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Tuesday, September 30, 2014

In Context: Shakespeare's Sonnets




Shakespeare's Sonnets, created by Robert Wilson and Rufus Wainwright, runs at BAM from October 7—12. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of original blog pieces, articles, interviews, and videos related to the production. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.


Program Notes

Shakespeare's Sonnets (PDF)


Watch & Listen


Video
Robert Wilson and Rufus Wainwright (BAM)
Wilson and Wainwright discussed their work with John Rockwell on Oct 8—watch the entire talk on our video channel.

Audio
Did Shakespeare Want To Suppress His Sonnets? (NPR)
The Bards most personal works might have been bootlegged.

Video
“Sonnet 20” from Shakespeare's Sonnets (YouTube)
“A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted, hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion.”

Video
Deutsche Welle: Shakespeare’s Sonnets (YouTube)
“Fairies, fools, and the Queen of England” all have a place in Wilson and Wainwright’s production.


Read


Article
Queering the Scandal in Shakespeare's Sonnets (BAM Blog)
Why are Shakespeare's sonnets scandalous? The lack of "anodyne Man-Loves-Woman" narratives, for one.

Article
Shakespeare Light & Dark (BAM Blog)
Shakespeare’s Sonnets is not a sentimental production but a tender one,” writes Bonnie Maranca, “depicting a world to be viewed as 'darkly bright.'”

Website
The sonnets of Shakespeare's Sonnets (BAM.org)
The 25 sonnets featured in Robert Wilson and Rufus Wainwright's production.

Article
Robert, Rufus, Shakespeare: Together At Last (ArtsJournal.com)
“The cast is a crossed-dressed riot,” writes David Jays. “You end up peering for bulges to work out what gender might lie beneath the facial hair and padding.”

Article
60 Years Old, Brecht's Theater Ensemble Still Packs A Punch (DW.de)
20% of the venerable company’s performances are premieres.


Now your turn...


So how did you enjoy the show? Likes? Dislikes? Surprises? Tell us what's on your mind in the comments below.


54 comments:

  1. Somehow I missed the note that Shakespeare's Sonnets would be in German; couldn't read the proscenium from the cheap seats.

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  2. It was fabulous .
    It was amazing.
    It was astonishing.
    It was brilliant.
    It was genius.
    It was like a book being alive.
    It was magical.

    The Berliner Ensemble is unbelievably more than excellent.

    Robert Wilson is a theatrical genius.
    Rufus Wainwright is a musical genius.

    I didn't understand a word.
    I didn't understand the topo neither.
    But I don't care.

    I'm so happy to see them again.

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  3. Robert Wilson has become repetitive. Sometimes it seems he has nothing new to say.

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  4. What a FANTASTIC performance!!!! The long, enthusiastic standing ovation
    from the audience speaks for all of us who saw Shakespeare's Sonnets
    tonight. Bringing everyone from backstage out for the curtain call was a
    great gesture for us to let them know how much we appreciated them as well
    as the actors.

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  5. The performance was excellent -- precise and interesting movement and design, and the music was diverse and exciting. But it was just toooooo long.... which is a shame, because with too much of a good thing, you start to wonder what was so great about it in the first place. That said, the Berliner Ensemble is really superb.

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  6. It was like a vivid, trippy, beautiful, freaky dream. I loved it.

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    Replies
    1. I think "trippy" is the operative word in your review. Nest time, I'll try that too.

      Delete
  7. I usually keep my mouth shut if I don't like the show, out of respect for the hard work that goes into every one of them - but PEH-LEEZE, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
    I say: let's leave Rufus Wainwright's great music; send all zee Germans where they came from; keep Georgette Dee (BTW, I waited almost 20 years to finally see her live!); cut the show down to 60 minutes - and call it a day.

    Oh, and let's leave The Bard out of it, shall we? Let's just call it a drinking game, in which you are supposed to down a shot every time a character freezes in an uncomfortable position with their mouth wide open.

    What makes me really mad is I know at least half a dozen artists who would do miracles if given 1/10 of the money this piece costs to produce. Hey, if you're thinking of selling your "Sonnets" ticket and donating the money, I can give you some names of guys who are fundraising right now!

    I am officially done with Mr. Wilson, I think. Although the song under the tree was kinda... great.

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  8. A sadly missed opportunity with many great micro-moments that never cohere and rarely emotionally engage.

    Some low-lights:
    - Doing the performance in German - either you follow the poetry on overhead projectors at a fairly brisk pace or watch the performers, it is impossible to do both. This makes no sense whatsoever. If you don't follow the sonnets, you have got a bunch of grimacing and mugging actors screaming or laughing at you in German.
    - Overuse of Wilson's stock-in-trade cliches - loud buzzers, cracked whips, slo-mo, etc., etc.
    - An inexplicable 10-minute guitar solo to no seeming purpose
    - All cross-gender and androgynous dress-up does not do anything to advance the narrative
    - Many sight-gags overextended or repetitive or both, also frequently of little on no connection to the sonnets
    - All the grunting/Bronx cheers absolutely pointless and ridiculous.
    - The ending was stretched out interminably - it could have ended nicely (based on the content) after sonnet 71or 44, but a bunch more were inserted and then a few were reprised from the beginning and repeated a few times
    - The singing was pretty weak, sometimes outright terrible
    - Some music/sound effects nearly burst my eardrums, many in the audience literally jumped in their seats.
    - The Berlin Cabaret bits utterly out of sync with the poetry and the combination most of the time is not helping either.

    Some high-lights:
    - Wainwright's music - actually quite attuned to the mood/spirit of the sonnets
    - About 4 or 5 episodes actually work with the sonnets
    - Lighting/Scenography - although if you have seen a few Wilsons, it will be painfully familiar.
    - Live musicians - great group!

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    Replies
    1. almost wonder if I wrote this above. have to affirmatively add I really loved the music!!

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    2. Totally agree--excellent summary.

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  9. Fantastic show. Highly recommended (but do your homework).

    Peter J.

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  10. Amazing performance. Beautiful interpretation of Shakespeare's Sonnets. It's a dreamy, absurd, moving spectacle with a very Robert Wilson aesthetic and miss-en-scene, but it also often reminded me of Die Dreigroschen Oper. Highly recommended.

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  11. We think Charles Isherwood's review in the NY Times nailed it. It was all about Robert Wilson, and had so little to do with those beautiful sonnets. A Robert Wilson production is a Robert Wilson production is a Robert Wilson production...

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    1. Isherwood seemed quite upset the performers sang in German. But - it's the BERLINER Ensemble, right?
      Robert Wilson has a track record - if you dont like his previous work, you might want to stay home next time.
      The voices were certainly not Broadway. They were simply - perfect.
      Yeah some of it was maddening - but much of it was magnificent. Definitely worth seeing. And I will always see the Berliner Ensemble.

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  12. Brilliant. Music heavenly. Performers amazing. Kept thinking, what would Shakespeare make of this show? My first thought: he'd be bewildered; then, shortly, he'd smile; then, he'd laugh; then, he'd maybe, just maybe, tear up (or was that me?); last, he'd applaud. Maybe even write a new sonnet, #155, to Rufus.

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  13. One of the best contemporary theater pieces I've ever seen; a full-blown contemporary art performance from beginning to end. True wit. Music is mind-blowing. Just could have done with 30' less.

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  14. If only Wainwright and Shakespeare had been contemporaries, oh the possibilities!

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  15. Although I thought Wilson's "The Threepenny Opera" was one of the best shows I have ever seen, the Shakespeare Sonnets were not my cup of tea. The Berliner Ensemble is outstanding in everything they do and visually it was quite arresting many times. But the whole show was boring, repetitive, the sonnets were superfluous and many times I felt it was just plain silly, not witty.

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  16. Ah, to think of the multitude of performers here in New York, or in Berlin, who could do the Wilson contortions AND carry a tune…. This performance would benefit from deciding what it actually is. Is it a Robert Wilson set piece? Is it a Rufus Wainwright homage to Shakespeare's sonnets (singing ability required)? Is it carry on camping a la the Bard? What is it? I thought the Drag Queen was the most honest part of the piece (fabulous). And to see her reaction to dear Rufus singing AFTER the curtain call. The eyes had it. I do not know whose idea that was, but singing after the ensemble stood, froze, sang, or did not, for nigh on 3 hours, that was boarding on rude.

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  17. I couldn't wait to run froM BAM after act 1.
    Shakespeare in German???? ACH!!!
    Robert Wilson's stage pictures, tableaus, etc. have become redundant
    What a major disappointment.

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  18. Shall I compare you to a Wilson red?
    For certainly Bob must never operate in the black,
    And Will, oh Will, it's good you're dead
    For now it's love of money we never lack,
    The good Germans have all the green
    to translate desire, love and passion
    and with pomposity obscene
    degrade your words in corporate fashion
    adios, goodbye, auf Wiedersehen
    Will's songs are gone in this euro haze
    For the Bundestag funds this cultured reign
    and we are such cows we can merely graze

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    Replies
    1. poetry to my ears

      it did not nourish any of my senses

      Delete
  19. I don't think the Emperor is wearing any clothes...

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  20. If you want a straightforward reading of Shakespeare's sonnets, get a book and read it. If you want the opiate of a linear narrative go to Broadway. If you can be in the moment and open yourself to music, song, dance, tableaux, a flaming guitar solo, and wonderfully minimal sets populated by costumed gender twisting performers, then go and have an evening of theatre that is challenging, yes, but also expanding and vey entertaining. I am so grateful for BAM. Kisses to all who made my evening... - MG

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  21. Self-indulgent, repetitive; annoying, disorienting, disconnected, wasteful --- and all in German!
    My wife and I left after about a half hour, feeling exploited.

    If one is not a German speaker, how is one supposed to follow the projected dialogue above the stage AND watch the silly goings-on on the stage? By the way, where in your program notes or on your website did you tell (or warn) people that the Bard's words would be spoken in German? It was misleading and the stuff of a class action lawsuit!

    We should have stayed at home, saved a couple of hundred bucks, and watched re-runs of Law and Order.

    Before dismissing these comments as the product of some unlettered boob, I’d suggest that you read Isherwood’s review in the New York Times, October 8th. He said much the same thing but only more subtly. But then again, he probably didn’t have to buy a ticket.

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    Replies
    1. The best comments ever!! Signing/Sighing under every word you say.

      Thanks so much for validating my inner turmoil yesterday. I started doubting myself being so hopelessly outdated?
      Shakespeare in Deutsche?!!!
      I was originally from Moscow....the old man's sonnets in Russian, anyone?
      (btw, it was beautifully translated by the poet Boris Pasternak).
      I was silly awaiting a wonderful pleasant night with the Shakespeare in it.
      In English. That is it. What a 'caprice' !!

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    2. I WAS IN THE LAST ROW OF THE ORCHESTRA (ACTUALLY A CHAIR BEHIND THE LAST ROW. NOT SATISFACTORY--THEATRE TOO BIG FOR ME TO SEE THE
      FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND SOMETIMES HEAR THE SPOKEN WORD. SECONDLY , THE SCREEN WITH TRANSLATION WAS NOT VISIBLE. FROM THE
      LOCATION.

      I AM A FAN OF WILSON, IN FACT I WAS PART OF THE CAST OF THE 12 HOUR PRODUCTION OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOSEPH STALIN AT THE OLD BROOKLYN . ACADEMY OF MUSIC. HOWEVER I WAS DISAPPOINTED IN THIS
      PRODUCTION. NOTHING NEW OR ESPECIALLY EXCITING AND THE GERMAN DETRACTED RATHER THAN ENHANCED. IT IS DIFFICULT FOR ME ,TO GET TO THE THEATER, SINCE I LIVE IN MANHATTAN, AM 89 YEARS OLD AND TRAVEL ALONE. I TOOK THE SUBWAY TO THE THE THEATER, BUT TOOK A CAB BACK.
      IT COST ME $28.00 TO GET HOME. AND THE PROGRAM DID NOT PROVE TO
      WARRANT MY INCONVENIENCE AND COST. WHAT A SHAME-----I WAS SO LOOKING FORWARD TO THE EVENING AND IT PROVED TO BE AN
      EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING EXPERIENCE

      Delete
  22. Hated it.I agree with previous post in that I felt misled and did not know show would be in German.If this is the next wave then find some exciting new talent. How many times do we need to see the same thing from Robert Wilson? I also left at the intermission.

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  23. Hate to be snarky - but it may have been your loss.
    Hard to fathom why a BAM theater goer would think the BERLINER Ensemble might perform in German ....

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  24. I go to a Robert Wilson performance for all the usual reasons: lighting, costuming, his signature movements and gestures, his signature sounds and vocalizations. Therefore, I was not at all disappointed. I was thrilled to see this production. There were moments that I particularly enjoyed: When it was the aged, vain Queen Elizabeth who recited, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?," I had to laugh because surely she saw herself as lovely and temperate even in her old age. I also chuckled when cupid's arrow failed to reach her, for the same reason. And in one scene, I enjoyed seeing video from the film version of Wilson's Deafman Glance on the monitors on stage. Overheard at intermission was a comment that the production was all surface and all over the place with no coherence, and that it was almost impossible to focus on the sonnets themselves. I totally understand how people might experience a Wilson performance and feel that way, and that's okay. Not everyone is going to like every piece BAM stages, and that's what keeps BAM fresh and interesting. Even though I loved the performance, I do agree it was a bit long for what it was (the same feel could have been accomplished in maybe 2 hours instead of 3. And I also agree that trying to read the surtitles took me away from the tableaux on stage. But it was thrilling hearing the Bard's words in German, so it was worth it. The Berliner Ensemble and entire cast deserved every minute of their long standing ovation tonight. And kudos to Rufus Wainwright for the excellent music as well.

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  25. I Loved It! Nay-Sayers be damned. It's the best 100 bucks I've spent for a artful, fun Friday nite in a long time. Friday nite in a long time. It was art, it was poetry, it was a 'New York moment'.

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  26. It was everything I would have expected from a Robert Wilson production, PLUS, Rufus Wainwright's music. Strange, funny, yes, poetic and thoroughly entertaining.

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  27. An ethnocentric-self-indulgent-mental-masturbation with no soul! A misappropriation of Shakespeare's work. Are these the offspring of Nazi experimentation? I enjoyed the music, however found the production lacking in vision and I was totally bored, so I left after the intermission. I enjoyed my conversation with an African American employee of BAM.

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  28. every bad thing said about the production above is true, more or less... and so is every good thing said about it! i loved this performance and was very happy to have spent the evening here.

    there were transcendent moments. there were missed notes. there were playful larks and moments when i felt i'd seen this or that set piece already in another wilson production. and then i forgot the last impression for the next one, over and over again. luckily for me, it started and ended on a good note so i left happy.

    though i didn't get much opportunity to feel the joy of hearing shakespeare performed aloud (as easily 3/4 of the production was spoken in german,) i'm now inspired to read the sonnets and so thrilled to see BAM has posted them here.

    i like being taken on an unexpected trip by artists, even if i also wish they would take me where i expected to go. some of the performance was unexpected. and some of it was stereotypically robert wilson. i loved it anyway!

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  29. The guitar solo was brilliant! Hey guitar player, here's my number...

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  30. Terrible show . Departed at. Intermission. . Also pissed yhe my''discount'' subscription tickets cost $60 each and today they were on the website for $30 each. That ends my subscriptions. Shakespeare in German sucks. The script was weak and while the look was cool and the music was good there was. No direction point or purpose to this show. Very Disappointed .

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  31. This is a good production overall. However, having seen Robert Wilson's shows several times in the past, I thought this was not as crisp or magical as the past productions. I was surprised to see stagehands coming onto the stage (changing sets, setting props, etc) in the midst of surreal images. Was Mr. Wilson trying to follow the Berliner Ensemble's Brechtian tradition? It didn't quite work for me. Also, a number of miscues with the supertitle, set changes, and other few minor mishaps left a sense of sloppiness which is not usually associated with Mr. Wilson's productions.
    The best song is the one at the top of Act II. It is very Wainwright-ian, and I personally wished there had been more of those.
    Though I love Mr. Wilson's productions, I would like to see him breaking away from the style which is becoming a bit stale for being used for more than a decade or two... This is the man who established the avant garde / postmodern theatre. I wish to see him reimagining theatre again.

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  32. I follow most of Robert Wilson's productions. This one, with the usual doses of beauty, humor & non-sense, was a little too long. I would have certainly liked to hear all the sonnets in English. Wainwright's music was excellent, I particularly liked the songs of the 2nd act (the first and the last two). I am looking forward for Wainwright's future opera on Hadrian.

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  33. A taste, seen in the bewildered and indignant comments scattered here, of an old Avant-garde. This is not an honorific presentation of Shakespeare's Sonnets and it is not a sequence of Rufus Wainwright music videos . If you are unfamiliar with grotesques and Brechtian theater, as I more-or-less am, you might be upset by this performance because, frankly, there is a lot going on and the aesthetic is fundamentally different from what most of us are used to seeing.

    By the way: the audience is part of the show.

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  34. Are the grumps commenting above kidding? Did any of you look at BAM's website or bother to learn anything above the production before purchasing your tickets? I saw clearly -- in TWO places on the website -- that the sonnets would be sung/spoken in German, with English titles. If you couldn't see that, no wonder you had trouble with the translated supertitles. And no mention of the few songs that were actually sung in English. I was very much looking forward to seeing this show on my quick visit to NYC, and was entirely pleased with the production . . . even the rough edges. Rufus Wainwright's work is transporting and I look forward to seeing and hearing whatever he does next, no matter what language.

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  35. I have always been a fan of Robert Wilson. I invited a friend to go with me to the matinee on 10/11. She almost backed out because she read the review in the NYTimes. But decided to go anyway, prepared to hate it. She said as we were going home that it was an experience she would never forget. I thought the music was wonderful as was everything else. The audience thought so too.
    Cecil Oberbec

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  36. I have never walked out of a performance, but I couldn't stand it and had to leave at intermission. I thought the show was beyond bad. It was clearly supposed to be a fun romp that shouldn't be taken too seriously. That's fine. That can be done well. This was not. It was repetitive and stale. I've seen fresher symbolism in Circ du Soleil shows. Absolute waste of money.

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  37. Has Mr. Wilson lost his marbles? Why call it: Shakespeare's Sonnets when it is more of an exercise on madness--a mental masturbation taken to the heights of elitist ethnocentric hogwash? Brueghel and Hieronymus Bosch seem to have inspired the cartoonish characters that inhabit this piece. Devoid of any diversity this one dimensional and utterly contrived form of storytelling smacks of shortsightedness. It lives in a ghetto of make-belief that is an insult to Shakespeare.

    Wainwright's music was mesmerizing!

    Mr. Wilson, you have become a sad and mad caricature of yourself.

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  38. The music was superb and stage production was innovative. All in all a great performance.

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    Replies
    1. I agree without exception. As to the comments on Robert Wilson, I have only attended three performances of his works...Happy Days, The Old Woman, and Shakespeare's Sonnets...and found them all to be excellent theater experiences.

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  39. Charles Isherwood is a cultural barbarian.

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  40. What to say about Wilson and BE's take on the Bard? As always, it's a whole different - but only different - way of looking at Willie. But its not comfort food.

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  41. Great show by the incomparable Berliner Ensemble. The only thing I found difficult was the florescent light along the lip of the stage. It was painful until I managed to block it out with my program. Then I could enjoy the show.

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  42. 1. Spend a few dollars and put translations where people can read them. This is not news. How much could these screens rent for for a week?
    2. I sat in the balcony, 2nd row aisle, right side. The English was not comprehensible from there. I know it wasn't my hearing because I would look around at 50-75 people and no one was laughing. All the laughter was from the left orchestra, presumably where the sound worked better.
    3. Your theater is simply not comfortable enough for the 21st century. I am not larger and I am very uncomfortable (and in an aisle seat at that). We decided that after a few similar uncomfortable experiences we just won't go to BAM any more. You do not give the consumer what he/she deserves - a comfortable theater experience.
    4. Interesting that on Sunday afternoon the applause was in the European style. I assume you are selling to tourists, not to New Yorkers.

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  43. My introduction to Wison was his spectacular "Alice" in Germany. Since then, I've flown overseas and in the USA to see his work. My comments:

    1. I am a BAM supporter, but there was some truth-in-advertising here: it should have been listed as "In German with Supratitles in English". I speak German -- but come on: they could have done it in the Bard's own words. There is no way that having poetry outside of a native language enhances it.

    In addition, it was listed as a Rufus Wainright performance, but there was maybe 1 or 2 songs form him (and as far as I could see, not sung by him unles he was buried under the pancake makeup).

    2. As for Wilson: His work can be exquisitely beautiful, brining you to a dream. He recently developed some techniques which divert form that -- and not in such a pleasant way, but still effective. For example, the workshop piece KOOL- -dances in my mind which I saw at the Guggenheim a few years ago he introduced a Japanese theater technique of dropping wood on the floor to introduce a shocking sound element. In addition the use of a loud buzzer seems to have been stolen from a Richard Foreman piece (Idiot Savant) from a few years ago. As such, Robert Wilson has evolved form quite dreamy staging to a very jerky/noisy interrupted product. Add to that, the very LOUD volume (not nearly as loud s the recent Laurie Anderson- Kronos at BAM thank god ) and you haver a not so pleasant, but interesting piece nonetheless. I enjoyed "Marina Abaramovitch" and "The Old Woman" both from him in NYC over the past year, more. I will probably not put his pieces hig on my list any more.

    3. Nonetheless, we are lucky to have BAM/Berliner Ensemble and their backers to put on such spectacular un-commercial art. Others wish that the money were for up-and-coming artists, but BAM does those too. Some times you need a blockbuster and Wilson Delivers.

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  44. I really did not know what to expect. I thought this would be a "reading" by Wilson and Wainright and was ready to leave. Was I surprised. Even though it was in German, the prompter made everything clear and if one attends the opera it is something you get used to. I was totally swept into the production, the staging , costumes and makeup were over the top. Even in German these talented performers were able to translate feeling. I especially enjoyed the use of Victorian silhouette. Wainright's melodies are solemnly sweet, but repetitive. A most unusual interpretation.

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