Abstract: Shakespeare has been Peter Brook’s food and drink. He revealed the originality of his approach, progressing from the “tangible cruelty” of his Titus Andronicus via the historical and philosophical contemporaneity of his King Lear to arrive at the “playful freedom” of his Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 1974 Brook opened his residence in Paris with a French production of Timon of Athens. It is here that, in productions of The Tempest and Hamlet, he would develop a cinematic fluidity in his mises en scène and the widening reach of his multi-cultural company. Brook’s vision has left its mark on French theatre.
