Ever contradictory

The role of contradiction is apparent in the changes of direction Brook himself has chosen throughout his career, through Shakespeare, commercial comedy, television, cinema and opera: ‘I’ve really spent all my working life in looking for opposites,’ Brook suggested in an interview with The Times. ‘This is a dialectical principle of finding a reality through opposites.’³⁸ He emphasises the role of contradiction as a means of awakening understanding, taking Elizabethan drama as an example: ‘Elizabethan drama was exposure, it was confrontation, it was contradiction and it led to analysis, involvement, recognition and, eventually, to an awakening of understanding.’³⁹ Contradiction is not destructive, but a balancing force. It has its role to play in the genesis of all processes. The absence of contradiction would lead to general homogenisation, a dwindling of energy and eventual death. ‘Whatever contains contradiction … contains the world,’ claims Lupasco, whose conclusions are based on quantum physics.⁴⁰ Brook points out the constructive role of negation in the theatre of Beckett: ‘Beckett does not say ‘no’ with satisfaction: he forges his merciless ‘no’ out of a longing for ‘yes,’ and so his despair is the negative from which the contour of its opposite can be drawn.

yup. That's how I feel.