Got to musing, what else could be written about director Robert Wilson [1941-2025] that hadn’t been said. One of the greatest all time, most ground-breaking theater directors. It was an honour to meet/interview one of my idols when Pierre Audi invited the Heiner Müller /Wilson Hamletmachine to his London Almeida Theater, 1987.
Curious still years later, asked world-renowned opera singer Robert Lloyd, whom I’d just worked with: Robert Wilson? Those exacting body positions. Expecting a polite, generous reply. Instead, Mr. Lloyd effusive in his praise with words to the effect, ‘it was the most freeing vocal experience ever for me’. Pelleas. Maybe the Tai-Chi of it all?:)
Then thinking, Einstein on the Beach [Wilson with Philip Glass, 1976], A Chorus Line [1975]. And there was Billy Joel with Piano Man [1974] returning to NYC in 1975 disillusioned with Los Angeles and recording the radical 52nd Street [1978], NY in decay. Then there’s Sondheim, his Pacific Overtures (1976) then Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979). The Rocky Horror Show, Tommy [1975]. The Fall of Saigon. Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. Saturday Night Live was born.
Retrospect oft’ dangerous. Prejudicial. Conflation where none could be. And yet. Tell me there wasn’t a zeitgeist in America back then? Americans tend towards neatness in boxes, easily marketed, easily consumed. And yet. America nothing without challenge. Doubt. Uncertainty. The rebel. The seeker. Some artists embraced the medium of television, critiquing, recalibrating.
Robert Wilson just turned off the sound, dreamed and created quiet enormity on stage. Now it’s the jumbotron full of noise and the Chi is gone.
[Correction: I once wrote a Robert Wilson article for an Australian theater magazine. In the opening para there’s an annoying misprint: Wilson’s work “humorless’. Checked my original fax [way back when] and I did write humorous. These things happen, grrrr..! The Black Rider is still on YouTube. It is LOL!
KITTY and ANDREW’s Saturday Night Movie. Jurassic Park with unicorns, what’s not to like? [Oops, forgot Jenny Ortega. Meow.] The good, caring, non-greed gringos win. We need a dream…maybe a slightly hokey double bill with A Simple Favor? Oh! Anna Kendrick! Just chant her name three times around the campfire and a unicorn doth appear;) btw- that’s Robert Wilson time so if you’ve fallen asleep 6h later and stopped chanting and ..it really isn’t Anna’s problem. Yo. Invoking a unicorn isn’t the same as summoning a pizza!
Great Performances at the Met: Grounded
Jeanine Tesori’s opera in two acts should really be an opera in one go! 75-90min. Consolidate the exposition. Boom boom Basrah is clunky, sub sub Celeste Aida. Then comes a kinda La fanciulla del West- here’s where we are and were. But when Act 2 opens all’s utterly transformative. Everything is witnessed. The confluence of the suburban Mall, the dying faraway, Jess’ daughter Sam shopping for a new dress. Such great writing for the opera stage! Freudian transference into the gray desert! We hurtle on to a Verdian denouement. Very very brave for the Met Opera to commission let alone stage this opera in these times. Allow the exposition staccato/fragmentation/brevity [far easier said than done] then the last hour sings its plangent elegiac sonnet. Us all in chorus, yet alone. To be clear: Act One of Grounded tells a story, Act 2 we’re inside the story. Modern audiences will accept a degree of disconnect as long as signposts are there. Grounded feels like an opera when longing to be an immersive experience. And is almost.
Did hear a real interview with a U.S. ‘drone-ista’, he’d just taken or was about to take his young daughter to ballet class. Surreal!.
Jews Say Let Gaza Live. No anti-Semitism here. Do most Americans, or indeed law enforcement, know the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism? Clearly not if one watches some news outlets.
Jon Stewart on Gaza and Humanity
Hundreds arrested at Palestine Action protest in London
Here’s the explanation for all this, Spanish tourists who see Franco’s ghost!
[this explanation of Palestine Action by UK’s Home Secretary just dropped on the BBC. In fairness, I didn’t know what else the organisation was up to. And in fairness to protestors, aren’t they asking for action in Palestine and world governments to stop the starvation and bloodshed? Not wishing to go all ‘Chomsky-esque’ but a placard stating Palestine Action isn’t necessarily aligning itself with a particular organization. In a court of law, the Met Police would have to prove that the protestor/s had terrorist intent toward the United Kingdom. Good luck with that looking at the peaceful folk arrested.
What constitutes terrorism nowadays? That’s for others to debate not me! I’d remind readers that both the ANC and the Black Panthers engaged in ‘terrorist’ actions. Begs many many questions.
Doesn’t sound like the Palestinian State is a mythical being…and we’ll turn on that tap up North so all the unicorns will grow hooves agin down South…
All because a couple of committed protestors sprayed a bit of paint on an RAF plane?! What. Seriously? I’ve heard of paranoia but this takes the political asylum cake. Is this a gay Monty Python sketch? If we painted planes a different, friendly colour maybe…Imagine Guy Fawkes throwing a tin of purplish pink paint at the Houses of Parliament. England would have no excuse for fireworks. Hmmmm…What if one’s cat or dog wears a Palestine Action sash. Will they be arrested too? As if the Met Police don’t have enough on their ‘collars’ already. Like arresting ‘Boris’ for dancing in front of No. 10 chanting for a unicorn without a ‘face-mask’.
Memories like the hooves we left behind…
Still, just my mordant opinion, the greatest travel show ever- even with tough competition from Michael Palin and Eugene Levy. [KITTY will shame them all yet until..] CONAN O’BRIEN inflicts his unflinching humor upon innocent insects only who wish to breed n’ live. Scratch themselves and sing! Now he places ideas of grandeur that they too could be the lord high grand locust. Conan: CCCCGGGGRRRRR!
Great example: one lucky employee all paid expenses revisits her homeland. All she needed was The Bachelor. She found sheep. Obedient. And Just Like That….So many locusts out there..I hear a song comin’ on Sona…..
KITTY’s Saturday Night Movie: ’owns it’ more than ANDREW should ever know. [Ooops, forgot Charles Durning. Woof!]
Is Audrey Hepburn a goddess? We’d all know her response! One thinks of beautiful, compassionate, unflinching woman both on Broadway and in movies. Yet is, or was, anyone quite like Ms. Hepburn? Delicate, curious, unflappable more so a butterfly than ’goddess’: one could catch her so with a net yet for what resolve? Purity would pale, learning voided. These are times when dear Audrey is remembered. Worshipped. Quietly pollinating care and love in all things no matter how ramshackle.
KITTY just got couriered an anonymous birthday present. Paw sized.
A final thought: was there a feline deep within Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit? You’ll be 50 and I will be 9. Cat years a bit out of whack, scares me so how…. Out of place, so in time.
WE’ll be back! There’s film festival after film festival, all the films you still haven’t seen from last year. The Emmy’s. KITTY has a movie to promote. And ANDREW? Well, he’ll be here, or there tomorrow, “simply go—ing—on”.
Memories: Beirut has sunshine-that’s all it has…[not true, great red wine!] someday maybe, my cat…ENJOY!
