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The Guardian
06-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Robert Wilson obituary
The career of Robert Wilson, the visionary performance artist, designer – of furniture, stage sets, costumes – and director, was surely the last hurrah for the heavily subsidised and sponsored American and European avant-garde theatre of the 1970s. Wilson's financially expensive, physically expansive, beautifully lit and choreographed work – lots of sculptural silhouettes, time-stretching slow motion, and haunting soundscape – was first seen in Britain at the Royal Court in 1978. This show was I Was Sitting on My Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating. Wilson and the choreographer Lucinda Childs appeared in a Hockneyesque stage picture, unlike anything previously seen in Sloane Square, the home of new British playwriting: a minimalist, austere design of a telephone, a telephone wire and a gauze over the front of the stage with projected images on it. What was it about? This was a question Wilson never countenanced. He created what the New York Times critic Mel Gussow called 'a cosmos of the arts'. The enigmatic Wilson, who has died aged 83, claimed that he gave audiences time and space in which to think. What they thought about was none of his concern. With the composer Philip Glass, his great friend and collaborator, in their first work together, the five-hour Einstein on the Beach (1976) staged at the Avignon festival, and the Met in New York, he expanded his early ideas of plotless tableaux, in a text, with no dialogue, covering nuclear power, space travel and Einstein's enthusiasm for playing the violin. Wilson's major extraordinary work, KA MOUNTAIN AND GUARDenia TERRACE, which became a cause celebre in 1972, played for 168 hours, with a cast of hundreds, over seven days on an Iranian mountaintop at the pre-revolutionary Shiraz arts festival, and embraced poetic surrealism, backlit silhouette, community involvement and audience endurance to an unprecedented (and still unsurpassed) degree. It was all about pushing the boundaries of the art form. Wilson's first company in 1960s New York was formed, lived and worked in his SoHo loft, while his later work emanated from – and was often installed in – the Watermill Center for the arts, founded by Wilson on Long Island. He was an unashamed opponent of Method theatre and Stanislavski naturalism. 'To see someone try to act natural on stage,' he told the New York Times in 2021, 'seems so artificial. If you accept it as being artificial, in the long run, it seems more natural, for me.' This attitude stemmed from his early life, when he was sent by his parents, Diugiud Mims Wilson, a wealthy lawyer, and Velma Loree (nee Hamilton), to study dance to correct his fierce stammer and lack of self-confidence. The patterns of repetitive statement as defiant argument coloured his life work. Born in Waco, Texas, he went to Waco high school, then the University of Texas at Austin in 1959 to study business administration, and began working at the Austin State Hospital for the Mentally Handicapped, where he helped patients express themselves through art. This was his second major formative experience and, again, influenced all his subsequent work in theatre. He went on to study architecture and interior design at the Pratt Institute in New York, and designed puppets for Jean-Claude van Itallie's America Hurrah, which played at the Royal Court in 1965 (it was banned by the lord chamberlain for crude satirical remarks about the US president Lyndon Johnson, but was performed for club members). Wilson returned to Texas, where he fell out with his deeply religious parents (he was gay and worked in theatre) and, after a suicide attempt, was institutionalised for six weeks. Back in New York, he supported his writing with teaching. In 1968, he got involved in an altercation between a police officer and a young black boy, Raymond Andrews, who was deaf and speech-impaired. He went on to defend Andrews in court and, with the agreement of his parents, to adopt him; Andrews was his collaborator on his first silent epic, Deaf Man Glance (1971), which ran for seven hours at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Two Edinburgh festival visits, serious treats, stick in the memory. In 1993 Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights was a perfect posthumous alliance with Gertrude Stein, a beautiful, marionettish shadow play of quiet misery – funny and surprising – based on Stein's long forgotten 1938 technological variation on the Faust legend: trance and repetition, an iterating pulse of spare and beauteous incantation, a world of sighs and dreams. And in 1996 Orlando was an exotic melange of light, sound and music, with an unforgettable Miranda Richardson at its sideways-on gestural centre, and text by the American poet and novelist Darryl Pinckney, an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's iconic account of a transsexual time-traveller from the court of Elizabeth I to the late 1920s, in the overlapping styles of Ronald Firbank, Algernon Swinburne and Oscar Wilde. Other collaborations included The Black Rider (1990), with Tom Waits, William Burroughs and Marianne Faithfull, which played at the Barbican Centre in 2004; Schubert's Winterreisse with Jessye Norman in 2001; and, with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe, Daniil Kharms's The Old Woman, a hypnotic, surreal, clown-like Beckettian scenario, translated by Pinckney, which went to the Manchester international festival in 2013. Among Wilson's later, chamber-scale forays into the classical repertoire, I most enjoyed his version of Heiner Müller's Hamletmachine (based on a short 1977 play) at the Almeida in Islington in 1987; and a stunning reappraisal of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape – Wilson as a shock-haired, white-faced, petrified inhabitant of an archive, not just the tape-recorder – in a terrifying thunderstorm, which visited the first Enniskillen Beckett festival in 2012, and the Barbican Centre in 2015. From 2013, Wilson produced a ream of video portraits of famous performers – Lady Gaga, Brad Pitt, Winona Ryder, Renée Fleming and Alan Cumming – in historic roles. These have been screened in 50 museums and galleries around the world. Wilson never ceased pushing boundaries or conjoining what Peter Brook, late in life, described as the now defunct avant-garde with the latest in technology and popular culture. He is survived by Andrews, and by his sister, Suzanne. Robert Mims Wilson, director, designer and performer, born 4 October 1941; died 31 July 2025
Vogue
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
One-of-One Vintage and a Moment for the Bumster: An Exclusive First Look at The Queen of Fashion
The story of the truly original—and truly outrageous—blue-blooded fashion editor Isabella Blow epitomizes what fashion legend is made of. Born in London, Blow moved to America in the late 1970s and cut her teeth at Vogue, initially hired as Anna Wintour's assistant and later as André Leon Talley's. With her eccentric wardrobe, eccentric friends (like the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat), and eccentric habits, such as cleaning her desk with Perrier water and Chanel No. 5, she swiftly made an impression on everyone in her orbit. Returning to Britain in 1986, she held prominent positions at Tatler, British Vogue, and The Sunday Times, where she created fashion spreads that didn't just push boundaries—they broke them. Blow offered readers a glimpse of fashion through her own distinctive lens, with stories that seamlessly blended high style with an avant-garde attitude—a Blow calling card. Not only was Blow a mainstay on the international fashion scene, but she also possessed the rare ability to spot era-defining talent before said talent even recognized itself. She nurtured her fashion foundlings and became a walking, talking (and wearing) ambassador, while simultaneously introducing them to all the key players in the industry. That roster included designers Alexander McQueen, Philip Treacy, and Jeremy Scott, as well as the models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl, among others—all of whom Blow took under her wing at the start of their careers and championed long after they'd flown the nest. After her suicide in 2007, the book Blow by Blow (2010), written by Blow's husband Detmar Blow with Tom Sykes, recounted the story of her life; her wardrobe went on display for the acclaimed 'Fashion Galore!' exhibition at Somerset House in London; and she featured in various McQueen documentaries. So, almost two decades on, it seems only right that Blow is now the subject of an upcoming biopic, The Queen of Fashion, in which she's played by Andrea Riseborough. 'Isabella was a unique person in every way,' Treacy tells Vogue about the film set to honor his late mentor and friend. 'She deserves all of this and more.' Philip Treacy and Isabella Blow in 2004 Arriving on set in Cardiff, Wales, for an exclusive sneak peek into a day of filming, I'm met with a frenzy of camera crews, people whizzing around with garment bags, and assistants communicating via walkie-talkies. One of them leads me into an industrial-looking, klieg-lit warehouse with rows of chairs neatly lined up on one side and the man behind it all, director Alex Marx, on the other.
New York Times
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Robert Wilson Expanded Our Sense of Theatrical Possibility
Robert Wilson's productions floated into theaters and opera houses like visitors from another planet. Most audiences, particularly in the United States, were — and still are — used to realistic theater, with clear settings, plots and characters. For 60 years, Wilson, who died on Thursday at 83, infuriated some and inspired many others by abandoning conventional narrative and conceiving, directing and designing works that were closer to long, enigmatic poems. Wilson's style was glacial in its pace. Very little would happen very slowly. His scenery was minimal, yet the backdrops glowed with blue light; the effect was spare yet lush. The performers' faces were often whitened with makeup, like Japanese Noh actors, clowns or mimes. Their posture was rigid; their movements, formal, deliberate, almost ritualistic. Stiff gestures would be frozen for agonizing stretches. A Wilson show was a paradox: an austere spectacle. Stylish and mysterious, his work was precisely calibrated, yet open-ended in its possible meanings. You tended not to be able to forget the experience, the look, the slowness. He expanded our sense of what could happen on a stage by starkly limiting the action. In a climactic scene from 'Einstein on the Beach,' his profoundly influential, nearly five-hour collaboration with the composer Philip Glass from 1976, a 30-foot bar of light gradually rotated from horizontal to vertical, then rose into the flies. That was it. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Robert Wilson, innovative gay theater director and playwright, has died at 83
Robert Wilson, known as a writer and director of avant-garde theater, has died at age 83. Keep up with the latest in + news and politics. Wilson, who was gay, died Thursday at his home in Water Mill, New York, after a short illness, Chris Green, the executor of his estate and president of the Robert Wilson Arts Foundation, told The New York Times. Wilson 'shattered theatrical norms with stunning stagings of his own imaginative works as well as innovative collaborations with a diverse roster of artists, from Philip Glass to Lady Gaga,' the Times notes. He was born in Waco, Texas, in 1941. He studied dance with a local teacher, Byrd Hoffman, who helped him overcome a stammer. He later honored Hoffman by naming some of his projects after her, 'including his first New York ensemble, the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, and the Byrd Hoffman Foundation, which underwrites various projects of his,' the Times reports. After coming out to his father, Wilson left Texas for New York City, where he initially studied architecture. 'The move was so overwhelming that Wilson retreated to Waco, attempted suicide, and was briefly institutionalized,' David Ehrenstein wrote in The Advocate in 2007. 'A sympathetic psychiatrist helped Wilson see that being gay didn't worry him as much as his father's feelings about it. The young man moved back to New York City, and this time he found his way.' He soon was staging 'mind-bending works,' Ehrenstein wrote, such as 1971's Deafman Glance, which the reporter described as 'a dream spectacle involving an Egyptian pyramid, a rain forest filled with waltzing 'mammy' dolls, and giant bunny rabbits who danced to 'We Belong to a Mutual Admiration Society.'' Deafman Glance was inspired by Raymond Andrews, a young deaf-mute Black man Wilson adopted in 1968, after intervening when Andrews was being beaten by police. 'One morning Raymond made a drawing of a frog sitting at the head of a table drinking martinis, and a man with one eye,' Wilson told Ehrenstein. 'Then he did a larger portrait of this man with one eye, and one of a woman with a bird on top of her head. She was sitting at the table with a plate of bones. And that was all in Deafman Glance. God knows where that came from.' Andrews was onstage in the show, sitting on a tree branch. Wilson also was influenced by another young man, Christopher Knowles, who was autistic and being threatened with institutionalization. They collaborated on several projects in the early 1970s. 'Together they coauthored — and Knowles starred in — A Letter to Queen Victoria and several dialogues, which Knowles and Wilson performed together as a kind of avant-garde vaudeville act,' Ehrenstein reported. "He's unmatched in his ability to reorganize theatrical space with light, color, and startlingly surreal images," Ehrenstein added. "And then there's the almost glacial pace of his productions, which holds spectators in a quasi-hypnotic state akin to waking dreams." Other Wilson works include 1976's Einstein on the Beach, an opera he wrote with composer Philip Glass. 'What it means exactly is hard to put in words,' Times critic John Rockwell wrote upon its premiere. 'Mr. Wilson calmly accepts most interpretations people care to make. The phrase 'on the beach' may have some reference to the post‐apocalyptic novel of that name. The overall theme of the play might be said to be a consideration of the same moral and cosmic issues that concerned Einstein himself in his later years, principally the role of science in the modern world and the relation of science to religion.' It has been revived frequently, and Ehrenstein called it Wilson's masterpiece. In the 1980s, Wilson and Glass collaborated on The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down, which was to be the fifth act of a planned 12-hour opera. The full opera was never produced due to lack of funding. The men wrote two other operas together, White Raven and Monsters of Grace, both produced in 1998. Wilson also directed plays by William Shakespeare, August Strindberg, and others, and adaptations of works by Virginia Woolf, Anton Chekhov, and more. 'In some of his adaptations, Mr. Wilson transformed the original work enough to take ownership,' the Times obituary notes. He worked with a broad range of collaborators, including Tom Waits, Lou Reed, William S. Burroughs, Laurie Anderson, Allen Ginsberg, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. He did 'Video Portraits' of several celebrities, such as Gaga, Brad Pitt, Winona Ryder, Renée Fleming, and Alan Cumming. Wilson's survivors include Andrews; a sister, Suzanne; and a niece, Lori Lambert, the Times reports. In the documentary film Absolute Wilson, he said, 'There hasn't been a great romance in my life.' Ehrenstein observed, 'Wilson's most passionate love objects have not been men but art and fame.' Wilson described his approach to art to Texas Monthly in 2020. 'It's another world I create; it's not a world that you see wherever you are, if you're in your office or if you're on the streets or at home,' he said. 'This is a different world. It's a world that's created for a stage.' Theater, he continued, is 'a forum where people come together and can share something together for a brief period of time. Art has the possibility of uniting us. And the reason that we make theater — the reason we call it a play — is we're playing. We're having fun. And if you don't have fun playing, then don't do it.' This article originally appeared on Advocate: Robert Wilson, innovative gay theater director and playwright, has died at 83 Solve the daily Crossword
France 24
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- France 24
US theatre and opera director Bob Wilson dies aged 83
Celebrated US director Robert Wilson, who revolutionized stage and opera, died Thursday at the age of 83, his management said. 'Robert Wilson died peacefully today in Water Mill, New York, at the age of 83, after a brief but acute illness,' said a statement issued on his website. It said he worked right up until the end. Wilson's productions of original works as well as traditional repertoire pieces were hugely popular wherever they were shown. But it was in France where he was best known. It was the French who gave him a 'home', Wilson told AFP in 2021. It was in 1976 that Wilson was propelled onto the international stage with 'Einstein on The Beach', a nearly five-hour opera staged several times since its creation, with music by Philip Glass. 'Einstein on the Beach' broke all the conventions of classical opera—there is no linear narrative but rather it draws on themes related to Einstein's life. It does not aim to explain the theory of relativity but to convey the upheaval introduced by the notion of space-time, notably through dance. Wilson's trademarks included minimalist aesthetics, body language influenced by Asian theatrical forms, and lighting effects evoking dreamlike worlds. Avant-garde admiration His love affair with France began with 'Deafman Glance' ('Le Regard du Sourd') — his first success—a 'silent' seven-hour show presented at the Nancy Festival in 1971, and later in Paris. The show was born out of a real-world incident when in 1967, Wilson saw a 13-year-old Black teenager, Raymond Andrews, being beaten in the street by a police officer. He realised the child was deaf and mute and eventually adopted him. Wilson, also a visual artist, had a string of collaborations including with choreographer Andy de Groat, Tom Waits, Isabelle Huppert for 'Orlando' by Virginia Woolf, Lady Gaga for video portraits of her at the Louvre, and ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov. 'While facing his diagnosis with clear eyes and determination, he still felt compelled to keep working and creating right up until the very end,' the website piece announcing his death said. 'His works for the stage, on paper, sculptures and video portraits, as well as The Watermill Center, will endure as Robert Wilson's artistic legacy.' Memorials will be held for Wilson at time and locations yet to be announced. Born to a lawyer in October 4, 1941, in Waco, Texas, Wilson was performing his own plays in the family garage by the age of 12, but recalls being bottom of the class at school. He was cured of a severe stutter thanks to a psychotherapist who worked with dance. In his twenties, he landed in New York but hated what he saw in theatres and instinctively gravitated toward the American avant-garde: Andy Warhol, John Cage, choreographers George Balanchine, and especially Martha Graham. He relished nurturing emerging talent, and in 1992, created the Watermill Center near New York.
