Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

Theatre 301
year, the Internet provides a wonderful way to catch
a glimpse of and a feeling for the works described in
these pages. A quick Web search—beginning with
the theatre companies or the directors named here—
quickly leads to photos and in many cases videos of
their latest work, plus archival photos of many of the
productions mentioned.
Global Theatrical
Luminaries of Today
There are a few legendary directors and playwrights, still
active at this time of writing, who have received truly
global recognition for their extraordinarily innovative
plays and productions, which they have produced in multiple
countries over a series of decades. We will give a brief
introduction to several of the most distinguished: the
American Robert Wilson, the French Yasmina Reza, and
the English Peter Brook and Katie Mitchell.
ROBERT WILSON
Born in Texas, Wilson first came to prominence in
Germany in the early 1970s, where his highly original
collages of poetic texts, recited against brilliantly
evocative tableaux vivants (“living pictures”), gained
substantial attention from enthusiasts of the avantgarde.
The extraordinary length of these pieces, which
Wilson both wrote and directed, earned him some early
notoriety for that reason alone: The Life and Times of
Joseph Stalin (1973) lasted twelve hours; Ka Mountain
(1972) lasted twenty-three. Wilson was subsequently
invited to create the central performance work of the
1984 Los Angeles Olympics Arts Festival, for which
he composed The CIVIL warS, a massive piece that was
rehearsed in segments, in several countries around the
world. Funds could not be raised for the ultimate performance,
however, and by the late 1980s, only fragments
of the work had been performed. Even to this
date, Wilson’s work frequently premieres in Europe,
where funding is more readily available.
Wilson’s work falls somewhere between traditional
drama and performance art. It is dramatic because it has
a theme, is not improvised, and the performers usually
(but not always) play a character other than themselves.
But it also contains elements of performance art and
other genres like dance, music, sculpture, video, painting,
lighting, and poetry. The sheer duration of Wilson’s
work questions the nature of performance and the relationship
of audience and art. Why do we watch theatre?
What are we looking for? What do we care about?
In 1986 Wilson forged a stronger link with drama by
freely adapting a script from the classical theatre repertory
(Euripides’ Alcestis) and staging it at the American
Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The
result was a visually stunning theatre piece, magically
provocative in its imagery, yet contained within the conventional
framework of a three-hour performance and
staged with professional actors in a normal proscenium
theatre. Wilson’s 1995 adaptation of Hamlet, performed
as a monologue with Wilson himself playing the title and
various other roles, once again redefined the nature of performance:
Set in a minimalist construction of black slabs,
Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach,
which premiered at France’s Avignon
Festival in 1976, brought him worldwide
fame and is considered his greatest
masterpiece. Its eight-country revival
tour, from 2012 through 2014, brought the
five-hour operatic theatre event about the
German scientist to an entirely new generation.
© Stephanie Berger