\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWhenever Tom Waits and his wife and longtime collaborator Kathleen Brennan pay tribute \u2014 or write seemingly anything \u2014\u00a0it is in the unique tone that has been a hallmark of his and their creative work for more than five decades.<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tThe two paid tribute to their friend Robert Wilson \u2014 the experimental theater stage director, playwright, founder and artistic director of The Watermill Center, known for \u201cEinstein on the Beach,\u201d \u201cThe Life and Times of Sigmund Freud\u201d and more \u2014\u00a0who died on July 31 at the age of 83. The tribute follows below in full.<\/em><\/p>\n \n\tOn Not Saying Farewell to Our Friend Robert Wilson<\/p>\n \n\tOver 40 years of loving Bob and still he astounds\u2026. his vodka paintbrush of absurdity, vaudeville, heartbreak and forgiveness and imagination of the infinite is still wet and painting backdrops backwards behind the Mirror into the wee hours of the morning of his opening night! We will always be suspended in his orbit\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n \n\tNo one could paint like Bob with light\u2026he collaborated with great lighting designers who patiently, arduously, took his elaborately detailed visions and precise instructions into the days that became nights\u2026. he found all the things that live between the membrane and the weathervane\u2026..<\/p>\n \n\tBob was among the artists who see, feel, hear, and sense the world in a way that most don\u2019t experience it and want that experience to be shared and to connect others also immersed and suspended between the breaths of Life.<\/p>\n \n\tBob set course for the unseen portals of his imagination and gathered brave, adventurous, devoted, gifted, and brilliant artists, and crews and devotees and opened many hearts and eyes. Bob had to be valiant, dictatorial, curious, ever listening, wily, playful, deluded, strategic, flirtatious, fallible, political, and willing to protect and persevere against all doubters, critics, compass navigators, naysayers well intentioned or not.<\/p>\n \n\tBob was an absolute amethyst of an actor\u2026. a space floating astronaut and, to paraphrase Lewis Carroll\u2019s Queen in ALICE, he regularly dreamed 6 impossible things before breakfast to stage, to paint, to costume, to build, draw, perform, choreograph, film, design\u2026\u2026.to light into Life and darkness.<\/p>\n \n\tHe could make his mind as still as the surface of an evening summer lake then shift into scribbling dance \u2014 epileptic, musical, static and trancelike\u2026 He trusted and confided in his Muses and created a field of concentration calm as a stoic monolithic rock rising out of rollicking sea.<\/p>\n \n\tTo get Bob, first, you must believe in the dandelion floatness in the smokey pale light horizon beyond the proscenium\u2026. then smooth out the blanket of time and pour a bottle of ink on the emptiness and call its shape the title of your new show!<\/p>\n \n\tAlways atune, to a finger, a face, a chin, a leg, a tear, a gesture, a shape, an ear, a branch, a child under the table, the stalk of blooming cactus\u2026..or an unplanned sneeze that turns on the Christmas lights as you the say the word\u2026.SCHLEP! His actors ever game and skillful would, upon Bob\u2019s suggestions and their imaginations, would turn their bodies into the letter G or throw up their arms like the wings of a crow and open their mouths in a silent scream\u2026. Bob s-l-o-w-e-d everything down, the actors moved as if underwater\u2026.the audience experienced a flower blooming in real time.<\/p>\n \n\tRobert Wilson. Bob. Beloved Bob. Biscuits and Gravy Bob, Elegant Bob.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd\u2026with his down-home heart and pure prisms of light mind and a wild and wicked Texas cackle ripping up yellow lighting in a black sky desert\u2026Forever Bob\u2026.<\/p>\n \n\tTom and Kathleen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whenever Tom Waits and his wife and longtime collaborator Kathleen Brennan pay tribute \u2014 or write seemingly anything \u2014\u00a0it is in the unique tone that has been a hallmark of his and their creative work for more than five decades. The two paid tribute to their friend Robert Wilson \u2014 the experimental theater stage director,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[2052,9805,2324,2286,5301,9227,6183],"class_list":{"0":"post-16468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-pays","9":"tag-playwrightdirector","10":"tag-robert","11":"tag-tom","12":"tag-tribute","13":"tag-waits","14":"tag-wilson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}