it rains down on the carpet.

The scene is prepared. The sound of the tam-tam ceases. A subordinate announces a visitor. The commander gives his permission. “Yes commander, sir”, the soldier shouts keenly. Escorted by the soldier, Amadou, a cane in his hand, enters proudly wearing all white, save his sunglasses. [A salient contrast to the commander’s modest uniform]. The commander now sits deeply engrossed in his newspaper oblivious of Amadou. Amadou tries to attract his attention. A polite cough… no reaction. Amadou steps closer and waits… no reaction. After moments of silence, Amadou asks for a permission to introduce himself. Again, no reaction from the officer. Suddenly, the commander spots Amadou. Startled, he springs to his feet. He stares at Amadou and starts to laugh. The commander ridicules Amadou for his attire and then he drops the newspaper and orders Amadou to pick it up. Amadou complies. After a few moments of intense silence, the commander orders Amadou to change. The tam-tam thunders and then stops.

Amadou leaves bewildered. He complains to the guard. The soldier replies that the only way to talk to the commander is to shout with a big smile: “yes commander, sir!” Amadou tries: “yes commander, sir!” [The sound of the tam- tam starts]. The guard encourages Amadou to say it louder. Together, they shout: “yes commander, sir!” The sound of the tam-tam is even louder this time. The guard consoles Amadou and reveals to him that they call the officer “Massa Kaki,… God’s bullets…”. Amadou laughs and repeats: “Massa Kaki,… God’s bullets…”. The sound of the xylophone springs to life for a second. The commander asks: “Yes? Who called me?” [Audience laughs]. They both answer: “Sorry commander, sir!”

285 Note: The two small trees, positioned next to the tall tree near the upper left border of the carpet give the impression of an element with a solid presence and grandeur, possibly a section of a massive wall. The presence of the commander, wearing his formal jacket to the backdrop of the prominent structural element, transforms the role of the carpet to a governmental office. This image is intensified by the chair located next to the wooden logs. The circle of sand created around the commander’s chair symbolizes, again, power and authority. The sand that trickles through the commander’s feet metaphorically represents the temporality of time that is analogous to the sand in an hourglass.

Episode 25

The trees remain in their places. Four logs are placed on the carpet in an upright position forming a semi-circle. They are located around the central carpet area.

“Massa Kaki,… God’s bullets…”, Amadou repeats for the last time and then slips into a narrating role. The sound of the tam-tam in the background slowly fades away. The scene is changing. The other six actors, as commanders, come and join Amadou on the carpet. All of them are wearing the funny-looking soldier uniforms. All are barefoot. Four sit on logs in the semicircle, two stand behind.

Amadou reminisces that Massa Kaki was the first commander in his eleven years of service. He moved from city to city, from house to a house, from one commander to another commander. Some of them were worse than the others. Amadou recounts their names. With each name, a commander in the semicircle articulates an expression characteristic of him only. The first commander says: “I’ll grab your…” The next commander utters: “I’ll skin you alive…” The next commander declares: “I want you to die…” The next commander shouts: “Eat shit…” And so on. One name, one strike of the tam-tam... One quote, one strike of the tam-tam. Then the commanders call out in unison: “Bonjour les enfants.” The sound of the xylophone...

286 Note: The scene is a recollection of Amadou’s experience as a servant for the French. The four logs create pedestals for commanders from Amadou’s past. The semi-circle of these elevated seats with Amadou’s former commanders sitting on them transfers the scene into the past. The scene resembles a dreamy reminiscence of figures from the past that, one by one, emerge from the shadows of bygone days to utter a sentence that made them infamous.

Episode 26

The trees remain in their place. The four logs are laid down and scattered on the carpet.

Amadou announces that many years pass by. The thunderous sound of the cymbals reverberates in the space and is joined by a lute, introducing a sense of fear. The scene is modified. The commanders sit scattered on the carpet to the sound of the cymbals and the lute. The scene grows darker. Amadou describes how he went to seek out each commander. He saw them in terrible situations: … falling, fainting or dying. Some of them whispered their notorious sayings. Amadou muses how these figures of power and authority were punished, living now in meagre and squalid conditions. Amadou remembers Massa Kaki …, “yes commander, sir!” As soon as Amadou finishes these words, all the commanders on the carpet jump to their feet screaming: “yes commander, sir!”

Note: In the previous scene the logs stood upright and instilled a solemn, dignified picture of the commanders from Amadou’s past. In this scene the logs are laid down and scattered about the carpet in a haphazard manner epitomizing the fall and demise of these commanders and the wretched conditions Amadou found them in.

287 Episode 27 The two smaller trees are repositioned: one of the two smaller trees is brought closer to the left edge of the carpet. In front of it, two wooden logs are laid down horizontally. The other small tree is placed closer to the right edge of the carpet with one wooden log in front of it.

The scene changes to the sound of the dulcimer. Amadou narrates while the sound of the dulcimer gradually wanes. He describes the event that ignited the sectarian clashes: the story of a teapot. Mohammad Susalim and his wife disagree about the number of prayers, eleven or twelve, but they respect each other and live a trouble-free life. Susalim sits on the logs in front of the tree on the left with his wife [again a male actor with a scarf comically wrapped around his head] and his master sit on the log in front of the tree on the right side.

Like Susalim, his master recites the prayer eleven times. Susalim wants to show his admiration for his master by giving him his wife’s valuable silver teapot, the best gift Susalim could think of. The sound of the tam-tam lazily starts. His wife, enraged, starts yelling. Later, Susalim moves offstage which represents his passing away. The sound of the tam-tam intensifies. Susalim’s wife visits the master. A muted rhythmical sound of the tam-tam. She introduces herself as Mahammad Susalim’s widow and asks the master to return the teapot to her because she has no money to feed her family. The teapot was hers and her husband had no right to give it to him. The actor playing the widow laments in a high-pitched voice, imitating a female voice. The master refuses to return the teapot, stating it is no longer in his possession. Susalim’s wife is incensed that the master gave her teapot away. The tam-tam intermittently intensifies, stops, restarts in the rhythm of the play. She accuses the master of stealing the teapot and threatens to seek justice from the commander. The sound of the tam-tam stops...

Note: Interestingly, in this scene the carpet accommodates two distinctive places. The two figures on the left-hand side of the carpet, Susalim and his wife, sitting

288 on two logs in front of the tree create a setting that portrays a home. It is the peacefulness, tranquility and freedom in the gesturing of the actors that helps the audience to recognize that the left side of the carpet represents the home of Susalim and his wife. On the right side of the carpet, one log and one tree represent Susalim master’s quarters. In both homes, the trees represent architectural elements like those of columns and the logs in front of them represent sitting areas. With the minimal number of elements and objects in the scene, Brook conveys the idea of two homes on the stage.

Episode 28

The logs previously in front of the small trees are pushed to the outside of the carpet limits near the upper left corner.

No music. The commander enters and starts questioning the master about the teapot stolen from ‘the beautiful woman’ (referring to Susalim’s wife, which is amusing because Susalim’s wife looks masculine and rather unattractive). The commander is aware that the master is unrepentantly praying eleven times, which he proclaims very dangerous and unsafe for France. Then the commander laughs and teasingly calls the master ‘Hamallist,’ after the exiled Cherif Hamallah, ordering him to return the teapot and add one more bead to his prayer string! The master defies the order to put an extra bead on his prayer string. He questions the rationale of France behind the arbitrary decision to pray twelve times. The infuriated commander orders the guards to throw the master in prison. A few strikes on the tam-tam. He shouts at the master that it will be a long time before he sees the sun again. Isolated beats of the tam-tam.

Note: The carpet has been emptied, save for the two small trees, which opens up the view for the audience to be able to focus on the upcoming altercation between Susalim’s master and the military commander.

289 Episode 29

The sporadic beats of the tam-tam continue. Amadou enters and announces that the followers of Twelve gained victory. The tam-tam stops. Amadou describes the moments of this dark chapter in his life. The violin underscores the dark, gloomy mood. Despair is pouring out of Amadou. The light gets noticeably darker. Amadou confesses that once again he is on the road that leads to Tierno, his master. The sound of the violin vanishes.

Note: The dark scene, with a spotlight focusing on Amadou, emphasizes the recollection of grim memories. The play of light and darkness create a focal point on the carpet in which Amadou’s silhouette casts shadows in the sand in most impressive and engaging ways.

Episode 30

The tall tree remains outside of the carpet near the left far edge. The small tree on the right is moved closer to the upper right corner of the carpet, while the small tree on the left is brought closer to the middle of the left carpet edge.

Amadou informs the audience that eleven years pass by. No music is audible. Tierno enters and then Amadou walks in. Tierno is surprised and welcomes Amadou. Tierno sits at the base of the tree on the left. Amadou sits on the carpet close to Tierno. Amadou admits that he came back to Tierno. Amadou explains his dreadful experiences with the French colonialist government. He can no longer continue working for the French and keep silent. He is determined to run away to Tierno and follow his teaching. Tierno responds that Amadou can choose good things from the French, and let go of the bad ones. He can use his time to work. Amadou describes the injustices and cunningness with which the French try to bring down their religion, the harm and discrimination against Cherif and his followers. They do all this out of pride.

290 Tierno responds that there are three kinds of truth: “My truth, your truth, and the truth.” The sound of the dulcimer in the background slowly vanishes. A moment of silence... Tierno reveals to Amadou that he sympathizes with Cherif and has decided to meet him. Amadou warns Tierno about the repercussions should the French understand that he visited the exiled Cherif. Tierno replies that there is not a man in this world without troubles. At the time of his death, Tierno tells Amadou, he will have more enemies among the people to whom he has done nothing than he will have friends. Another pause of silence...

Note: The trees define an inconspicuous area on the carpet where Tierno welcomes Amadou and then they sit together. This arrangement on the carpet projects the impression that the area circumscribed by the trees is part of Tierno’s home. The trees, as three architectural elements, mark out and emphasize the limits of the home, each loosely representing the surface of an invisible wall.

Episode 31

The tall tree and the small tree on the left-hand side remain at their positions. The smaller tree on the right-hand side is moved near the small tree on the left.

The melancholic sound of the violin accompanies Amadou’s narration. Tierno travels to meet Cherif. He meets him standing at the door. Each appears to be a reflection of the other. The music stops. Delighted, Cherif welcomes Tierno. Both leave the stage.

The violin starts. Cherif and Tierno meet only at breakfast, except one time when they meet at night. The stage becomes dark. An enchanting voice joins the violin. Tsuchitori sings. No distinct words, just the touching syllables of lalalalalah...

Cherif enters the stage from one side, Tierno from the other. Both hold flashlights in one hand and canes in the other. They meet and begin to walk side by side and

291 talk. Their voices are indiscernible. [The violin and singing carry on]. Occasionally, they pause and scribble signs in the sand with their canes. Cherif then sits down on the carpet. Tierno follows. Cherif draws in the sand. It is a shape, or a letter.

The violin and singing amplify. When the singing finally subsides, it is as if the violin sounded almost purposely vague. Cherif and Tierno stand up and resume their walking. They pace the carpet back and forth. Together, the men slowly leave the stage pursued by their shadows. The sound of the violin starts to wane. Amadou enters. With a deep voice, he describes that nighttime meeting between Cherif and Tierno. The topics of their conversations will remain a mystery. Finally, the sound of the violin dies away.

Note: Only Cherif’s and Tierno’s flashlights illuminate the scene. This creates very interesting visual imagery: two moving spotlights cutting through the darkness. The light projects prominent shadows and shapes on the sandy floor and the surrounding walls. The shadows follow both men, extending, stretching and shrinking, which bestows on the scene a surreal, ephemeral character. The scattered sand on the surface and around the edges of the carpet offers the possibility of transmitting sacred messages through the drawings. Their drawings in the sand give the impression that the scene takes place in an outdoor space. The smaller trees situated close to one another on the left side of the carpet seem to represent two standing elements in the yard, reminiscent of columns or trees. Powerful images are created by this scene.

Episode 32 The stage is suddenly inundated with light. No music. Cherif and Tierno return to the stage. They sit down at the base of the smaller trees, positioned next to one another near the left edge of the carpet. Tierno informs Cherif that through their dialogue Cherif provided answers to all his questions, and that he is absolutely in

292 accord with Cherif’s way of thinking. Tierno expresses his appreciation for those fifteen days when he learned to pray and think in the way of Eleven.

Cherif questions Tierno as to whether he does not mind the order. Tierno responds that although he was born before him, it is Cherif who is wiser. Cherif adds that he wishes that all Tierno’s family were like Tierno. He continues and asks Tierno whether he has done estekhar in the way of God. (In the Islamic tradition, if one cannot decide, they ask God for a sign estekhar that will help them to choose). Tierno replies that he has and seven days later he had a dream.

The scene gets progressively darker. Only spotlights focus on the two masters. The sound of the violin lingers in the background. Tierno describes his dream. The sound of the violin intensifies and a figure clad in black appears behind Tierno. As the sound reaches its climax, the dark figure jumps in front of Tierno and folds the left corner of the carpet closer to the audience. The sound quickly winds down and stops. The black figure says angrily and hatefully: “It is forbidden for you! You are forbidden to enter…”

The sound of the violin starts again. Tierno excitedly calls: “La elaha ella llah (there is no deity except God).” Tsuchitori repeatedly chants la elaha ella llah. The sound of the violin joins in. [The audience feels the proximity and energy of the chant that appears to come from everywhere]. The sound harmoniously and sacredly reverberates through the space of Bouffes du Nord. La elaha ella llah… [It is a powerful experience for the audience].

The music and chant stop. The scene bursts with light and Cherif asks Tierno if he saw him in his dream. Tierno nods in agreement. He saw him and it was so real that he questioned whether it was really a dream. Cherif asks gravely if Tierno is concerned with the wrath of his people and his relatives because of his decision to convert to Eleven. “Aren’t you afraid?” The news will baffle the followers of Twelve. They will fight with Tierno, feeling betrayed. Tierno replies he is not

293 afraid: “It is all the same.” Cherif asks three times and each time he gets the same answer. After that he reveals the secret of the prayer in the way of Eleven to Tierno.

Note: Cherif and Tierno meet at the same place as the night before; the scene is unchanged. They sit down at the bases of what might literally be two trees in the yard. The folded carpet by the mysterious figure in black represents a forbidden area of thought for Tierno to contemplate. The folded carpet becomes a metaphor: a warning to Tierno about his inclinations to abandon the Twelve. The walls and the high ceiling of the Bouffes du Nord provide the perfect conditions for the chant of la elaha ella llah to penetrate and resonate in the space.

Episode 33 Amadou enters. He explains that Cherif’s followers bring gifts to show their respect to Tierno. The sound of the xylophone lingers in the background and creates a happy atmosphere. Cherif and Tierno stand on the carpet. Three figures enter from the right, carrying boxes full of dates, sugar, and apples. Tierno is overwhelmed by this display of generosity and respect. The sound of the xylophone stops. Cherif and Tierno are alone once again. Tierno says: “My skin is bound to my flesh, my flesh with my nerves, nerves to my bones… I will give you my marrow”.

Episode 34

One of the small trees is moved from the left to the right side of the carpet.

Amadou narrates. Tierno leaves Cherif’s place. The sound of the tam-tam is in the background. Tierno travels fast, but the news of his conversion travels even faster. The big news! A Twelve has betrayed Twelve! Tierno has turned to Eleven! The sound of the tam-tam rises and stays high for about 15 seconds. The sound is

294 harsh, immediate, infused with fear and defiance. Then the sound falters and disappears.

Cherif’s follower of Eleven is on the carpet. Two followers of Twelve enter the stage carrying wooden weapons and try to intimidate Cherif’s follower, claiming that Cherif is destroying their family. Under the pretext that the fire of God cannot burn the son of the chosen one, they want to burn the feet of Cherif’s pupil. The intruders wrestle the poor man to the ground and burn his feet. The screams and two instruments, the cymbals and the Japanese taiko drum, convey the victim’s pain. The combination of the sounds matches the cruelty of the scene. The victim screams with pain. The intruders stop the torture. The music continues and then stops abruptly. The attackers are pleased with the inflicted punishment. They laugh and start dancing around the wounded body. The tam-tam provides the rhythm for the dance. The side of Twelve wins! The tortured man grabs the feet of the dancing person while another follower of Eleven arrives. They overpower both intruders. The side of Eleven wins! A merciless fight ensues and continues to the sound of the harsh, loud music. Both sides become tired, worn down by the brawl, wounded and ruined. Both sides, Eleven and Twelve, lose!

Silence hovers over the battlefield. Bodies lie scattered on the carpet: a scene of annihilation and destruction. Cherif enters. He walks slowly towards the bodies. Dismayed and distraught, he says: “I, Cherif Hamallah, I am God’s witness on earth.” He obeys only God. He is unafraid of exile or persecution, but he does not wish his family to be the cause of a civil war. The distant sound of the tam-tam slowly approaches.

Note: The action and the fight of attrition between the followers of Eleven and Twelve turns the carpet into a battleground and site of destruction. The trees, pushed near the left and right edges of the carpet, leave the carpet area open and unhindered for the fight to take place. At the same time the trees mark the place

295 for the feud. The scattered sand on the carpet is airborne and creates a cloud of dust that fills the air. The cloud hovers above the carpet as the skirmish continues.

Episode 35

The tall tree remains untouched past the far edge of the carpet, rotated by 45 degree, and outside of the upper left edge of the carpet. Both smaller trees are now situated close to the upper right corner of the carpet, rotated by 45 degrees. Three wooden logs are stood up in the upper left corner of the carpet, creating a segment of a circle.

A member of Twelve narrates the play. French guards come to arrest Cherif. To prevent any incidents, Cherif walks to meet them, praying: “Lab bayk va rabi lab bayk (Lord I am here).” The tam-tam accompanies the prayer. “Lab bayk va rabi lab bayk.” The narrator is seamlessly transformed into a French military officer. Cherif is led by guards into an office. The French officer steps up to interrogate Cherif, eyeing him silently first. Then he starts to insult Cherif. He does not respond. “Do you have a tongue?” bellows the officer. Cherif answers: “Enna lelah va enna elayhe rajeoon.” The officer does not understand. “I am a servant of truth,” translates Cherif. Livid, the officer threatens him with torture. Cherif replies that the officer is absolutely free to make him suffer. He can torture him, but as he cannot stop Cherif from pain, he cannot prevent him from thinking of God. The officer sentences Cherif to perpetual exile in France. He is not to see the soil of Africa ever again.

Note: At the beginning of this scene, the narrator is describing Cherif’s arrest in the first acting area, while the arrest takes place in the second acting area beyond the proscenium. The carpet is a place for narration and the space beyond the prominent arch is a place for action. When the narrator transforms into an officer, the carpet becomes the place where the story unfolds. The mannerisms and gesticulations of the French officer and the image of a handcuffed Cherif indicate to the audience that the carpet has turned into a police station. The carpet, along

296 with the objects situated on it emphasise the mood and atmosphere of a regimental, law-enforcement place. Cherif Hamallah is led into the office through the entrance created by two smaller trees situated on the upper right corner of the carpet. The three logs, as three vertical elements evenly spaced in the upper left corner, outline the borders of the office space.

Episode 36 A melodic sound from the violin comes from the background. Cherif Hamallah and the French officer are both standing motionless on the carpet. After a long pause, Cherif becomes the narrator. Cherif was shipped to France to a camp where Jews and communists were kept. His only possession was the clothes he was arrested in. He caught pneumonia and died. The French officer now assumes the role of narrator. The officer became a general. In 1942, he switched sides, for which he was, after the war, treated as a collaborator. He died before his trial could begin. Both figures stand motionless for a few seconds and then leave the stage. The sound of the violin accompanies their departure before it itself disappears.

Note: The scene is unchanged. The carpet once again becomes a place for narration. The motionless figures on the carpet emphasise the sad end of Cherif.

Episode 37 Five people enter. The violin is still playing. One of the newcomers is Tierno. The others are the followers of Twelve with their master. All carry the prayer beads in their hands. They approach the carpet and sit down with their legs crossed forming a row, except for the master of Twelve who stands in front of them.

The violin stops. The master of Twelve is agitated, trying to frighten people sitting in front of him by saying that he will make those who do not wish to pray Twelve suffer. Then he turns to Tierno: “I am talking to you, Tierno Bokar.” Tierno stands up and walks towards the exit. The master tells him if he leaves, he

297 will be banished for life, he will lose his home and nobody will be allowed to speak to him. Tierno continues and then he turns at the gate, saying that he has nothing against the number twelve; why then is the master against the number eleven. Would the mosque collapse if it rested on eleven pillars? So why all this wrath? A long silence, Tierno exits unchallenged and leaves the stage through the space between the two small trees. The violin starts softly and movingly. The scene is changing.

Note: The carpet changes its role from the space of narration in the previous scene to a space of gathering, teaching and praying. The two smaller trees in the upper right corner of the carpet represent the entrance and the exit to the newly created space. A man standing in front of a group seated in a row implies the image of the master and his followers. The ordered row of men piously sitting on the carpet and counting the prayer beads transforms the carpet into a mosque.

Episode 38 The tall tree is moved to the centre, but it still remains outside of the carpet limits. It is situated in a spot with a further distance from the carpet closer to the back wall. One of the smaller trees is moved outside of the right upper corner of the carpet. The other small tree is moved to the middle of the carpet.

The small tree in the centre is moved to the outside of the left upper corner of the carpet. Also, four logs are placed at the corners at 45 degrees and the carpet is folded over them.

The forlorn tune continues. Amadou enters and narrates. Tierno finds his life difficult and empty. He enters with two people and sits in the middle of the carpet, very close to the small tree. He looks weary and weak. Amadou sits outside of the carpet, counting his prayer beads. One of the people accompanying Tierno assumes the role of the narrator. Tierno listens to his town. The morning passes;

298 the midday goes by in silence. No one speaks to him; no one seeks his presence. But Tierno does not complain as he peacefully approaches the end of his life.

The music stops. Tierno is dying. He begins to talk with difficulty. Although he faces the audience, he does not look at them. Not looking at anyone or anywhere in particular, Tierno just stares at a point in space. He recalls an old tale about a master with butterflies gathered around him. They see a bright flame in the distance and wonder what it is. The butterflies wish to explore it. The first butterfly approaches the flame, but returns, saying that the flame was too hot and he could not get closer. The master replies that his explanation is not adequate. The second butterfly gets very close to the flame and scorches his wings. When he comes back he tells the master what happened. The master again replies that the answer is still not enough. The third butterfly goes and throws himself into the flame and vanishes. The master says that this one has understood, but he is the only one to know…

Tierno’s voice gets weaker and weaker. The sound of the violin starts up nostalgically. He is escorted by his two companions toward the proscenium arch. They slowly, step by step, walk him towards the tall tree. The melancholic music continues. Amadou steps on the carpet to narrate. Tierno is moving closer to death. He, with the help of his companions, lies down behind the tall tree facing the back wall. He rests his head on the base of the tree and dies peacefully. Amadou’s voice gradually disappears, as does the sound of the violin.

Note: The middle of the carpet and the tree situated there becomes a place where the weak and dying Tierno utters his last words. After his story, during the time that he is walked slowly to the bigger tree near the end of the stage, the scene changes. Through the simple and immediate action of folding the four carpet corners over the wooden logs, the meaning of the space changes. Each corner of the carpet represents a grave and the carpet becomes a cemetery. The image of a four-pointed star and the dramatic visual change of the scenery portray to the

299 audience the imminence of Tierno’s death. When Amadou here steps onto the carpet to describe the last moments of Tierno’s life, he in fact walks in the space of a cemetery. The tall tree at the end of the stage behind which Tierno is laid down becomes a sign, a symbol of Tierno’s death and also his monument.

Episode 39

No change in the position of the trees. Only the two corners of the carpet closest to the audience are unfolded. The logs representing the graves become apparent in these two corners.

No music. Tierno Bokar’s body remains at the same place. The scene remains the same. Singing is heard close to the audience. It is a person entering through one of the passages between the seats. The singing starts more like a whisper, but it gets more audible as the man approaches the stage. He is a grave-keeper. He steps on the carpet holding a stick that represents a shovel. The grave-keeper unfolds two corners of the carpet closest to the audience. He starts cleaning the graves with his shovel, continuing to sing.

Amadou enters. He returns to France after ten years. The grave-keeper recognizes Amadou and welcomes him warmly. The grave-keeper tells Amadou stories about visitors to the graveyard. Some people are rich and important. Some are interested to learn whose tombs are visited the most. Some look for the grave of Cherif Hamallah because for them he is not dead and they want to take him back to Africa. Amadou and the grave-keeper leave the cemetery. Their shadows are seen on the walls as they walk. Tsuchitori quickly moves his bow across the strings of the violin, producing a vibrating sound. They both depart at the back of the stage.

Note: By the act of unfolding the two front corners of the carpet and exposing the logs, the graves become more apparent and the meaning of the cemetery is solidified.

300 Episode 40 The stage is empty, save for Tierno’s body. The vibrating sound continues. Tsuchitori, having sat in the exact same spot from the beginning of the play, starts singing. It is more a form of mourning than singing. His sad voice is calm. The mourning and the sound are suspended in the air. Tsuchitori finishes his sorrowful song. His music stops. The sound reverberates through the space for a long time. Finally, silence is restored. The long silence, perhaps half-a-minute long is dramatic and moving. The audience only now starts to realize the play has finished. The theatre is suddenly filled with loud applause.

Note: Tierno’s body, the ground, the carpet, the trees, the scattered sand on the floor, the logs and the folded corners of the carpet, all together represent the space of the cemetery. The created space, along with the walls of the theatre, absorbs the mourning song and the vibration of the sound in the space. The theatre walls reflect the resonating sound through the space, instilling a sense of suspension. The long, dramatic silence in the Bouffes du Nord offers temporality in space. The final silence does not provide a structured ending, but an emptiness which is alive and inviting.

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314 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1: An image of a circle of actors in the Bouffes du Nord. Source: Brook, Peter. The Shifting Point; Theatre, Film, Opera 1946-1987. New York: Harper & Row, 1989, 113.

Figure 1.2: Improvisation with a pair of boots during Brook’s journey to Arica. Source: Todd, Andrew, and Jean-Guy Lecat. The Open Circle: Peter Brook’s Theatre Environments New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 48.

Figure 1.3: The Bouffes du Nord located inconspicuously at a busy intersection of Rue du faubourg Saint-Denis and Boulevard de la Chapelle. Source: Negin Djavaherian.

Figure 1.4: The plan of the Bouffes du Nord. Source: Todd, Andrew, and Jean-Guy Lecat. The Open Circle: Peter Brook’s Theatre Environments New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 19.

Figure 1.5: A view of the First acting area and the Second acting area in the Bouffes du Nord. Source: Todd, Andrew, and Jean-Guy Lecat. The Open Circle: Peter Brook’s Theatre Environments New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 19. Picture adapted to emphasize the acting areas in the Bouffes du Nord.

Figure 1.6: The sections of the Bouffes du Nord. Source: Todd, Andrew, and Jean-Guy Lecat. The Open Circle: Peter Brook’s Theatre Environments New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 20.

Figure 1.7: The main auditorium of the Bouffes du Nord theatre. Source: Todd, Andrew, and Jean-Guy Lecat. The Open Circle: Peter Brook’s Theatre Environments New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 26.

Figure 2.2: Ted Hughes’s physiology of Orghast. Source: Smith, Anthony Charles H. Orghast at Persepolis: An account of the experiment in theatre directed by Peter Brook and written by Ted Hughes. London: Eyre Methuen, 1972, 92.

Figure 2.3: The tomb of Artaxerxes (II or III) at Persepolis where Orghast I took place. Source: Photographed by Malie Letrange. Peter Brook’s private copy.

315 Figure 2.4: Naqsh-e-Rustam where Orghast II took place. Source: Nazmjoo, Ali Reza. Persepolis: Monuments Historiques du Fârs. Translated by H. Fouladvind. Tehran: Yassavoli, 2006, 64.

Figure 2.5: Testing visual and acoustic qualities at Naqsh-e-Rustam before the place was chosen for the performance. Source: Todd, Andrew, and Jean-Guy Lecat. The Open Circle: Peter Brook’s Theatre Environments New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 42.

Figure 2.6: The Zoroastrian Fire Temple (The Cube of Zoroaster) at Naqsh-e-Rustam during the performance Orghast II. Source: Photographed by Malie Letrange. Peter Brook’s private copy.

Figure 3.1: The Callet Quarry in Boulbon, near Avignon. Preparations for the performance of The Mahabharata. Source: Source: Todd, Andrew, and Jean-Guy Lecat. The Open Circle: Peter Brook’s Theatre Environments New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 133.

Figure 3.2: The Callet Quarry before sunset (left) and after sunset during the performance of the Mahabharata. Source of the picture on the left: Todd, Andrew, and Jean-Guy Lecat. The Open Circle: Peter Brook’s Theatre Environments New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 133. Source of the picture on the right: Photographed by Malie Letrange. Peter Brook’s private copy.

Figure 3.3: The snake of fire during the performance of The Mahabharata. Source of the picture on the right: Photographed by Malie Letrange. Peter Brook’s private copy.

Figure 3.4: The stage layout with a carpet and three statuettes of threes before the performance of Eleven and Twelve in the Bouffes du Nord. Source: Negin Djavaherian.

Figure 3.5: The stage of the Bouffes du Nord before the performance of Eleven and Twelve. Source: Negin Djavaherian.

Figure 3.6: The prominent proscenium arch in the Bouffes du Nord divides the stage into two acting areas. Source: Negin Djavaherian.

316