The Valley of Astonishment 奇妙谷

Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne return to the Young Vic after their international hit The Suit with a new work exploring the mysteries of the human brain. Performed by Kathryn Hunter (Kafka’s Monkey, Fragments), Marcello Magni (Fragments) and Jared McNeill (The Suit), The Valley of Astonishment brings together neurological research and Persian verse to transport us from the familiar to the extraordinary.

暨重返青年維克劇場（Young Vic）的創作《衣服（The Suit）》取得國際認可後，英國著名戲劇導演彼得·布魯克（Peter Brook）和搭檔瑪麗－海倫·艾蒂安（Marie-Hélène Estienne）又一力作誕生——《奇妙谷》,該劇探尋了人腦的奧秘，以神經學研究和波斯詩歌這種前所未有的組合方式，由凱瑟琳·亨特（Kathryn Hunter）、馬爾切洛·馬尼（Marcello Magni）和傑瑞德·麥克尼爾（Jared McNeill）共同演繹的戲劇把觀眾帶領到了一個神奇的世界。

該劇最引人注目的看點在於探討一個人們能根據完全不同的光線來觀看周圍的世界。在這個世界中，感官知覺的慣例被重新定義：每一種聲音都代表特有的顏色，每一種顏色都有特殊的味道，而數字8則代表一位胖女人。

The experiences of people who see the world in a radically different light are at the heart of this brand new work by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne. This is a world in which the rules of sensory perception have been rewritten: where every sound has a colour, where every colour has a taste, where the number 8 is a fat lady.

Peter Brook comments on The Valley of Astonishment: “Today, once again, we are exploring the brain. We will take the spectator into new and unknown territories through people whose secret lives are so intense, so drenched in music, colour, taste, images and memories that they can pass any instant from paradise to hell and back again.”

Returning to the rich subject matter that inspired their Olivier Award-winning work The Man Who, Peter and Marie-Hélène take real-life stories and years of neurological research to explore the mysteries of the human brain. By interweaving these stories with verse from Farid Al-Din Attar’s mystical 12th century poem The Conference of the Birds, they ask the audience to re-examine what we think we know about ourselves and the experiences of people around us.

在談論《奇妙谷》時布魯克提到：“我們可以以一種前所未有的方式來探索人類的大腦。通過解析人們跌宕起伏的秘密生活，我們將呈現給觀眾一個未被開發的大腦領域。當人們沈浸在音樂、色彩、味道、影像和回憶中不可自拔時，他們彷彿可以任意穿梭在天堂與地獄之間。”

回歸久違的神經系統題材，布魯克和艾蒂安將真實的故事和奧利佛·薩克斯（Oliver Sacks）的獲獎作品《錯把太太當帽子的人（The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat）》中多年來對神經系統的研究相結合，來進行一次人類大腦奧秘的探索。這些神秘的故事與12世紀波斯的著名詩人和思想家阿塔爾（Farid Al-Din Attar）的神秘詩歌《百鳥朝鳳（The Conference of the Birds）》交織在一起，《奇妙谷》讓觀眾重新審視了一遍自我與世界。