IB Theatre: Robert Wilson

4 elements to demonstrate his style:

"In theatre, no one has dramatized the crisis of language with as much ferocious genius as Robert Wilson."
Tom Waits: Wilson "changes the values and shapes of words. In some sense they take on more meaning; in some cases, less."
Language changes with time, person and culture.
Wilson worked with mentally handicapped children and drafted Christopher Knowles, an autistic poet, so he could face language from many different perspectives and viewpoints.
Visually showing words - set designs, programs graffitied with words.
The language itself, not the objects and meanings we automatically attach to it.
Noise/Silence. Working on King Lear: “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”
Deafman Glance: A play without words. "Despite the arrogance of words - they rule traditional theatre with an iron fist."
2 character play ("I was sitting on my patio this guy appeared I thought I was hallucinating"), both characters deliver same stream of consciousness monologue, however one is aloof and cold and the other is warm, playful and quirky. The different deliveries show how words can mean different things to particular character.

Wilson: "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 (...) What you hear and what you see are two different layers. When you put them together, you create another texture."
Audition process - Actors must repeat a sequence of movements. Actor: “When I went in, he 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”
Timing, counting
There must be enough "space around the text" for the audience to soak it up.
Wilson: “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”
Medea - lack of movement. Lead singer complained that if he didn't give her any movements no one would notice her, Wilson said if she knew how to stand everyone would watch her. "Stand like a marble statue of a goddess who has been standing in the same spot for a thousand years."

Wilson: "the most important part of theatre is light"
"a set for Wilson is a canvas for the light to hit like paint"
Wilson is recognized by some as "the greatest light artist of our time"
His lighting flows like a musical score, not on and off pattern
Dense, palpable textures
Quartett - 400 light cues in the span of 90 minutes - perfectionist, a single hand gesture took 3 hours to light

Wilson designs and constructs each prop as if it were a work of art
Full-scale model of each prop must be made before the real thing is made - "to check proportion, balance and visual relationships"
Attention to detail means props are very beautiful and valuable - it is clear Wilson makes each show a thing of great value.

"Fables de la Fontaine" - Wilson's play

Light and perfectly shaped shadow, and the colour relationship show that just from one still shot Wilson's plays are works of art.