John Heilpern (1942–2021)

Conference of the Birds is John Heilpern's true story of an extraordinary journey. In December 1972, the director Peter Brook and an international troupe of actors (Helen Mirren and Yoshi Oida among them) left their Paris base to emerge again in the Sahara desert. It was the start of an 8,500-mile expedition through Africa without precedent in the history of theatre. Brook was in search of a new beginning that has since been revealed in all his work - from Conference of the Birds and Carmen to The Mahabharata and beyond. At the heart of John Heilpern's brilliant account of the African experiment is a story that became a search for the miraculous.… (mere)

New York Observer theater critic Heilpern has pulled together 70 of his essays--what he considers his best, most important writings. Although he doesn't directly answer the question posed in the book's title, he shows us the joy, anger, anxiety, and other responses he's had to the plays that he has puzzled over during the course of his career. His comments are perceptive, enjoyable, and always lively--whether one agrees with them or not. One provocative essay, for example, which deals with the differences between British and American theater, is sure to cause a stir among theater folks. One quibble is that the pieces are not dated, so, although Heilpern writes about some people more than once (Arthur Miller and David Mamet, for example), it is hard to track how his ideas and opinions about them have changed over the years. Susan L. Peters, Emory Univ. Lib., Atlanta… (mere)