An Excellent Lesson in Partisan Theater, 1968

The staging of a play by Peter Brook and the Royal Shakespeare Company unfolds before our eyes. It is US, a sequence of tableaux on the war waged by the United States in Vietnam, which includes scenes of debate between Brook and his actors, as well as a sequence involving a demonstration by pacifist intellectuals (including Brook and his actors) on the streets of London.

The personality of Peter Brook, the most celebrated of English theater directors, has spilled over from the stage to the screen since Moderato Cantabile (1960) and Lord of the Flies (1963). This left-wing intellectual sometimes takes to the streets, as we see him toward the end of the film, under the watchful eyes of "bobbies" who, it would appear, have the good sense to keep calm while accompanying this pro cession and its placards. But above all he has the intelligence to say what his actors and he himself think of the great problems of the moment, and to say it in terms which go much further than current politics.

In noting that the title of the performance, US, can also be read as "us" (ourselves), we can interpret that we are all involved (everybody—not just the British allies of the Americans). This gives it a certain spirit not far removed from that of Brecht. The style, however, is different. It derives from symbolic mime rather than from the conceptual narratives of classical theatre.

In this respect, the play and the film about the play constitute a valuable document about the role of the interpreter. It is clear from the debates and testimonies of the actors—who were not satisfied with being merely performers—that Peter Brook fashioned the stage play with their participation. This was true teamwork.

The old Vietnamese myths, the period of colonization, the upheaval caused by two successive wars—all these give rise to scenes which are mimed, recited, shouted and sung. A half-naked actor on stage represents a country struggling to survive great adversity. Painted in a variety of colors and rolled up in a canvas, this gives a dramatic sense—of division and chaos—to a kind of multi-colored painting. Various other mimed tableaux follow: the fiery suicide of a Buddhist, the bombardments, the torture—all stylized with such mastery that one is both struck by their realistic power of evocation and their elevation to the level of mythic ritual. Only a group of actors of rare quality could achieve such power and harmony.

The humor, rich in innuendo, dominates the scene of the "briefing," the daily press conference of the American military headquarters in Saigon. Here, Brook informs us that he has done nothing more than gather and reassemble the words, all of which were actually spoken. After the indignant invective of an actress on the hypocrisy of the countries which remain passive witnesses to the Vietnamese horror, in the final scene—silent and impressive—an "official" sets free two or three butterflies from a little box and, in the middle of a group of immobile witnesses, who apparently show no reaction, he quietly burns one last butterfly in the flame of his lighter. Is this the best representation of the two faces of America and the West? While wishing to be seen as a liberator, the West wields only cold instruments of destruction.

Isn't this hypocrisy, as denounced here, inseparable from our civilization's historic role? Invading the world, it renders other civilizations obsolete and crushes them at the same time as barriers emerge to separate them. Over and above political engagement, Brook's work is a spiritual meditation, and it is here that its value lies.

The best tribute one can pay to director Peter Whitehead is his admirable self-effacement when confronted with the subject. Working with very few resources, he has been able to present both the best passages of the debates on Brook's play and the statements of the actors, delivered in unwavering close-ups.

Far from producing "filmed theater," his editing of the film has unified the rhythm of...