ROBERT WILSON

“Formalism means a distance from what one is saying or doing. In distance one has more respect for the audience. I prefer to let the audience enter the stage at will, on their own. We’re there to make suggestions, but not to insist.”
Robert Wilson


In this very formal, and yet highly personal approach to Shakespeare’s great tragedy, Mr. Wilson works with the text Wolfgang Weins has adapted, and performs Hamlet as a monologue in 15 scenes.

Supported by a music and sound score created by Hans Peter Kuhn and costumes by Frida Parmeggiani, both long-time collaborators of Robert Wilson, he, in one of his rare appearances as a performer, interprets not only Hamlet, but also all of the participants in what is often considered Shakespeare’s greatest work. Pulling props and costume pieces out of a trunk in the style of classic story theatre; Mr. Wilson becomes now Hamlet, now Gertrude, now Rosencranz and Guildenstern, now Ophelia.

In the simple and beautiful scene design, all the settings of Hamlet’s life and death are represented by shifting slabs of stone, creating different configurations, standing against a backdrop of constantly changing and subtle lighting effects.


PRODUCTION DATES
Houston, Texas
Alley Theatre, May 1995
Venice, Italy - Teatro Goldoni
Venice Biennale, 20 – 21 June 1995
New York City, New York
Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun! Festival
July 1995
Paris, France, Festival d’Automne
16-19 September 1995
Paris, France - MC 93 Bobigny
February 1996
Seville, Spain, Teatro Central
1 – 3 March 1996

Berlin, Germany - Hebbel Theatre
21 – 26 March 1996
Lyon-Villeurbanne, France - TNP
18 – 22 November 1996
Milan, Italy, Piccolo Teatro – Teatro Lirico, May 1997
Warsaw, Poland - Teatr Narodowy
22 – 25 May 1997
Amsterdam, Netherlands, Holland Festival, 28 – 30 June 1997
Shizuoka, Japan, Shizuoka Art Center
April 1999, April 2000