Britain's Sir Peter Hall is considered by many the most important
director in his generation. As the artistic director of the Royal
Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and the Old Vic, he has
directed the greatest actors of our time in numerous seminal
interpretations of Shakespeare and the Classics.
In his latest work, Sir Peter Hall ranges over the extraordinary history
of world drama to find the common experiences that are able to create
the theatrical form. This series of 4 lectures were delivered at Trinity
College in Cambridge as part of the famed Clark lectures which began in
the nineteenth century.
The argument of the lectures is that theatre is only created when
emotions are contained by a form. That very form paradoxically gives
freedom of expression. Thus the Greek mask enables the actor to express
hysteria. The mask, whether it may be the actual physical mask on the
face, or the form of the drama itself, makes expression possible.
Shakespeare's verse is his mask. Mozart's sonata is his. And Beckett and
Pinter (by the metaphors of their plays) have brought poetry back to the
theatre. Without form there can be no freedom.
Peter Hall is currently in Denver, Colorado, in rehearsals for the
world premiere production of Tantalus, a 15 hour, 10 play cycle based
on Greek tragedy to open at the Denver Center Theatre in October 2000.
