Published by Nick Hern Books
An hour glass on the book’s front cover suggests encapsulating quintessential qualities in the slightest of vessels – and in this slim volume of reflections on Shakespeare the ground-breaking grandee of the stage sets out to do just that.
In medieval times a monk would ponder mortality by keeping a skull and an hour glass before him and Brook seizes on the image to argue that as dramatic genius transforms everyday time into theatre time each grain of sand that falls becomes a scorching flame.
This collection of essays teems with insights distilled from a lifetime in the theatrical front row and it is easy for the reader to feel like the novice in the Shaolin temple imbibing timeless wisdom from the master.
Brook dwells on duality and the holiness of the playwright’s soaring task: the ‘enigmatic coexistence of light and dark’ expressed in sinuous poetry which can be likened to piercing prayer. For him ‘the golden world is a part, and not the whole, of existence’.
Portia’s plea for Shylock to show mercy in The Merchant of Venice, which inspires the title, goes to the heart of what, for Brook, constitutes the threefold mystery – and a Shakespeare play offers a ticket into the rarefied realm of quality, mercy and freedom.
Along the way there is time for a bit of name-dropping, but what names – whether it is memories of directing Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh or of Marshal Tito pouring drinks for the cast during the interval at a performance of Titus Andronicus in Belgrade.
There is also the occasional use of the royal we – ‘our ‘King Lear’’ and ‘when we were already installed in the Mobilier national in Paris’ – but it would be ungracious to hint at putting on airs when you are in the presence of a theatrical king.
Review by Peter King