Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

BOB (review)

1998; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 50; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tj.1998.0113

1086-332X

R. Freeman,

Theatre and Performance Studies

Reviewed by: BOB Roger Freeman BOB. By Saratoga International Theatre Institute (SITI). Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. 5 February 1998. Click for larger view View full resolution Bob (Will Bond) in Saratoga International Theater Institute’s production of BOB, conceived and directed by Ann Bogart. Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. Photo: Kevin Fitzsimons/Wexner Center for the Arts. Click for larger view View full resolution Bob (Will Bond) in Saratoga International Theater Institute’s production of BOB, conceived and directed by Ann Bogart. Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. Photo: Kevin Fitzsimons/Wexner Center for the Arts. Click for larger view View full resolution Bob (Will Bond) in Saratoga International Theater Institute’s production of BOB, conceived and directed by Ann Bogart. Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. Photo: Kevin Fitzsimons/Wexner Center for the Arts. BOB, a one-person show based on the life and work of Robert Wilson, premiered at the Wexner Center in Columbus in anticipation of a New York engagement later in the Spring. Conceived and directed by Anne Bogart, and featuring SITI member Will Bond as Bob, the work has much in common with Bogart’s earlier piece The Medium, based on the life of Marshall McLuhan (see Attilio Favorini’s review in Theatre Journal 49.3: 357–58). The text for BOB is composed of excerpts from various statements and interviews with Wilson, assembled by dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke into a smattering of personal anecdotes, references to Wilson’s working process, and observations on the role of meaning in the theatre. Some passages from The Medium resurface in BOB, for instance when Bob recalls returning home from college to find his father watching television constantly. Some lengthy passages, particularly the anecdotal material, are quite coherent: Bob’s reminiscences about his childhood and his relationship with his father, and a humorous account of a mishap in a Hamburg airport, for example. In general, though, the script is a series of Wilson soundbites, some of which are repeated with variations throughout. The effect is a sense of frustrated expectations in the face of constantly deferred meaning, appropriate to a work based on a figure whose own work resists efforts toward singular interpretation. BOB dwells at length on the function of meaning in theatre, and Bob inveighs against works whose meanings can be neatly defined. Death of a Salesman comes in for a gently humorous drubbing in this regard. The disjunctions of the text are accentuated by a soundscape by Darron West that is equally jarring in its unpredictability. Sometimes approaching deafening levels, West’s design careens wildly through cocktail party conversation, screeching jet planes, metallic crashes, waltzes, an instrumental version of Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” recordings of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and a broadcast from the Apollo spacecraft. Abrupt eliminations of sound produce moments of stillness, which as Bob suggests, can be deafening. [End Page 514] This scattershot blast of text and sound is counterbalanced by a symmetrical set and the formal precision in staging for which both Wilson and SITI are known. The stage is a mostly empty space gridded into nine rectangles, each of which can be lighted from above. Mimi Jordan Sherin’s design produces several striking effects, shifting rapidly from tight overhead spots to full stage washes to narrow side lighting. There are four large fresnels on the floor, one at each corner, which are occasionally turned up to full intensity. Up right is a black table streaked with white paint, holding a milk bottle and a glass of milk, which Bob occasionally drinks and refills. Down left is a white chair. Otherwise the stage is bare. The symmetry of the stage carries over into the staging, as Bob, seated in the chair as the audience enters, moves both table and chair counterclockwise four times during the performance, finally returning them to their original positions. The effectiveness of the piece depends on at least a passing familiarity with Wilson. Besides the textual references, several staging moments allude to Wilson’s works and process. The milk bottle and glass from Deafman Glance are the most obvious, but there are other...