Peter Brook: the constant innovator

Clara Bauer, who worked with the theatre director, on how Brook was constantly searching, travelling, and innovating

Clara Bauer, 47, first met Peter Brook, one of the most influential theatre directors of the 20th century, when she was 19. He was in the audience when she watched his play, Happy End, in Paris. Then years later, circumstances helped her get a job with him, as his director of production, working on shows such as The Man Who, Le Costume, Tierno Bokar, and The Tragedy of Hamlet. The Britian-born visionary — who settled down in France, revived the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, won Tonys and Emmys, and was awarded the Padma Shri last year — passed away on July 2 at the age of 97.

“Peter is alive in my heart,” says the Argentinian on a morning phone call from Chennai, where she’s visiting her partner. “ Journal d’un corps, the first play I made after I left his team, was shown at Bouffes du Nord in 2012, and he was there to see it.” Now the artistic director of Compagnie Mia, Bauer says she plans to honour him through her work.

Edited excerpts from an interview:

How did you come to work with Peter Brook?

When I joined the International Festival of Buenos Aires as its artistic advisor [for its second edition], I decided to start with a Peter Brook production. I travelled to Paris and, in 1999, brought back The Man Who. [ L’Homme Qui is a masterpiece based on the neurological cases in Oliver Sacks’ book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. Peter spent time at Centennial, a mental hospital in Paris, with his actors to study the relationship between the doctors and patients to create this piece of theatrical research.] We played 10 shows, and it was crazy.

For the first time, I saw what an impact theatre can have. It was almost like hosting a football match — the theatre was full and there were people thronging outside for tickets. Peter didn’t travel for this show, but the actors went back and told him all about it. And he wanted to meet me. We spoke a lot [as a multi-linguist, he spoke in Spanish] about Argentina, his daughter’s Irina’s plays, etc, and he asked me if I would like to work with him. It was a ‘yes’, and I became his director of production for the next decade.

Peter was always searching [for stories, experiences, ways of expression]. He travelled a lot, to different cities, and learned from each and every place. He encouraged me to make connections wherever I went, and helped me to learn how to immerse myself in the life, culture and stories there. A lot of people who are close to me now I met through him. For instance, I met Shantala Shivalingappa 20 years ago, when I worked with her in The Tragedy of Hamlet. Now, she is my neighbour in Chennai.