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Peter Brook's Heart of Light: ‘Primitivism’ and Intercultural Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

David Moody
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Abstract

Peter Brook's work has always figured in debates over ‘intercultural’ projects in the contemporary theatre. However, the controversy has most often centred on his engagement with Asian theatrical traditions, and in particular on his production of The Mahabharata. David Moody here examines Peter Brook's writings on Africa, as theatrical ‘discourse’ with its own theoretical half-life quite distinct from actual productions. This discourse, it is argued, can be described as ‘primitivist’, in that it constructs the African audience as, in Barthes's term, ‘degree zero’ – a ‘limit-text’ to universal theatrical communication. In doing so it presents a limiting version of African theatrical traditions themselves, and, as a result, reinforces a broader, more destructive global discourse of cultural primitivism concerning African and so-called ‘indigenous’ art and performance. David Moody, who currently lectures in Theatre and Drama Studies at Murdoch University, Perth, Australia, is a playwright, actor, and director who has written extensively on African, post-colonial, and popular theatre, and is now engaged in his own problematic intercultural projects.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 11 , Issue 41 , February 1995 , pp. 33 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes and References

1. Menon, Sadanand, ‘Giving a Bad Name to Interculturalism’, The Hindu, 29 12 1989Google Scholar.

2. Buzacott, Martin, The Death of the Actor: Shakespeare on Page and Stage (Routledge, 1991), p. 127Google Scholar.

3. Torgovnik, Marianna, Gone Primitive (Chicago University Press, 1990), p. 8Google Scholar.

4. Ibid., p. 8–9.

5. See Said, Edward, Orientalism (Pantheon, 1979)Google Scholar.

6. See Writing Degree Zero. (Cape, 1967).

7. Brook, Peter, The Empty Space. (Penguin, 1967); and The Shifting Point (Methuen, 1988)Google Scholar.

8. Grotowski, Jerzy, Towards a Poor Theatre (Methuen, 1969), p. 16Google Scholar.

9. Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness (Norton, 1971)Google Scholar.

10. See Achebe, Chinua, ‘An Image of Africa’, Massachusetts Review, XVIII (Winter 1977), p. 782–94Google Scholar.

11. The Shifting Point, p. 128.

12. Ibid.

13. Soyinka, Wole, Myth, Literature, and the African World (Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 127Google Scholar.

14. Brook, op. cit., p. 125.

15. Ibid., p. 124.

16. Ibid., p. 126–7.

17. Ibid., p. 127–8.

18. Ibid., p. 118.

19. Ibid., p. 128.

20. Ibid., p. 118.

21. Ibid., p. 120.

22. Ibid., p. 128.

23. Ibid., p. 128.

24. Ibid., p. 117.

25. Ibid., p. 120–21.

26. Ibid., p. 121.

27. Ibid., p. 116.

28. Williams, David, ed., Peter Brook: a Theatrical Case-book (Methuen, 1988), p. 206Google Scholar.

29. Ibid., p. 207.

30. Jeyifo, Biodun, The Truthful Lie: Essays in a Sociology of African Drama (New Beacon, 1985)Google Scholar.

31. Dunton, Chris, Make Man Talk True: Nigerian Drama in English Since 1970 (Hans Zell, 1992)Google Scholar.

32. Bjorkman, Ingrid, Mother, Sing for Me: People's Theatre in Kenya (Zed Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

33. Williams, op. cit., p. 129.

34. Hunt, Albert, ‘Acting and Being’, New Society, 20 02 1985Google Scholar.

35. Williams, op. cit., p. 276.

36. Ibid., p. 279–80.

37. Brook, op. cit., p. 136.

38. Ibid., p. 137–8.

39. Ibid., p. 138.