Professional Documents
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The Theatre of Robert Wilson
The Theatre of Robert Wilson
II.
Early life
A. Born in Waco, Texas in 1941
B. Miss Bird Hoffman, an elderly dance instructor that he met in the 1950s helped
him with his speech impediment by encouraging him to relax and release the
tensions in his body through movement exercises.
a. Learned to speak very slowly
C. Studied painting with George McNeil an American abstract expressionist painter
in Paris after dropping out of business school
D. Studied with unconventional architect Paolo Soleri in Arizona following
graduation from Pratt Institute of Arts in 1965
a. Then worked with people who had mental and physical handicaps for two
years
E. Founded the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds
a. Started in 1968
b. A group of disciples, friends, and associates who made Wilsons early
work possible.
F. Wilson was bored by theatre, quit painting because he couldnt put on canvas the
pictures that were in his mind
Four Stages of Development
A. First Stage: Silent Operas
a. 1968: Wilson deaf-mute African American named Raymond Andrews.
Wilson adopts the boy to try and educate him. He learned from realized
that he thought, not in words, but in visual signs.
i. Learned from Raymond by doing body language workshops.
Learned how subtle and sophisticated body language can be!
ii. Lead to the creation of Deafman Glance which is based on the
pictures Raymond drew to communicate with him.
iii. Became interested in breaking linguistic codes and creating new
ones based on some of Raymonds unconventional writings.
b. This period is characterized by stage pictures that refer to childhood
drawings and story books.
B. Second Period: Deconstructing Language
a. The muse for this period was a child named Chris Knowles.
i. An autistic child who plays with language like a jigsaw puzzle
ii. Arranges the pieces into unexpected patterns; patterns according to
sounds, visual architecture, and mathematical formulas
b. This period begins with A Letter for Queen Victoria
c. Wilson disbands the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds and works more with
professionals
i. Takes on the role of Playwright
ii. Style changes visually
1. Geometric aesthetic becomes sharper
Marshall 2
III.
Marshall 3
a. Aspires to a condition of total freedom, freedom not only from authority and
convention but the constraints of time, language, and even meaning.
i. Does not need audience full attention
b. In watching his work, the spectator is inevitably drawn into its rhythms and
reached a point at which the heart rate lowed.
i. Not slow motion, but natural time
c. Keeps theory at arms length
d. Wilsons Workshop method:
i. Preparation starts years in advance.
ii. Wilson storyboards by thinking in terms of visual, musical, and non-verbal
means, with the body and silence.
1. Goal is to establish gestural language adequate to his productions,
and he keeps this language in mind as he draws his visual books.
e. Three phases: Table workshop (A meeting of the collaborators to talk through the
piece), Casting and a first workshop with the actors ( in auditions actors are asked
to walk, sit, speak short text, sing a few lines, and repeat a movement pattern
demonstrated by Wilson), and Production proper (Wilson arranges a week of
previews before the planed premier).