Why? (2019)


An original production by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne, Lucas Kane served as both assistant director and projectionist during the shows preimere at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and it’s subsequent world tour throughout 2019. 

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At the beginning of the 20th Century “why” and “how to do theatre“ became burning questions.

What was theatre about? How could it be more alive, more open to all? How could the actor be helped to be truer? What could be a new space? A new way of acting?These questions and many others take us on an exploration joyful and dramatic. This is “why” we do Why? “Theatre is a very dangerous weapon.” These words were written in the 1920s by one of the most creative, most innovative, directors the theatre has known. His name is Vsevolod Meyerhold. He saw all the menacing dangers that the theatre and art in general were going through in the 1930s in Russia. He read “the writing on the wall”, as we call it, but he did not stop. He hoped until the last minute that the Russian Revolution would win. Meyerhold paid for this with his life. The three actors—Hayley Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, and Marcello Magni—will unfold for us this very human story. 

—Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne