Reviews

Maybe this is what it looks like, the apocalypse: quiet. In Robert Wilson's work, it is poignant: beautiful.

Norddeutscher Rundfunk Radio

Perfect rush of images.

Norddeutscher Rundfunk TV

The ensemble plays with high concentration and tension.

nachtkritik.de

Robert Wilson's theater is not outdated, not obsolete, it is still as visually strong and imaginative as on the first day.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Wilson, who is also his own stage and lighting designer, finds images of touching beauty for this melancholy-friendly (and theater-aesthetically completely out of time) round of doom, influenced by shadow theater, expressionist film, puppetry.

Theater heute

About "H" 100 Seconds to Midnight

Three world stars have joined forces: stage magician Robert Wilson, composer Philip Glass and choreographer Lucinda Childs. Together they return to their beginnings in the avant-garde of New York's minimal art and have developed an associative stage poem. In the midst of the pandemic, they created conversations about the human species—about our vulnerability and about the immense power of human imagination, about our stumbling and our gift of flight: grains of sand in millions of galaxies. The severely handicapped astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, of all people, has been tirelessly traveling in space with his mind, experiencing time and space, exploring galaxies, black holes and the "Big Bang", asking last questions and at the same time warning mankind of its self-destruction: the doomsday clock has advanced to 100 seconds to midnight...

In the Lebanese author and painter Etel Adnan, Wilson found a great poet, whose work has been interested in questions of the cosmos and space travel, galaxies and space time.

Credits

Director/Stage Design/Lighting: Robert Wilson

Cast: Marina Galic, Jens Harzer, Barbara Nüsse, Tim Porath, Pauline Rénevier, Yunseo Choi, Anne-Marie Ludwig, Ping-Cheng Wu

Music: Philip Glass

Co-Direction: Nicola Panzer

Staging: Stephanie Engeln

Costumes: Julia Von Leliwa

Choreography: Lucinda Childs

Lighting: Marcello Lumaca

Video: Tomasz Jeziorski

Sound Design: Dario Felli

Dramaturgy: Joachim Lux

Head of Production: Christian Persico

Chinese Script Translation: Wang Yukuan

Supported by Maren Otto-Stiftung

The project would like to express its special thanks to Mr. Chen Ping for his assistance.

About Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson, born in Waco, Texas, is one of the world's leading theater makers and visual artists. His unconventional works for the stage integrate a wide range of artistic means: dance, movement, light, sculpture, music and text. His artistic companions were writers and musicians such as Heiner Müller, Tom Waits and Anna Calvi. Wilson has received numerous awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. Wilson is the founder and artistic director of the Watermill Center, a laboratory for the arts in Water Mill, New York. "H" 100 Seconds to Midnight is Robert Wilson's 7th work at Thalia Theater.

About Thalia Theater (Hamburg)

The Thalia Theater, one of Hamburg's four state theaters, was founded in 1843 in the heart of Hamburg and is internationally regarded as one of the most renowned theaters in the German-speaking world. The house is famous for its outstanding acting ensemble and strong directorial signatures—an artistic quality that is also in high demand abroad. There are about 1,000 seats on the large stage, and the program includes not only repertory pieces that change daily, nine premieres per season, and many classics in new interpretations, but also contemporary works by young authors.