By John Owoo
(In Tunis – Tunisia)
Acclaimed American playwright, director and producer Robert Wilson divides space into moments – not segments – and he tends to measure the length of stages in hours and not feet or metres.
This has without doubt contributed to the success of his productions including “Jungle Book”, which received rave reviews and applause in various theatres at the ongoing Journées Théâtrales de Carthage Festival in the Tunisian capital, Tunis.
In a chat with journalists at the elegant Cité de la Culture in the centre of Tunis, Wilson stated that his association with theatre was purely unintended adding that there were no theatre or performance spaces in the town of Waco (USA) where he grew up.
“We created a largely insignificant but harmonised community of artists without money and conventional places to perform. Consequently, we worked wherever we could, in factories, rooftops and street corners. Indeed, the artists came from all walks of life – housewives, workers, homeless people and we were not interested in becoming professionals”, said Wilson, who turned 82 this year.
After earning a degree in interior design from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn (USA, 1966), Wilson formed a theatre group dubbed Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, which operated out of his flat in Manhattan (New York – USA), which resulted in acknowledgement among some elites.
Undeniably, his productions have received admiration for their innovative use of lighting, space and sound as well as their provocative contradictions of time and place, which without doubt catapulted him throughout America and Europe.
His 1995 premiere of “Hamlet: A Monologue” at the Alley Theatre in Houston (USA), was a major breakthrough. With various undertakings as writer, director, designer and solo performer, he presented Hamlet at the moment of his death, dashing backward through fifteen of the original’s scenes.
Wilson followed that success with a production of “Snow on the Mesa”, a dance work that paid tribute to Martha Graham at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. (USA) and a staging of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson’s 1934 opera “Four Saints in Three Acts” for the Houston Grand Opera (USA).
The renowned director continued to stage productions in addition to directing revivals of his works. In 2004, he premiered “I La Galigo”, which was based on an Indonesian poem that recounts the creation of humankind.
He employed gestures and signals to construct messages, which eventually metamorphosed into a play based on children’s language in 1971. Unbelievably, a seven-hour play with 68 actors staged in New York toured the United States, France, Germany and Italy with over two thousand people coming to see it every night for five solid months.
Pix – Courtesy of Journées Théâtrales de Carthage
