Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter. "I can take any empty space and call it a stage," wrote Peter Brook, the theatre director who passed away at 97 last week, in his 1968 book The Empty Space . Known for his innovative productions of William Shakespeare plays and the Mahabharata , often using factory space or other open areas to stage the shows, Brook detested the "lazy habit to generalise" ( Tip of the Tongue ). He lived by the credo — 'Don't take anything for granted. Go see for yourself.' This little "nagging murmur", he said, led him to so many journeys and explorations, "from the sublime to the ridiculous." It led him, for instance, to stage an ambitious production of the Hindu epic with several Indian actors that got the Mahabharata a wider audience but also some flak. Critics like Rustom Bharucha ( Theatre and the World ) argued that Brook had "trivialised" Indian culture, but if anything, the play and subsequently the film, did open up many discussions on the classic. We are still reappraising the epic, as G.N. Devy wrote in his 2020 book, Mahabharata: The Epic and the Nation . In his… Read full this story
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