Legendary British-born, Paris-based legit helmer Peter Brook offers a glimpse into the techniques he uses to train thesps in “The Tightrope,” a fitfully interesting but irritatingly reverential docu helmed by Brook’s son, producer-director Simon Brook (“Generation 68”). Hardcore theater nuts, especially those with aspirations to the stage, will rep the pic’s core fanbase, but their numbers might not be enough to walk this precariously balanced effort beyond assured airings on upscale TV cablers.
In a stripped-down rehearsal space, Peter Brook welcomes a mini-United Nations’ worth of international thesps to partake in the title exercise, which requires them to walk an imaginary tightrope on the floor, all the time striving to be “true, real, alive and interesting.” Some clown it up like Yoshi Oida, while others give more gymnastic perfs, reaping cryptic feedback from the guru-like Brook, whose pronunciations are exactly the kind of airy, semi-mystical guff that satirists of legit pretensions love to mock. Nevertheless, there’s no doubting Brook and the performers’ commitment to their craft, even if the end result is somewhat repetitive. Tech credits are low-budget adequate.
