Subversive … Robert Wilson’s Ubu, performed at Es Baluard museum in Palma de Mallorca. Photograph: Luca Rocchi
As his new adaptation of controversial Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry is performed in Spain, the creative director thinks about the clash between the horrifying and the humorous.
Robert Wilson starts drawing on a piece of paper somewhere in the middle of recalling his first theater experience (“it was so boring, with these people acting”), imitating Tom Waits’ blistered croon perfectly, and remembering how he and Samuel Beckett became friends over a shared love of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.
He depicts the Happy Days set and its infamously confined female heroine in a few quick strokes. According to the seasoned US theatrical director and artist, “the finest Beckett pieces are those that are handled extremely unnaturally, like Keaton or Chaplin.”
All of it is dancing, all of it is timing, and the makeup is fake. It is this other realm, so I’m always astonished when people attempt to portray him in a more realistic manner. You cannot have this lady waiting for a bus on the street, as he drew an illustration to go with the phrase.
The now 81-year-old playwright is not known for his naturalism. Wilson has not so much avoided realism as he has refused to let it anywhere near the building throughout the last 60 years in his work and partnerships with everyone from Lady Gaga to William Burroughs. This is also true of his most recent endeavor, which had its world debut on Saturday evening at the Es Baluard museum in Palma de Mallorca.
‘It’s one of those myths that playwrights have written about for centuries’ … Robert Wilson in 2022. Photograph: Markus Scholz/AP
Robert Wilson starts drawing on a piece of paper somewhere in the middle of recalling his first theater experience (“it was so boring, with these people acting”), imitating Tom Waits’ blistered croon perfectly, and remembering how he and Samuel Beckett became friends over a shared love of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.
He depicts the Happy Days set and its infamously confined female heroine in a few quick strokes. According to the seasoned US theatrical director and artist, “the finest Beckett pieces are those that are handled extremely unnaturally, like Keaton or Chaplin.”
All of it is dancing, all of it is timing, and the makeup is fake. It is this other realm, so I’m always astonished when people attempt to portray him in a more realistic manner. You cannot have this lady waiting for a bus on the street, as he drew an illustration to go with the phrase.
The now 81-year-old playwright is not known for his naturalism. Wilson has not so much avoided realism as he has refused to let it anywhere near the building throughout the last 60 years in his work and partnerships with everyone from Lady Gaga to William Burroughs. This is also true of his most recent endeavor, which had its world debut on Saturday evening at the Es Baluard museum in Palma de Mallorca.
The bear from Jarry’s original waves balefully at the audience. Photograph: Luca Rocchi
The filmmaker was drawn in by Ubu’s craziness and its clash of the horrifying and the humorous. Humor, he claims, “may greatly increase the terrifyingness of a scenario. And if we can’t laugh or if we can’t maintain that distance from the subject, we shouldn’t truly create theater. The strength in the area in front comes from the space behind the mask. Finding the appropriate point is what it is, not a counterargument.
Wilson’s latest interpretation is an evil, multilingual pantomime that is drenched in red light and looped with noise. It is appropriately aggressive, ridiculous, foreboding, and childish. Joyous dance sequences cover scene changes among the mayhem and carnage, and the bear from Jarry’s original performance gestures ominously at the audience.
The sculpture is intended to serve as a reminder to the public that Ubu and his homicidal mediocrity have never really vanished, said Imma Prieto, director of the Es Baluard museum.
“We are supposed to expose gaps where daring and free gestures could condemn injustice and cruelty, opening up holes in creation,” she argues.
Wilson claims that Miró’s artistic interpretations of Jarry’s work gave him a sense of freedom and complemented his theatrical style. He also mentions that a puppet appeared in his first play, The King of Spain, which was performed in the late 1960s. Therefore, when I was requested to perform this job, I immediately thought of the large puppet I once had, and in some ways, it’s returning to my roots.
Ubu specifically tapped into Wilson’s “painterly” worldview, according to Wilson. “The stage image functions as a kind of text mask. Whether it’s Hamlet or The Ring of Wagner, I often perform a piece visually first before adding words. The visual book is just as crucial as the audio version.
Wilson continues, “What we see in life is just as significant as what we hear.” And there is often conflict between the two.
“A half-hour ago, Donald Trump was on television. It is one thing if you pay attention to what he is saying. It’s a lie, however, if you look. The body is truthful.
Wilson is hesitant to predict how his play will be received by his first audience in Palma. He claims nonetheless that his highly visual approach usually results in easy border clearances.
‘Because it’s staged visually, there’s no language barrier.’ Photograph: Luca Rocchi
“Even tonight, where I speak a lot of the text myself in English, and where I’d say 50% of the public won’t understand the words, because it’s staged visually, there’s no language barrier,” he says, “It’s what you see. What I see is what I see, and what I hear is what I hear. Ideally, anyone can walk into that theatre tonight and get something from it.”
Even though Saturday’s inexperienced crowd sometimes struggled to know when to laugh and when to cringe, it finally gave Wilson a standing ovation instead of the chaos Jarry had to deal with. And although the play’s shock factor has diminished a little over the last century, the reality it depicts has not.
Just watching the TV a half-hour ago, according to Wilson, “that was really stunning.” “The Donald Trump popularity rankings. That is rather disturbing.
Robert Wilson’s Ubu is on display until October 23 at the Es Baluard Museum in Palma de Mallorca. Es Baluard sponsored Sam Jones’ journey.
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Thanks to Sam Jones at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.
