Described by the media as "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost avant-garde 'theater artist'"
The lack of language becomes essential to Wilson’s work as well. In the same way an artist uses positive and negative space, Wilson uses noise and silence. In working on a production of King Lear, Wilson inadvertently describes his necessity of silence:
“The way actors are trained here is wrong. All they think about is interpreting a text. They worry about how to speak words and know nothing about their bodies. You see that by the way they walk. They don’t understand the weight of a gesture in space. A good actor can command an audience by moving one finger” (qtd. in Holmberg 49).
This emphasis on silence is fully explored in some of his works. Deafman Glance is a play without words, and his adaptation of Heiner Müller’s play Quartetcontained a fifteen-minute wordless prologue. Holmberg describes these works stating,
“Language does many things and does them well. But we tend to shut our eyes to what language does not do well. Despite the arrogance of words - they rule traditional theatre with an iron fist - not all experience can be translated into a linguistic code” (Holmberg 50).
Movement is another key element in Wilson’s work. As a dancer, he sees the importance of the way an actor moves onstage and knows the weight their movement bears. When speaking of his ‘play without words’ rendition of Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken, Wilson says:
“I do movement before we work on the text. Later we’ll put text and movement together. I do movement first to make sure it’s strong enough to stand on its own two feet without words. The movement must have a rhythm and structure of its own. It must not follow the text. It can reinforce a text without illustrating it. What you hear and what you see are two different layers. When you put them together, you create another texture” (qtd. in Holmberg 136).
Wilson believes that, "The most important part of theatre" is light (qtd. in Holmberg 121). He is concerned with how images are defined onstage, and this is related to the light of an object or tableau. He feels that the lighting design can really bring the production to life.
The lack of language becomes essential to Wilson’s work as well. In the same way an artist uses positive and negative space, Wilson uses noise and silence. In working on a production of King Lear, Wilson inadvertently describes his necessity of silence:
“The way actors are trained here is wrong. All they think about is interpreting a text. They worry about how to speak words and know nothing about their bodies. You see that by the way they walk. They don’t understand the weight of a gesture in space. A good actor can command an audience by moving one finger” (qtd. in Holmberg 49).
This emphasis on silence is fully explored in some of his works. Deafman Glance is a play without words, and his adaptation of Heiner Müller’s play Quartetcontained a fifteen-minute wordless prologue. Holmberg describes these works stating,
“Language does many things and does them well. But we tend to shut our eyes to what language does not do well. Despite the arrogance of words - they rule traditional theatre with an iron fist - not all experience can be translated into a linguistic code” (Holmberg 50).
Movement is another key element in Wilson’s work. As a dancer, he sees the importance of the way an actor moves onstage and knows the weight their movement bears. When speaking of his ‘play without words’ rendition of Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken, Wilson says:
“I do movement before we work on the text. Later we’ll put text and movement together. I do movement first to make sure it’s strong enough to stand on its own two feet without words. The movement must have a rhythm and structure of its own. It must not follow the text. It can reinforce a text without illustrating it. What you hear and what you see are two different layers. When you put them together, you create another texture” (qtd. in Holmberg 136).
Wilson believes that, "The most important part of theatre" is light (qtd. in Holmberg 121). He is concerned with how images are defined onstage, and this is related to the light of an object or tableau. He feels that the lighting design can really bring the production to life.