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Wilsonian mysteries

A wry monologue about a genius of the stage
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 13th, 2007 issue

Bob

By Anne Bogart, performed by Will Bond
When: June 15 and 16 at 8
Where: Divadlo Archa
Tickets: 290–390 Kč, available at the venue

COURTESY PHOTO
With minimal props, Will Bond offers a character sketch and study in theater theory.
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“Naturalism has ruined the theater!”
Rather than a cry from the heart, director Robert Wilson’s exclamation is a call to arms. As one of America’s leading theater-makers, Wilson has been at the forefront in the struggle for the soul of the contemporary stage. What Wilson and a phalanx of other artists are striving to save is the very bedrock of theater: mystery. Theirs is a theater that emphasizes process over product, and prefers experience to explanation.
“The purpose of art,” said writer James Baldwin, “is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.” Wilson’s work, along with that of his peers and protégés, is a modern tilt toward theater’s Dionysian past — a return to mystery instead of Realism’s dull certainties.
Anne Bogart’s Bob, produced by the Saratoga International Theater Institute and performed this week at Archa Theater as part of the 2007 Prague Quadrennial, turns the priest himself into the ritual. It’s no accident that Bob embraces Wilson’s philosophy of theater, as Wilson is actually the “Bob” of the title. Bogart’s piece (though she prefers the term “essay” for such performances) was developed in the late ’90s in partnership with actor Will Bond and other SITI artists, and has toured the world with Bond playing Wilson (the first Prague performance was held at Archa in 2002).
Although Bob is a collage of Wilson’s theories and biographical anecdotes, it is not mere biologue. In a conversation I had with Bond a few years ago, he referred to Wilson’s own essays as “a jumping-off point for a discussion of other matters.” Thus, audiences needn’t arrive with any real knowledge of Wilson or his work to fully appreciate the piece.
“It’s the story of a man named Bob, an artist who creates in public,” Bond said. “It’s also an exploration of the crisis of creating.”
On an expanse of stage there is a table, a chair and a luminous bottle and glass of milk. These simple items become the ritual props. Bob is elliptical out of necessity, as words fail to keep pace with the hive of voices in the master’s mind. Questions of space, time and the very fragmentation of experience are the substance of Bob, but not the sum of him. Bogart and Bond never attempt to explain Wilson, believing, as Wilson does, that we must interpret for ourselves. “I draw pictures,” Wilson has said. “I don’t create meaning. The audience creates meaning.”
One shared conclusion reached by Bob’s audiences is that this is an electric (and eclectic) comic monologue.
The Quadrennial will be serving as an important introduction to Bogart’s work for Czechs. Along with the performances of Bob at Archa, there will be workshops at the theater on Bogart’s performance theories, the Viewpoints. Bogart is one of America’s leading theater theoreticians, and her Viewpoints (an improvisational training technique for actors) have had a massive influence on contemporary American theater. The director’s famous book on Viewpoints, which has just been translated into Czech (by the Prague Theater Institute), will be presented by Bogart herself June 16 at 4:30 p.m. at the Prague Quadrennial exhibition at Průmzslový palác (the Industrial Palace).
Bond was a founding member of Bogart’s Saratoga International Theater Institute, which was created with Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. Though Bond still works on occasion in regional for-profit theaters, his primary work is with the institute. Before becoming Bob, he had a chance to work with Wilson on a piece titled Persephone, which gave Bond further insights into Wilson’s character.
When I asked him if Wilson has seen Bob, Bond laughed and said that Wilson has only seen a video of it. “He’s been very encouraging,” Bond stressed. “Though he seems reluctant to see it live. Yet he always tells people to go if they can.”

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (13/06/2007):

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