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Robert Wilson (director)
Encyclopedia
Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde
stage director and playwright
who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter
, sculptor, video artist, and sound
and lighting designer
. He is best known for his collaborations with Philip Glass
on Einstein on the Beach
, and with numerous other artists, including Heiner Müller
, William S. Burroughs
, Allen Ginsberg
, Lou Reed
, Tom Waits
, David Byrne
, Laurie Anderson
, Gavin Bryars
, Rufus Wainwright
and Marina Abramovic
.
, the son of Loree Velma (née Hamilton) and D.M. Wilson, a lawyer. He studied business administration at the University of Texas from 1959 to 1962. He moved to Brooklyn
in 1963, receiving a BFA
in architecture from the Pratt Institute
in 1965. He also attended lectures by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy
(widow of László Moholy-Nagy
), studied painting with George J. McNeil and architecture with Paolo Soleri
in Arizona.
In 1968, Wilson founded an experimental performance company, the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds (named for a dancer who helped him overcome a speech impediment while a teenager). With this company, he created his first major works, beginning with 1969's The King of Spain and The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud. He began to work in opera in the early 1970s, creating Einstein on the Beach with Philip Glass, which brought the two artists worldwide fame.
In 1983-1984, Wilson planned a performance for the 1984 Summer Olympics
, the CIVIL warS: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down
; the complete work was to have been 12 hours long, in 6 parts. The production was only partially completed — the full event was cancelled by the Olympic Arts Festival, due to insufficient funds. In 1986, the Pulitzer Prize
jury unanimously selected the CIVIL warS for the drama prize, but the supervisory board rejected the choice and gave no drama award that year.
Wilson is known for pushing the boundaries of theatre. His works are noted for their austere style, very slow movement, and often extreme scale in space or in time. The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin was a 12-hour performance, while KA MOUNTain and GUARDenia Terrace was staged on a mountaintop in Iran
and lasted seven days.
In addition to his work for the stage, Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, and furniture designs. He won the Golden Lion at the 1993 Venice Biennale
for a sculptural installation.
In 1996, Wilson was the recipient of The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize
.
In 2004, Ali Hossaini
offered Wilson a residency at the television channel LAB HD
. Since then Wilson, with producer Esther Gordon (for among others Brad Pitt
, Mikhail Baryshnikov
, Robert Downey, Jr., Winona Ryder
, Juliette Binoche
, Isabelle Huppert
, Deeta von Teese, and Peter Sarsgaard
) and later with Matthew Shattuck, has produced dozens of high-definition videos known as the Voom Portraits. Collaborators on this well-received project included the composer Michael Galasso
, artist and designer Eugene Tsai, fashion designer Kevin Santos, and lighting designer Urs Schönebaum. In addition to celebrity subjects, sitters have included royalty, animals, Nobel Prize winners and hobos.
Louis Aragon
praised Wilson as: "What we, from whom Surrealism was born, dreamed would come after us and go beyond us".
Wilson is the subject of a 2006 documentary by Katharina Otto-Bernstein, Absolute Wilson.
He is currently working on a new stage musical with composer (and long-time collaborator) Tom Waits
and playwright Martin McDonagh
.
Robert Wilson is openly gay
.
, says that “In theatre, no one has dramatized the crisis of language with as much ferocious genius as Robert Wilson” (Holmberg 41). Wilson makes it evident in his work that what’s and why’s of language are terribly important and cannot be overlooked. Tom Waits
, acclaimed songwriter and collaborator with Wilson on many works, said this about Wilson’s unique relationship with words:
Wilson shows the importance of language through all of his works and in many varying fashions. Wilson credits his reading of the work of Gertrude Stein and listening to recordings of her speaking with "changing [his] way of thinking forever." Wilson directed three of Stein's works in the 1990s: Doctor Faustus Lights the Light (1992), Four Saints in Three Acts
(1996), and Saints and Singing (1998).
Wilson sees language and, down to its very ingredients, words, as a sort of “a social artifact” (Holmberg 44). Not only does language change with time but it changes with person, with culture. Using not only his experiences working with mentally handicapped children but also drafting Christopher Knowles
, a renowned autistic poet, lets Wilson attack language from many views. Wilson embraces this by often “juxtaposing levels of diction - Miltonic opulence and contemporary ling, crib poetry and pre-verbal screams” (Holmberg 44) in an attempt to show his audience how elusive language really is and how ever-changing it can be. Visually showing words is another method Wilson uses to show the beauty of language. Often his set designs, program covers, and posters are graffitied with words. This allows the audience to view the “language itself” rather than “the objects and meanings it refers to” (Holmberg 45).
The lack of language becomes essential to Wilson’s work as well. In the same way an artist uses positive and negative space, Wilson uses noise and silence. In working on a production of King Lear
, Wilson inadvertently describes his necessity with silence:
This emphasis on silence is blatantly displayed in some of his works. Deafman Glance is a play without words and his adaptation of Heiner Müller
’s play Quartet contained a fifteen minute wordless prologue. Holmberg describes these manners stating, “Language does many things and does them well. But we tend to shut our eyes to what language does not do well. Despite the arrogance of words - they rule traditional theatre with an iron fist - not all experience can be translated into a linguistic code” (Holmberg 50). Celebrated twentieth century playwright Eugene Ionesco
even went so far so to say Wilson “surpassed Beckett
” because “[Wilson’s] silence is a silence that speaks” (Holmberg 52). This silence onstage may be unnerving to audience members but it serves a purpose. Wilson stresses how important language is by eliminating it. This device of silence is Wilson’s way of answering his own question: “Why is it no one looks? Why is it no one knows how to look? Why does no one see anything on stage?” (Holmberg 52).
Another technique Wilson uses is that of what words can mean to a particular character. His piece, I was sitting on my patio this guy appeared I thought I was hallucinating, features only two characters, both of whom deliver the same stream-of-consciousness monologue. In the play’s first production one character was “aloof, cold, [and] precise” while the other “brought screwball comedy… warmth and color… playful[ness]” (Holmberg 61). The different emphases and deliveries brought to the monologue two different meanings; “audiences found it hard to believe they heard the same monologue twice” (Holmberg 61). Rather than tell his audience what words are supposed to mean, he opens them up for interpretation, presenting the idea that “meanings are not tethered to words like horses to hitching posts” (Holmberg 61).
, Wilson says:
With such an emphasis on movement, Wilson even tailors his auditions around the necessity of it. In his auditions, “Wilson often does an elaborate movement sequence” and “asks the actor to repeat it” (Holmberg 136). Thomas Derrah, an actor in the CIVIL warS
, found the audition process to be baffling: “When I went in, [Wilson] asked me to walk across the room on a count of 31, sit down on a count of 7, put my hand to my forehead on a count of 59. I was mystified by the whole process” (qtd. in Holmberg 137). To further cement the importance of movement in Wilson’s works, Seth Goldstein, another actor in the CIVIL warS
, stated “every movement from the moment I walked onto the platform until I left was choreographed to the second. During the scene at table all I did was count movements. All I thought about was timing” (qtd. in Holmberg 137).
When it comes time to add the text in with movement, there is still much work to be done. Wilson pays close attention to the text and still makes sure there is enough “space around a text” (qtd. in Holmberg 139) in order for the audience to soak it up. At this point, the actors know their movements and the time in which they are executed, allowing Wilson to tack the actions onto specific pieces of text. His overall goal is to have the rhythm of the text differ from that of the movement so his audience can see them as two completely different pieces, seeing each as what it is. When in the text/movement stage, Wilson often interrupts the rehearsal, saying things like “Something is wrong. We have to check your scripts to see if you put the numbers in the right place” (qtd. in Holmberg 139). He goes on to explain the importance of this:
These rhythms keep the mind on its toes, consciously and subconsciously taking in the meanings behind the movement and how it is matching up with the language.
Similar to Wilson’s use of the lack of language in his works, he also sees the importance that a lack of movement can have. In his production of Medea
, Wilson arranged a scene in which the lead singer stood still during her entire song while many others moved around her. Wilson recalls that “she complained that if I didn’t give her any movements, no one would notice her. I told her if she knew how to stand, everyone would watch her. I told her to stand like a marble statue of a goddess who had been standing in the same spot for a thousand years” (qtd. in Holmberg 147). Allowing an actor to have such stage presence without ever saying a word is very provocative, which is precisely what Wilson means to accomplish with any sense of movement he puts on the stage.
Wilson is “the only major director to get billing as a lighting designer” and is recognized by some as “the greatest light artist of our time” (Holmberg 122). The most provocative thing about his lighting is the fact that it is meant to be flowing rather than an off-and-on pattern, thus making his lighting “like a musical score” (Holmberg 123). Wilson’s lighting designs also feature “dense, palpable textures” and allow “people and objects to leap out from the background” (Holmberg 123). In his design for Quartett, Wilson used four hundred light cues in a span of only ninety minutes (Holmberg 122). He is a perfectionist in many respects, never calling it quits until every single aspect of his vision is achieved. A fifteen minute monologue in Quartett took two days for him to light while a single hand gesture took close to three hours (Holmberg 126). This attention to detail certainly proves his devotion to the importance of lighting, reinforcing the idea that, to Wilson, “light is the most important actor on stage” (Holmberg 128).
Such attention to detail and perfectionism usually ends up with a pricey collection of props. Although they are meant to be this way to enhance Wilson’s shows, “curators regard them as sculptures” (Holmberg 129), selling from “$4,500 to $80,000” (Gussow 113).
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
stage director and playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, sculptor, video artist, and sound
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
and lighting designer
Lighting designer
The role of the lighting designer within theatre is to work with the director, choreographer, set designer, costume designer, and sound designer to create an overall 'look' for the show in response to the text, while keeping in mind issues of visibility, safety and cost...
. He is best known for his collaborations with Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
on Einstein on the Beach
Einstein on the Beach
Einstein on the Beach is an opera that premiered on July 25, 1976 at the Avignon Festival in France, scored and written by Philip Glass and designed and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson. It also contains writings by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs...
, and with numerous other artists, including Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
, William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
, Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
, Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, David Byrne
David Byrne (musician)
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...
, Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
, Gavin Bryars
Gavin Bryars
Richard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.-Early life and career:Born in Goole, East...
, Rufus Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...
and Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramović is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and...
.
Life and career
Wilson was born in Waco, TexasWaco, Texas
Waco is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. Situated along the Brazos River and on the I-35 corridor, halfway between Dallas and Austin, it is the economic, cultural, and academic center of the 'Heart of Texas' region....
, the son of Loree Velma (née Hamilton) and D.M. Wilson, a lawyer. He studied business administration at the University of Texas from 1959 to 1962. He moved to Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
in 1963, receiving a BFA
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
in architecture from the Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
in 1965. He also attended lectures by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy
Sibyl Moholy-Nagy
Sibyl Moholy-Nagy was the daughter of Werkbund architect Martin Pietzsch and an architectural and art historian. Originally a German citizen, she became the second wife of the Hungarian Bauhaus artist László Moholy-Nagy and accompanied him in his move to the United States...
(widow of László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.-Early life:...
), studied painting with George J. McNeil and architecture with Paolo Soleri
Paolo Soleri
Paolo Soleri is an Italian-American architect. He established Arcosanti and the educational Cosanti Foundation. Soleri is a lecturer in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and a National Design Award recipient in 2006.-Early life:Soleri was born in Turin, Italy...
in Arizona.
In 1968, Wilson founded an experimental performance company, the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds (named for a dancer who helped him overcome a speech impediment while a teenager). With this company, he created his first major works, beginning with 1969's The King of Spain and The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud. He began to work in opera in the early 1970s, creating Einstein on the Beach with Philip Glass, which brought the two artists worldwide fame.
In 1983-1984, Wilson planned a performance for the 1984 Summer Olympics
1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984...
, the CIVIL warS: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down
The CIVIL warS
The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down is an opera created in the early 1980s by director Robert Wilson to music by Philip Glass, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and others...
; the complete work was to have been 12 hours long, in 6 parts. The production was only partially completed — the full event was cancelled by the Olympic Arts Festival, due to insufficient funds. In 1986, the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
jury unanimously selected the CIVIL warS for the drama prize, but the supervisory board rejected the choice and gave no drama award that year.
Wilson is known for pushing the boundaries of theatre. His works are noted for their austere style, very slow movement, and often extreme scale in space or in time. The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin was a 12-hour performance, while KA MOUNTain and GUARDenia Terrace was staged on a mountaintop in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and lasted seven days.
In addition to his work for the stage, Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, and furniture designs. He won the Golden Lion at the 1993 Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
for a sculptural installation.
In 1996, Wilson was the recipient of The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize
The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize
The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize or Gish Prize is given annually to “a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.” It is one of the richest prizes in the American arts, for example the 2010 winner received...
.
In 2004, Ali Hossaini
Ali Hossaini
Ali Hossaini is an American artist, philosopher and media executive. His work includes contributions in creative writing, political commentary, avant-garde film, photography and television, including the launch of several channels...
offered Wilson a residency at the television channel LAB HD
LAB HD
LAB HD was a three-year experiment by Voom HD Networks. It is the only channel in history devoted to video art and experimental film as a continuous flow of ambient television...
. Since then Wilson, with producer Esther Gordon (for among others Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
, Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is a Soviet and American dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974...
, Robert Downey, Jr., Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...
, Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...
, Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971. She has had 14 films in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Best Actress Award twice, for Violette Nozière and La pianiste . She is also the most...
, Deeta von Teese, and Peter Sarsgaard
Peter Sarsgaard
John Peter Sarsgaard is an American film and stage actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films Another Day in Paradise and Desert Blue. That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron...
) and later with Matthew Shattuck, has produced dozens of high-definition videos known as the Voom Portraits. Collaborators on this well-received project included the composer Michael Galasso
Michael Galasso
Michael John Galasso was an American composer, violinist, and music director.-Film Scores:...
, artist and designer Eugene Tsai, fashion designer Kevin Santos, and lighting designer Urs Schönebaum. In addition to celebrity subjects, sitters have included royalty, animals, Nobel Prize winners and hobos.
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...
praised Wilson as: "What we, from whom Surrealism was born, dreamed would come after us and go beyond us".
Wilson is the subject of a 2006 documentary by Katharina Otto-Bernstein, Absolute Wilson.
He is currently working on a new stage musical with composer (and long-time collaborator) Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
and playwright Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh is an Irish-British playwright, filmmaker, and screenwriter. Although he has lived in London his entire life, he is considered one of the most important living Irish playwrights.-Life:...
.
Robert Wilson is openly gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
.
Language
Language is one of the most important elements of theatre and Robert Wilson feels at home with commanding it many different ways. Wilson's impact on this part of theatre alone is immense. Arthur Holmberg, Professor of Theatre at Brandeis UniversityBrandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
, says that “In theatre, no one has dramatized the crisis of language with as much ferocious genius as Robert Wilson” (Holmberg 41). Wilson makes it evident in his work that what’s and why’s of language are terribly important and cannot be overlooked. Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, acclaimed songwriter and collaborator with Wilson on many works, said this about Wilson’s unique relationship with words:
“Words for Bob are like tacks on the kitchen floor in the dark of night and you’re barefoot. So Bob clears a path he can walk through words without getting hurt. Bob changes the values and shapes of words. In some sense they take on more meaning; in some cases, less.” (qtd. in Holmberg 43).
Wilson shows the importance of language through all of his works and in many varying fashions. Wilson credits his reading of the work of Gertrude Stein and listening to recordings of her speaking with "changing [his] way of thinking forever." Wilson directed three of Stein's works in the 1990s: Doctor Faustus Lights the Light (1992), Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera by American composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Written in 1927-8, it contains about 20 saints, and is in at least four acts...
(1996), and Saints and Singing (1998).
Wilson sees language and, down to its very ingredients, words, as a sort of “a social artifact” (Holmberg 44). Not only does language change with time but it changes with person, with culture. Using not only his experiences working with mentally handicapped children but also drafting Christopher Knowles
Christopher Knowles
Christopher Knowles is an American poet. In 1976, his poetry was used by Robert Wilson for the avant-garde minimalist Philip Glass opera, Einstein on the Beach In 2004 Knowles stayed in Long Island for the summer working with Robert Wilson. For one week the Harty family stayed in the house he was...
, a renowned autistic poet, lets Wilson attack language from many views. Wilson embraces this by often “juxtaposing levels of diction - Miltonic opulence and contemporary ling, crib poetry and pre-verbal screams” (Holmberg 44) in an attempt to show his audience how elusive language really is and how ever-changing it can be. Visually showing words is another method Wilson uses to show the beauty of language. Often his set designs, program covers, and posters are graffitied with words. This allows the audience to view the “language itself” rather than “the objects and meanings it refers to” (Holmberg 45).
The lack of language becomes essential to Wilson’s work as well. In the same way an artist uses positive and negative space, Wilson uses noise and silence. In working on a production of King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
, Wilson inadvertently describes his necessity with silence:
“The way actors are trained here is wrong. All they think about is interpreting a text. They worry about how to speak words and know nothing about their bodies. You see that by the way they walk. They don’t understand the weight of a gesture in space. A good actor can command an audience by moving one finger” (qtd. in Holmberg 49).
This emphasis on silence is blatantly displayed in some of his works. Deafman Glance is a play without words and his adaptation of Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
’s play Quartet contained a fifteen minute wordless prologue. Holmberg describes these manners stating, “Language does many things and does them well. But we tend to shut our eyes to what language does not do well. Despite the arrogance of words - they rule traditional theatre with an iron fist - not all experience can be translated into a linguistic code” (Holmberg 50). Celebrated twentieth century playwright Eugene Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
even went so far so to say Wilson “surpassed Beckett
Beckett
- People :* Arthur William à Beckett , English journalist and man of letters* Barry Beckett , American musician* Billy Beckett , English footballer...
” because “[Wilson’s] silence is a silence that speaks” (Holmberg 52). This silence onstage may be unnerving to audience members but it serves a purpose. Wilson stresses how important language is by eliminating it. This device of silence is Wilson’s way of answering his own question: “Why is it no one looks? Why is it no one knows how to look? Why does no one see anything on stage?” (Holmberg 52).
Another technique Wilson uses is that of what words can mean to a particular character. His piece, I was sitting on my patio this guy appeared I thought I was hallucinating, features only two characters, both of whom deliver the same stream-of-consciousness monologue. In the play’s first production one character was “aloof, cold, [and] precise” while the other “brought screwball comedy… warmth and color… playful[ness]” (Holmberg 61). The different emphases and deliveries brought to the monologue two different meanings; “audiences found it hard to believe they heard the same monologue twice” (Holmberg 61). Rather than tell his audience what words are supposed to mean, he opens them up for interpretation, presenting the idea that “meanings are not tethered to words like horses to hitching posts” (Holmberg 61).
Movement
Movement is another key element in Wilson’s work. Being a dancer himself, he sees the importance of the way an actor moves onstage and knows the weight in which their movement bears. When speaking of his ‘play without words’ rendition of Ibsen’s When We Dead AwakenWhen We Dead Awaken
When We Dead Awaken is the last play written by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Published in December 1899, Ibsen wrote the play between February and November of that year. The first performance was at the Haymarket Theatre in London, a day or two before publication.-Plot summary:The first act...
, Wilson says:
“I do movement before we work on the text. Later we’ll put text and movement together. I do movement first to make sure it’s strong enough to stand on its own two feet without words. The movement must have a rhythm and structure of its own. It must not follow the text. It can reinforce a text without illustrating it. What you hear and what you see are two different layers. When you put them together, you create another texture” (qtd. in Holmberg 136).
With such an emphasis on movement, Wilson even tailors his auditions around the necessity of it. In his auditions, “Wilson often does an elaborate movement sequence” and “asks the actor to repeat it” (Holmberg 136). Thomas Derrah, an actor in the CIVIL warS
The CIVIL warS
The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down is an opera created in the early 1980s by director Robert Wilson to music by Philip Glass, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and others...
, found the audition process to be baffling: “When I went in, [Wilson] asked me to walk across the room on a count of 31, sit down on a count of 7, put my hand to my forehead on a count of 59. I was mystified by the whole process” (qtd. in Holmberg 137). To further cement the importance of movement in Wilson’s works, Seth Goldstein, another actor in the CIVIL warS
The CIVIL warS
The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down is an opera created in the early 1980s by director Robert Wilson to music by Philip Glass, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and others...
, stated “every movement from the moment I walked onto the platform until I left was choreographed to the second. During the scene at table all I did was count movements. All I thought about was timing” (qtd. in Holmberg 137).
When it comes time to add the text in with movement, there is still much work to be done. Wilson pays close attention to the text and still makes sure there is enough “space around a text” (qtd. in Holmberg 139) in order for the audience to soak it up. At this point, the actors know their movements and the time in which they are executed, allowing Wilson to tack the actions onto specific pieces of text. His overall goal is to have the rhythm of the text differ from that of the movement so his audience can see them as two completely different pieces, seeing each as what it is. When in the text/movement stage, Wilson often interrupts the rehearsal, saying things like “Something is wrong. We have to check your scripts to see if you put the numbers in the right place” (qtd. in Holmberg 139). He goes on to explain the importance of this:
“I know it’s hell to separate text and movement and maintain two different rhythms. It takes time to train yourself to keep tongue and body working against each other. But things happen with the body that have nothing to do with what we say. It’s more interesting if the mind and the body are in two different places, occupying different zones of reality” (qtd. in Holmberg 139).
These rhythms keep the mind on its toes, consciously and subconsciously taking in the meanings behind the movement and how it is matching up with the language.
Similar to Wilson’s use of the lack of language in his works, he also sees the importance that a lack of movement can have. In his production of Medea
Medea
Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...
, Wilson arranged a scene in which the lead singer stood still during her entire song while many others moved around her. Wilson recalls that “she complained that if I didn’t give her any movements, no one would notice her. I told her if she knew how to stand, everyone would watch her. I told her to stand like a marble statue of a goddess who had been standing in the same spot for a thousand years” (qtd. in Holmberg 147). Allowing an actor to have such stage presence without ever saying a word is very provocative, which is precisely what Wilson means to accomplish with any sense of movement he puts on the stage.
Lighting
"The most important part of theatre" is light, according to Wilson (qtd. in Holmberg 121). Wilson is very concerned with how images are defined onstage, and this has practically everything to do with the light that is placed on a given object. He feels that the lighting design can really bring the production to life. The set designer for Wilson’s the CIVIL warS, Tom Kamm, describes his philosophy: “a set for Wilson is a canvas for the light to hit like paint” (Holmberg 121). He goes on to explain that “If you know how to light, you can make shit look like gold. I paint, I build, I compose with light. Light is a magic wand” (Holmberg 121).Wilson is “the only major director to get billing as a lighting designer” and is recognized by some as “the greatest light artist of our time” (Holmberg 122). The most provocative thing about his lighting is the fact that it is meant to be flowing rather than an off-and-on pattern, thus making his lighting “like a musical score” (Holmberg 123). Wilson’s lighting designs also feature “dense, palpable textures” and allow “people and objects to leap out from the background” (Holmberg 123). In his design for Quartett, Wilson used four hundred light cues in a span of only ninety minutes (Holmberg 122). He is a perfectionist in many respects, never calling it quits until every single aspect of his vision is achieved. A fifteen minute monologue in Quartett took two days for him to light while a single hand gesture took close to three hours (Holmberg 126). This attention to detail certainly proves his devotion to the importance of lighting, reinforcing the idea that, to Wilson, “light is the most important actor on stage” (Holmberg 128).
Props
Wilson is also very involved with the props in his productions. He not only designs the props himself but often takes part in their construction as well. Whether it is furniture, a light bulb, or a giant crocodile, Wilson treats each as though it were a work of art in its own right. He demands that a full-scale model of each prop be constructed before the final article is made, in order “to check proportion, balance, and visual relationships” (Holmberg 128) on stage. Once he has approved the model, the crew builds the prop, and Wilson is “renowned for sending them back again and again and again until they satisfy him” (Holmberg 128). He is so strict in his attention to detail that when Jeff Muscovin, his tech director for Quartett, suggested they use an aluminum chair with a wood skin rather than a completely wooden chair, Wilson replied:
“No, Jeff, I want wood chairs. If we make them out of aluminum, they won’t sound right when they fall over and hit the floor. They’ll sound like metal, not wood. It will sound false. Just make sure you get strong wood. And no knots” (qtd. in Holmberg 129).
Such attention to detail and perfectionism usually ends up with a pricey collection of props. Although they are meant to be this way to enhance Wilson’s shows, “curators regard them as sculptures” (Holmberg 129), selling from “$4,500 to $80,000” (Gussow 113).
Works
- The King of Spain, 1969
- The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud, 1969
- Deafman Glance (with Raymond Andrews), 1971
- KA MOUNTain and GUARDenia Terrace, 1972
- The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin, 1973
- A Letter from Queen Victoria, 1974
- Einstein on the BeachEinstein on the BeachEinstein on the Beach is an opera that premiered on July 25, 1976 at the Avignon Festival in France, scored and written by Philip Glass and designed and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson. It also contains writings by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs...
(with Philip GlassPhilip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
), 1976 - I Was Sitting On My Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating (with Lucinda ChildsLucinda ChildsLucinda Childs is an American postmodern dancer/choreographer. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest movements into an intricate choreographic masterpiece...
), 1977 - Death Destruction & Detroit, 1979
- Edison, 1979
- The Golden Windows (Die Goldenen Fenster), 1979
- the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down, 1984
- Shakespeare'sWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
King LearKing LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
, 1985 - Heiner MüllerHeiner MüllerHeiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
's HamletmachineHamletmachineHamletmachine is a postmodernist drama by German playwright and theatre director Heiner Müller. Written in 1977, the play is loosely based on Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The play originated in relation to a translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet that Müller undertook...
, 1986 - EuripidesEuripidesEuripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
' AlcestisAlcestis (play)Alcestis is an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. It was first produced at the City Dionysia festival in 438 BCE. Euripides presented it as the final part of a tetralogy of unconnected plays in the competition of tragedies, for which he won second prize; this arrangement...
, 1986-1987 - Death Destruction & Detroit II, 1987
- Heiner MüllerHeiner MüllerHeiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
's Quartett, 1987 - Le Martyre De Saint SébastienLe martyre de Saint SébastienLe martyre de Saint Sébastien, L 124 is a musical work by the French composer Claude Debussy.Written in 1911, the work—a five-act musical mystery play on the subject of Saint Sebastian -- was produced in collaboration with Gabriele d'Annunzio and designed as a vehicle for Ida Rubinstein...
, 1988 - OrlandoOrlandoOrlando is a major city in the U.S. state of Florida.Orlando may also refer to-Places:* in Florida** Orlando, a major city** Greater Orlando, the 27th-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
(from the novel by Virginia WoolfVirginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
), 1989 - Louis AndriessenLouis AndriessenLouis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...
's De MaterieDe MaterieDe Materie is a four-part vocal and orchestral composition by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, which he composed over the period 1984 to 1988. Robert Wilson directed the first staging of the work on 1 June 1989 at the Muziektheater, Amsterdam, with James Doing, Wendy Hill, Beppie Blankert and...
, 1989 - The Black RiderThe Black RiderThe Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets is a self-billed "musical fable" in the avant-garde tradition created through the collaboration of theatre director Robert Wilson, musician Tom Waits, and writer William S. Burroughs. Wilson was largely responsible for the design and direction....
(with William S. BurroughsWilliam S. BurroughsWilliam Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
and Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
), 1990 - Richard WagnerRichard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's ParsifalParsifalParsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
, HamburgHamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, 1991 - Alice (with Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
and Paul Schmidt), 1992 - Gertrude SteinGertrude SteinGertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
's Doctor Faustus Lights the LightsDoctor Faustus Lights the LightsDoctor Faustus Lights the Lights is a libretto for an opera by the American modernist playwright and poet Gertrude Stein. For avant-garde theatre artists from the United States, the text has formed something of a rite of passage—the Judson Poets’ Group, the Living Theatre, Richard Foreman, Robert...
, Hebbel Theatre (Berlin) 1992 - Skin, Meat, Bone (with Alvin LucierAlvin LucierAlvin Lucier is an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and...
), 1994 - The Meek Girl (based on a story by Fyodor Dostoyevsky), 1994
- Timerocker (with Lou ReedLou ReedLewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
), 1997 - O Corvo Branco, (with Philip GlassPhilip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
), Teatro Camões (Lisbon), 1998 - Monsters of GraceMonsters of GraceMonsters of Grace is a multimedia chamber opera in 13 short acts directed by Robert Wilson, with music by Philip Glass and libretto from the works of 13th-century Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi. The title is said to be a reference to Wilson's corruption of a line from Hamlet: "Angels and ministers of...
(with Philip GlassPhilip GlassPhilip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
), 1998 - LohengrinLohengrin (opera)Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
for the Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan OperaThe Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, 1998 - Bertolt BrechtBertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
's The Flight across the OceanThe Flight across the OceanThe Flight across the Ocean is a Lehrstück by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, inspired by We, Charles Lindbergh's 1927 account of his transatlantic flight...
for the Berliner EnsembleBerliner EnsembleThe Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...
, 1998 - The days before - Death Destruction & Detroit III, (with Ryuichi SakamotoRyuichi SakamotoAfter working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...
), Lincoln Center 1999 - Richard WagnerRichard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Der Ring des NibelungenDer Ring des NibelungenDer Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
, Zurich Opera - POEtryPoetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, (with Lou ReedLou ReedLewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
), 2000 - Hot Water (with Tzimon Barto), 2000
- PersephonePersephoneIn Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....
, 2001 - Georg BüchnerGeorg BüchnerKarl Georg Büchner was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany...
's WoyzeckWoyzeckWoyzeck is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. He left the work incomplete at his death, but it has been variously and posthumously "finished" by a variety of authors, editors and translators. Woyzeck has become one of the most performed and influential plays in the German theatre...
(with Tom WaitsTom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
), 2002 - Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Die Frau ohne SchattenDie Frau ohne SchattenDie Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...
, Opéra National de Paris (Opéra BastilleOpéra BastilleL'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....
), 2002 - Isamo Noguchi exhibition, 2003
- The Temptation of Saint AnthonyThe Temptation of Saint Anthony (opera)The Temptation of St. Anthony is an opera rooted in the gospel tradition based on the novel by Gustave Flaubert, directed by Robert Wilson with book, libretto and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon and costumes by Geoffrey Holder...
(with Bernice Johnson ReagonBernice Johnson ReagonBernice Johnson Reagon is a singer, composer, scholar, and social activist, who founded the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973.-Early life and education:...
) Opéra National de Paris, 2003 - I La GaligoI La GaligoI La Galigo is music-theater work by Robert Wilson that has been shown since 2004 in Asia, Europe, Australia and the United States. It is based on an adaption by Rhoda Grauer of the epic creation myth Sureq Galigo of the Bugis from South Sulawesi, written between the 13th and 15th century in the...
, 2004 - Jean de La FontaineJean de La FontaineJean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional...
's The Fables, 2005 - Ibsen'sHenrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
Peer GyntPeer GyntPeer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. It is the most widely performed Norwegian play. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones"...
, 2005 (in NorwayNorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
) - Büchner'sGeorg BüchnerKarl Georg Büchner was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany...
Leonce and LenaLeonce and LenaLeonce and Lena is a play by Georg Büchner which is considered a comedy, but is rather a satire veiled in humor. It was written in the spring of 1836 for a competition sponsored by the book publishing house of J.G. Cotta. However, Büchner missed the submission deadline and the play was returned... - VOOM Portraits, exhibition, 2007 at ACE GalleryACE GalleryACE GALLERY is an art gallery with two functioning gallery spaces in Los Angeles, California, United States, with one located on the Miracle Mile section of Wilshire Boulevard and the other also on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills...
in Los Angeles, CA - Brecht's The Threepenny OperaThe Threepenny OperaThe Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
, Berliner EnsembleBerliner EnsembleThe Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...
, 2007 - BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's Happy DaysHappy Days (play)Happy Days is a play in two acts, written in English, by Samuel Beckett. He began the play on 8 October 1960 and it was completed on 14 May 1961. Beckett finished the translation into French by November 1962 but amended the title...
, 2008 - Rumi, Polish National Opera, 2008
- FaustFaust (opera)Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
for the Polish National Opera, 2008 - Sonnets (based on Shakespeare'sWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
SonnetsShakespeare's sonnetsShakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...
with music by Rufus WainwrightRufus WainwrightRufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...
), Berliner EnsembleBerliner EnsembleThe Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...
, 2009 - [KOOL - Dancing in my mind], (a performance/portrait of choreographer and dancer Suzushi Hanayagi), 2009
- Carl Maria von WeberCarl Maria von WeberCarl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
's Der FreischützDer FreischützDer Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
, Festspielhaus Baden-BadenFestspielhaus Baden-BadenThe Festspielhaus Baden-Baden is Germany's largest opera house and concert hall with 2,500 seats.Opened on April 18, 1998, the new building's architecture incorporates the former central train station of Baden-Baden which, today, is the ticket sales hall and the Festspielhaus restaurant "Aida"...
, conductor Thomas HengelbrockThomas HengelbrockThomas Hengelbrock is a German violinist, musicologist, stage director and conductor.- Biography :Thomas Hengelbrock studied the violin with Rainer Kussmaul and started his career in Würzburg and Freiburg im Breisgau...
, 2009 - BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's Krapp's Last TapeKrapp's Last TapeKrapp's Last Tape is a one-act play, written in English, by Samuel Beckett. Consisting of a cast of one man, it was originally written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue"...
, 2009 - L'Orfeo, by Claudio MonteverdiClaudio MonteverdiClaudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
, La ScalaLa ScalaLa Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
, Milan 2009 - Káťa KabanováKáta KabanováKáťa Kabanová is an opera in three acts, with music by Leoš Janáček to a libretto by Vincenc Červinka, based on The Storm, a play by Alexander Ostrovsky. The opera was also largely inspired by Janáček's love for Kamila Stösslová...
, by Leoš JanáčekLeoš JanácekLeoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
, Národní Divadlo, Prague 2010 - Věc Makropulos, by Karel ČapekKarel CapekKarel Čapek was Czech writer of the 20th century.-Biography:Born in 1890 in the Bohemian mountain village of Malé Svatoňovice to an overbearing, emotional mother and a distant yet adored father, Čapek was the youngest of three siblings...
, Stavovské Divadlo, Prague 2010 - 2010 : Oh les beaux jours de Samuel BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, Théâtre de l'Athénée Louis-Jouvet - The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic, with Marina AbramovicMarina AbramovicMarina Abramović is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and...
, Manchester International Festival, 9–16 July 2011, The Lowry, Manchester - Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria, by Claudio MonteverdiClaudio MonteverdiClaudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
, La ScalaLa ScalaLa Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
, Milan 2011 - Claude DebussyClaude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
's Pelléas et Mélisande, Teatro Real de Madrid, 2011
Further reading
- Brecht, StefanStefan BrechtStefan Brecht was a German-born American poet, critic and scholar of theater.The son of playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht and actress Helene Weigel, Stefan Brecht was born in Berlin. He chose to stay in the United States when his family, who had arrived in Santa Monica, California in 1941,...
. 1978. The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. - Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy. 2003. History of the Theatre. Ninth edition, International edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. ISBN 0205410502.
- Gussow, Mel. 1998. Theatre On The Edge. New York: Applause.
- Holmberg, Arthur. 1996. The Theatre Of Robert Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
- Macián, José Enrique, Sue Jane Stocker, and Jörn Weisbrodt, eds. 2011. The Watermill Center – A Laboratory for Performance: Robert Wilson’s Legacy. Stuttgart: DACO-VERLAG. ISBN 9783871350542.
- Morey, Miguel and Carmen Pardo. 2002. Robert Wilson. Barcelona: Edicion Poligrafa S.A.
- Otto-Bernstein, Katharine. 2006. Absolute Wilson: The Biography. New York: Prestel.
- Quadri, Franco, Franco Bertoni, and Robert Stearns. 1998. Robert Wilson. New York: Rizzoli.
- Shyer, Laurence. 1989. Robert Wilson And His Collaborators. New York: Theatre Communications Group.
- Weber, Carl, ed. & trans. 1989. Explosion of a Memory: Writings by Heiner Müller. By Heiner MüllerHeiner MüllerHeiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications. ISBN 1555540414.
External links
- RobertWilson.com Official site
- Absolute Wilson documentary film site
- Interview with Robert Wilson by Bruce Duffie, September 6, 1990