Robert Wilson

EO

Who are your literary and theoretical references?

RW

Well, I was very influenced by the anthropologist Edmund Carpenter. He was married to Adelaide de Menil. Ted and I met quite early on, when I first got Watermill. He used to come to The Watermill Center, especially in the summers. He wrote a book that Dominique de Menil underwrote named Patterns That Connect. In 1955 or 1956 (this was pre-Marshall McLuhan) he went to the Highlands of New Guinea with tape recorders and video cameras. They thought he was from outer space or something, because he could replay their voices and show them images of themselves. Ted was brilliant and it showed. He was a great storyteller too, and I like storytellers.

EO

You’re from Waco, Texas?

RW

Yes, it was a right-wing community, and home to the largest Southern Baptist Church in the world. It’s a place where it was a sin for a woman to wear pants. If you went to the theater, it was a sin. During junior high school, if you witnessed someone sinning during the week, it was encouraged that you write their name on a piece of paper and place it in a designated box. On Friday at 2 p.m., everyone prayed for the names found in the prayer box.

EO

At what age did you move to New York?

RW

I was 20 years old. I moved to New York to study architecture at the Pratt Institute. I wanted to be a painter, but I wasn’t very good.

EO

What did architecture mean to you at the time?

RW

It was a frame for thinking. I had a great teacher, the only one in 22 years of formal education. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy. She taught the history of architecture. When she taught her class she would have three screens behind her, each showing a different image. There would be a Renaissance painting, a Byzantine mosaic, and a chair of Frank Lloyd Wright, for instance. Her lectures had nothing to do with what we were seeing on screen. At the outset of her first of three lectures on the Bauhaus, she put her handbag on the floor, took out a fish, and put it on the podium. She never explained why the fish was on the podium. I’m still thinking about that fucking fish. During her second Bauhaus lecture, she opened her handbag, took out an orange, and placed it on the podium. She never gave us answers. But, I don’t know, it started a ball rolling. The best class out of the five year course came during the middle of my third year. She prompted us one day, saying, “Students, you have three minutes to design a city. Ready, go.”

EO

What did you design?

RW

This was the early 1960s, so I drew an apple. I put a crystal cube inside the apple. She said, “What are you thinking about?” I said, “At the center of the city is a core, something like a crystal cube, that can reflect the universe or the world.” It’s like in a medieval village where the cathedral sits at the highest point. Whether rich or poor, you could walk in the door. It was where painters showed paintings, and musicians played music. It was the center of the village. This is the reason I created the Watermill Center.

EO

Can you tell me about the origin story for your first major theater work Deafman Glance that you wrote with Raymond Andrews? While reading a review about it in The New York Times from 1971, it reminded me of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. The reviewer, Clive Barnes, notes, “The new ‘Deafman Glance’ is about nothing—it is a play without a plot, or perhaps it is even a plot without a play—but the important thing is that it takes a static pose as a potentially dramatic attitude. Mr. Wilson sees life as an onlooker from out of a bus window—a stalled bus at that. What happens is very easily explained. Indeed it is so easily explained, and it would sound so ridiculous if explained that I have no intention of explaining it. I think that Wilson wants us to look at the visual world with a pure observer’s eye—not its inexplicable grotesqueries and its mind‐nudging allusions—and nothing could be more direct than a deaf eye.” What inspired the subject matter?

RW

When I was 27 years old, I was walking down the street in Summit, New Jersey and I saw a policeman about to hit a Black boy over the head with a club. I grabbed his arm and asked, “What are you doing?” And he responded, “It’s none of your business.” After some time, the tension dissolved and I walked with the policeman and the boy to a nearby police station. I heard the boy’s voice and recognized that it was that of a deaf person. After some time negotiating with the officers, I left the police station with the boy. We went to a two room apartment where he was living with thirteen people. Later, I learned that the boy had grown up in rural Alabama and Louisiana where people didn’t understand what deafness meant. After a few months, I learned that he was going to be locked up or institutionalized. So in 1967, I went to court to adopt him. He had no legal guardian.

I didn’t really want to have the responsibility of this boy. The judge said, Mr. Wilson, “What makes you think this child’s intelligent?” And I said, “Your Honor, he has a sense of humor, and that’s a sign of intelligence.” That didn’t work. Towards the end of the proceedings, I said to my lawyer, “What can we say to convince the judge to give me the boy?” He said, “I have no idea.” So I said, “Do you think there’s any chance we’ll get him?” He said, “No way.” I just looked straight at the judge and said “If you don’t give me this boy, it’s going to cost the state of New Jersey a hell of a lot of money to lock him up.” You’ve got a good point,” he said, and they granted me custody. As far as I could tell, he knew no words. It was obvious that he thought in terms of visual signs and signals.

EO

How did this chance encounter impact your life?

RW

At the time, I was friendly with a man named Daniel Stern. Dan was the head of the Department of Psychology at Columbia University and was studying pre-verbal communication between mothers and babies. He had made over 250 16-millimeter films of mothers picking up babies. Dan took the film and slowed it down so that you could see every individual frame which showcased the relationship and movements of the babies and mothers responding to one another. Within one second of time, it’s very complex what happens between the mother and the baby. Raymond was more apt at reading these almost imperceptible gestures. It was an important learning experience for me. I wrote my first major work in the theater with Raymond. Deafman Glance, or Le Regard du Sourd in French, ended up being seven hours long, silent, and based on my observations of Raymond and dreams that he had. The show traveled to Paris and was meant to show two times. Much to my surprise we played for five and a half months to sold out audiences. Raymond and I put together a company of 60-something people from the street, here were no professionals. Louis Aragon saw the piece, and afterward published an open letter addressed to his friend, the late Andre Breton. He wrote, “this is what we hoped the future would be.”

EO

Your experience of witnessing sin and punishment in Waco, your Bauhaus education with Sibyl, and chance meeting with Raymond seem to deeply inform the sensibility in your practice. It seems like bearing witness is essential to how you register and give meaning to the world.

RW

In 1965, I had a loft that was about 75 feet long at 147 Spring Street. One night Raymond was standing at one end of the loft, and I was at the other end. He had his back to me. I shouted, “Raymond!” and he didn’t hear me. I knew if I stamped my foot on the floor he’d feel the vibration and turn around. But then I did a very curious thing. I went, “Raymond! Raymond! How are you?” in the sound of a deaf person. He turned around and started laughing, “Hey, man, you’re talking in my language.” His body was more familiar with those vibrations of sound. In a sense, his body was hearing. That was a shock.

EO

What made you get the loft at 147 Spring Street?

RW

Well, I found it by accident. I had grown up in a rather small house with a small bedroom. I was living in a tiny apartment on East Second Street in the East Village at the time. There was a group called the Open Theater. They had ownership of the space on Spring Street. Jean-Claude van Itallie, a friend of mine who had written an earlier play that I designed called America Hurrah, was involved. When Open Theater moved out of the space Jean-Claude said to me, “We’re giving it up if you want it.” It was $75 a month. I thought, “How will I ever afford $75 a month?”

EO

What were you doing for work at the time?

RW

When I finished school, I worked with children with learning disabilities in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Harlem, and Summit, New Jersey. I worked with a woman who believed that physical activity was connected to mental activity, and that when a baby or a child was having difficulties learning it could be the result of a lack of physical activity as a baby. She had put together a series of movements based on babies: look at your left hand, look at your right hand, play with your fingers, and play with your toes. The most sophisticated movement was to learn to crawl. She thought that exercising in these primary stages of physical activity would in many cases make it easier for a child to learn.

I also worked with people in Iron Lungs at Goldwater Memorial Hospital. I went into this ward and there were 50 people in Iron Lungs with just their heads sticking out from the respirator. Invariably, most of the patients became catatonic. They often didn’t speak, so we did movement pieces with these patients. Their only movements were to use their mouths to move a stick, to draw or turn the pages of a book. I also worked in an Italian restaurant as a waiter, and as a teacher.

EO

What made you gravitate towards people with different disabilities? Does this have anything to do with you naming your theater company the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds?

RW

I stuttered until I was 17. Well, the name Byrd Hoffman comes from a woman that I had met when I was a boy. Byrd, who taught ballet and dance to my sister in Waco, told me when I was 17 years old, “to take more time to speak.” It was amazing how impactful simple advice can be at that age. Within a relatively short period of time, between six to eight months, I overcame my problem with stuttering. It was like I had been speeding in place. She had a profound understanding of the body, famously, which is why I named the foundation after her.

EO

So on the subject of performance. Suddenly with the place on Spring, you had more space. What did that mean for your practice?

RW

Well, at that time a lot of paper factories in the neighborhood were discarding paper. I’d get these rolls of paper and I began to make drawings. It was freedom. That’s how I learned to get confidence in my body.

EO

I can relate. Were you thinking about a career at that point?

RW

I didn’t do anything well. I was always last or next to last in class. And I really had no idea. It was difficult for me. But I met Martha Graham. There was a guy named Gus Solomons Jr. who was a dancer in her company. He was studying architecture at Yale. He was in a ballet she was making and I said to him, “I would love to watch a rehearsal.” He said, “Okay, let me see.” Eventually, he invited me to see a Martha Graham rehearsal. She was incredible. She asked me after the rehearsal “Mr. Wilson, what do you want to do in life?” I said, “I don't know. I don’t do anything well.” She said, “If you work long enough and hard enough, you will find something.”

EO

She gave you a framework, a mantra.

RW

Exactly. So I did Deafman Glance. I produced it, seven hours long, and showed it in New York. It was not well received by many people.

EO

When did you start working with the dancer and choreographer Jerome Robbins?

RW

In the mid to late ’60s.

EO

What were you doing with Jerome?

RW

I was his assistant.

EO

How did that happen?

RW

I took him to see an open theater rehearsal in ’67 or ’68. It was the time of the living theater. Actors were taking their clothes off on stage and smoking dope. It was a liberation. Meanwhile, Jerome felt that he was locked in a box and he wanted to free himself.

EO

Where was he in his career at the time?

RW

West Side Story had been going on for a while. He had done Gypsy with Ethel Merman. He was with the New York City Ballet.

EO

How long did you work with him?

RW

It was more or less steady for a year, but on and off for two. We became very good friends. At that time I had just opened 147 Spring Street. I was working with homeless people and Housewives from New Jersey. Raymond was there leading a workshop and eventually Christopher Knowles.

EO

So what’s the deal with Phillip Johnson?

RW

Phil? Do you design?

EO

Yes, I do. I started designing furniture in 2020. I’ve always been curious about architecture, construction, and materials but I never considered pursuing making things for other people. I understood designing as something I would do for myself. Anyways, back to you. How did you meet Philip Johnson?

RW

Well, my thesis assignment at Pratt was to design an imaginary cathedral, or a future city, perhaps. I took yellow tracing paper and put it on the wall with push pins. I had a large jar of mayonnaise and a large jar of mustard. I had a suit and tie on for the presentation. I opened the jar of mustard and put my fist in the jar and smeared mustard all over the tracing paper. I put my other hand in the jar of mayonnaise and smeared it on tracing paper. The chairpeople of the department were furious.

EO

[Laughs.] Of course.

RW

“No, no, no. This doesn’t work. We’re sorry. No, Mr. Wilson, you went too far.” Philip Johnson was on the jury. He said, “I think it's the only project that interests me.” I worked on the model for The Expo, the ruins of which you’ll see if you’re on the LIE going into Manhattan. That was 1965.

EO

Was he at MoMA at this time?

RW

Yes, he was. At the time, he was a big supporter of Vincent Scully, who taught architecture at Yale. He was preserving Scully’s archives for MoMA. Later, when Sybil died in ’68 of cancer I thought MoMA should get her archives as well. So, I went to Philip and said, “Please do this. Don’t lose this. Everyone knows Vincent Scully, but no one knows Sibyl Moholy-Nagy.” She was married to László Moholy-Nagy.

EO

You had 147 Spring Street at the time?

RW

Yeah.

EO

And what was Soho like?

RW

It was an artist’s community. Lucinda Childs was there. And Trisha Brown. And Justin Church, Yvonne Rainer, and Simone Forti.

EO

Were you all friends?

RW

Yeah, we were a community, and each another’s audience. Gordon Matta Clark, was running Food with artists Tina Girouard and Carol Goodden.

EO

Did you go? Was it good? [Both Laugh.]

RW

Yeah. I don’t want to get too specific. You’re going to read too much into what I’m saying.

EO

I’m just curious. Everyone is quick to self-mythologize and I do believe it’s just cool that they ran a restaurant. It’s just hilarious to me because no one ever talks about the kind of food that was at Food.

RW

I met Phil Glass there too, you know?

EO

Oh, really?

RW

Well, he came to see The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin, and he stayed all 12 hours. It went from 7:00 in the evening to 7:00 in the morning. And he came back. We had breakfast. I said, “Why don’t we make a new work together?”

EO

What was The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin?

RW

Well, it was seven hours long and silent. There were seven acts. One and seven were related. Two and six related. Three and five related. And the turning point was in the middle of the fourth act. You’d spiral into the forth act and spiral out. That act was set in 1907: Stalin’s first wife dies and he was studying to be a priest. It seemed to me, in the superficial way I understood Stalin, that something for him began to reverse and go berserk in that period.

That structure isn’t unique, though. If you look at King Lear of Shakespeare, the first half is set in a man-made environment. The center line is, “I shall go mad,” and then the King goes into nature. He dies at the end, of course, but it turns right there in the center.

EO

Yeah. In the Spring of 2019, before I started I started grad school at Columbia University, I worked as an assistant for Scott Rudin. A season or so later, my friend was assisting the acclaimed costume designer, Ann Roth. She did most of the plays Scott produced, including King Lear. I got invited back to see King Lear. It was weird to be on the other side of the production because I’m most into ideating, conceptualizing projects, and making collaborations happen. Who was Phil at the time?

RW

He was Phil Glass in the United States, but not known in Europe.

EO

But relatively well known?

RW

Yes, especially, with this community downtown. I asked him how he wrote music. He said he used mathematical formulae.

EO

Music is a science.

RW

Yes. That’s also how I make theater. We decided to make it work that day. I was thinking about doing something about Hitler. He was thinking of doing something about Chaplain. Eventually we settled on Einstein. I made a structure of theme and variation: A, B, C — A and B, C and A, B and C, and ABC together in the last act. I said to Phil “How long do you think this should be?” “I don’t know,” he said. ”An hour, two hours. Three, four, five. He said, “Five.” So I said, “Okay.” So with this divided up, we had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 interlude scenes. And so we had the structure. He wrote music and I did designs according to that map.

EO

How old were you?

RW

I was 30.

EO

What did it feel like when you were making it?

RW

It felt different and the same. I’ve always thought in terms of mega structures. I start with the structure and then begin to fill it in. While they are boring and can be counterintuitive in the long run, without them, I wouldn’t know what to do or where to begin. For instance, I can understand how Mozart wrote his music structurally, but it’s not necessary for me to appreciate his music. I can just listen to the music. Structures are frames to get you somewhere else.

EO

Is Einstein on the Beach your most commercially successful work?

RW

Yes.

EO

Why do you think people cared for it?

RW

It was easily accessible. My first big successes in France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany were silent, so there was no language barrier.

EO

Was Einstein on the Beach your first piece with music?

RW

No, I did A Letter for Queen Victoria with Christopher Knowles. Chris was autistic and autism wasn’t really understood at the time. But he would make compositions: HAPHATH—HAT—HAP—HA—HAP—HAT—HAP—HATH—HAP. He was in an institution and this was being corrected. But it was never arbitrary. There was always a pattern: 4, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1.

EO

When you were working with Phil how did you guys negotiate sound?

RW

Phil would say, “Bob, I think that’s a little too long.” And I would say, “Well I think this is a little too slow, or this could be quicker.” Once you have...

EO

The pieces.

RW

Then you’re just moving...

EO

them around to best understand where they make sense.

RW

That’s it.

EO

You are really successful abroad. Why did you stay in America?

RW

Well, I always thought about leaving. But I like being in this country. I met Man Ray in the ’70s, shortly before he died. He had an apartment that he promised me when he died, as long as I didn’t move anything—even down to where he kept his Coca-Cola cans. He insisted, “Don’t give up your roots.” I, of course, did. I moved to Paris, I lived in France. I became well known there. But I regret that I gave up my roots.” That really stuck with me. So I started Watermill here because I wanted to be from New York, and because I wanted to be in nature. Although I wanted to get out of the city.

EO

You’ve continued to travel rigorously, though. Do you have plans for the future?

RW

They just offered me to direct Wagner’s Tristan in 2028. I thought, oh my God. Maybe I’ll still be alive.

EO

But you can start working right now…

RW

I mean, right now I have almost no work in this country. So...

EO

It’s known that you’ve opened the Paris opera season 27 times in a row.

RW

Yes, and I did the inauguration of the Opéra Bastille, with Jessye Norman.

EO

To me, then, when I look at your entire career the first word that comes to mind is: legacy. I have the feeling you’ve been thinking about your legacy from the start.

RW

Are you trying to get me to think about it? [Laughs.] I don’t know, I just try to get my socks on in the morning. If I had gone to Yale and had studied there, I would never be doing what I’m doing.

EO

Of course. But after you found success, why did you keep doing these things?

RW

Well, I think the reason we work is because we say to ourselves, “what is it?” And not to say and name what something is, but the reason to work is to say what it is through doing it. So what am I, I don’t know, but “what am I doing? What am I making?” Those are the questions. And I think that’s all that matters.