CDA: Robert Wilson
- ladiesvoices
- Jul 31
- 3 min read
My brother Howard just alerted me to the death of the extraordinary theatre director and designer Robert Wilson (83). This is how I described the Wilson brand in my most recent Wilson review: "I've seen five or six shows directed and designed by Wilson and while they're each distinct they all feature his signature combination of movement and stillness, his chilly lighting, a fair amount of repetition, and a bizarre sort of grandeur. They all invariably add up to something not exactly meaningful but definitely memorable."
Here are the six shows of his that I've seen:
Lohengrin (2007)
This was the Wagner opera at the Met, the only time Wilson directed anything at the Met.
My strongest memory of the performance: there was a moment when the four or five principal singers posed their hands in a signature Wilson Kabuki-esque manner and on a cue from the orchestra their hands were lit by tiny spotlights. Four or five teeny tiny spotlights, seemingly no more than six inches across, instantly in the absolutely perfect place. I have no idea how they did it.
Quartet (2009)
This was a play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). It was a contemporary adaptation by Heiner Müller of Les Liaisons Dangereuses starring Isabelle Huppert and done in French with supertitles.
Strongest memory: Huppert's character died at the end of the play and in the Wilson staging she laid down on the floor and was lit by a rectangle of light exactly measured to her proportions. She said the same three lines over and over, slowly. The rest of the stage was lit in a dark moody purple. An object slowly drifted on stage from the right, being moved on a pseudo conveyor belt. It was a black metal object. I focused on it and saw that there was water in it, it was sloshing around a bit. And what was that in the water...? A FISH...? Yes, a large fish swimming around in a fish tank. I have no idea what that had to do with Les Liaisons Dangereuses or the death of the Marquise but wow, it sure made an impression on me.
The Threepenny Opera (2011)
This was the Weill/Brecht opera done by the Berliner Ensemble at BAM.
Strongest memory: I didn't like this show at all, sadly. The first song (known as "Mack the Knife" in English) was the best thing, it was creepy and hypnotic with a dark circus-infused staging. It was downhill from there.
Einstein on the Beach (2012)
This was the Philip Glass opera done at BAM.
Strongest memory: according to my web search, the previous New York staging of Einstein was in 1984 so this performance had such a feeling of excitement and history. The music and dancing were stunning, the design was fascinating, it was both a frozen-in-amber snapshot of the time in which it was created (1976) and a timeless oddity that would never seem dated.
Letter To a Man (2016)
This was a one-man play about dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky, adapted from his letters, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov. At BAM.
Strongest memory: Baryshnikov worked with Wilson a number of times and like Huppert (another repeat offender) he completely surrendered to the oddities of his aesthetic, how the movement has little or nothing to do with the text, how the face is almost always completely neutral. I also remember Baryshnikov's bows, which were sublime, beautifully executed, absolutely CORRECT.
Mary Said What She Said (2024)
This was a one-woman about Mary Queen of Scots, starring Isabelle Huppert, adapted by Darryl Pinckney from the writings of and about Mary.
Strongest memory: Huppert wore a skirt with a hoop and she slowly slowly slowly turned around at the beginning of the show, giving the impression that she was on a sort of automated lazy susan but no, it was just her having the skill to do it smoothly and effortlessly.
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