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"To talk of disease is a sort of Arabian Nights entertainment," reads the epigraph to neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks's book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (the quote is from William Osler). Indeed, Sacks's artful accounts of the clinical case histories of patients afflicted with severe neurological disabilities--as painful and tragic as they may be--are undeniably fascinating and compelling. Challenged by the idea of bringing such disquieting stories to the stage without pathos, sentimentality or exhibitionism, Peter Brook created The Man Who, first presented in French as L'homme qui at Brook's home theatre in Paris, the Bouffes du Nord, in 1993. Following a critically acclaimed world tour, the production is scheduled to run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music March 11-April 9.
Using Sacks's book as a point of departure, Brook and his company at the International Centre for Theatre Research began work on the project in 1990. Before long, the director realized that they "had to go back to the original behavior because the book was already a transposition." Visiting mental hospitals in Paris, London and Japan, the company sought out cases similar to those Sacks explored. They interviewed patients, watched videos and...