Robert Wilson’s brand of theater art was seen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as early as 1969. Forty years after his debut there, Wilson’s work returned to BAM this month with a vivid of Heiner Muller’s Quartett, a 1981 reworking of the 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses. It opens with an almost 10-minute long tableau that introduces all five characters—Muller’s play calls for only two actors, but Wilson, like when he first staged the work back in 1988, adds three other actors who don’t speak—followed by the Marquise de Merteuil (played by Isabelle Huppert) reciting in breakneck speed (and in French!) what sounds like a letter to her former lover, Valmont (Ariel Garcia Valdes).
The rest of the play unfolds with Wilson’s now-familiar design: minimal sets, a few Parzival Chairs, some sleek, Samurai-esque costumes, and intense, deeply hued lighting changes. read more
Robert Wilson traffics in memory, controlling the passage of time and playing around with it—with us—by juxtaposing temporal spheres. In a fascinating tribute to his collaborator, Judson movement alum Suzushi Hanayagi, Wilson created with choreographer Carla Blank KOOL: Dancing in My Mind, which premiered at the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series last weekend. It was mounted in conjunction with the museum’s thought-provoking exhibition, Third Mind. The just-closed show focused on direct and implied Asian influence on Western art over the last century. KOOL is the perfect example of this in performance.
Hanayagi, immobile and incommunicative, suffers from advanced dementia. When Wilson visited her in Japan recently, he found that by making old gestures or small movements of hers, he elicited some reaction. KOOL incorporates imagery of Hanayagi’s face and gnarled hands and feet, expressive symbols of a long life approaching its end. There’s also footage of her in early performances and rehearsals. read more
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