In Robert Wilson's Saints And Singing, a light gleams and is gone, only to be replaced by another blinding beam, then another. In the way that light reflects and refracts into a spectrum of colours, so Wilson's highly individualistic vision is composed of a number of potentially incompatible elements which, in this so-called "operetta", based on Gertrude Stein's play, come together with an elusive sense of purpose.
Quite what that purpose is, it is difficult to discern and difficult to articulate, for this Texas-born, Berlin-based theatrical illusionist is the first to admit a degree of forbearance is necessary.
One goes with the flow or one holds out against it; either one revels in the absolutely gorgeous visual constructions, which grow out of Stein's hypnotic words or one stamps the feet impatiently, sensing an empty vision which is as fulfilling to observe as drying paint.
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