Einstein on the Beach, Barbican Theatre, London
Your support helps us to tell the story
In my reporting on women's reproductive rights, I've witnessed the critical role that independent journalism plays in protecting freedoms and informing the public.
Your support allows us to keep these vital issues in the spotlight. Without your help, we wouldn't be able to fight for truth and justice.
Every contribution ensures that we can continue to report on the stories that impact lives
![Head shot of Kelly Rissman](https://static.independent.co.uk/static-assets/support-us/kelly-rissman.png)
Kelly Rissman
US News Reporter
Philip Glass's gargantuan minimalist classic Einstein on the Beach – though he hates the term 'minimalist' – premiered in Avignon, and has taken 36 years to reach the London stage.
It immediately acquired mythic status, with its mode of gestation widely copied by conceptual artists; joint brain-child of Glass and director Robert Wilson, it began as a series of drawings by Wilson – a train scene, a courtroom, some dances, some archetypal images of Einstein - to which Glass matched his score. The playlets interspersing the operatic acts consist largely of poems by the autistic Christopher Knowles, whose lines have a formal patterning. The part of Einstein is played by a violinist, while some of the performers are both singers and dancers, with choreography by the celebrated Lucinda Childs. Glass describes the work as ‘a non-narrative, artificial theatre in which the function of narrative has shifted completely from telling a story to experiencing a story’.
If that sounds gnomic, so is the result. But the lighting is so exquisite, and the music so seductive, that one doesn't bother about the inaudibility of the rapidly-gabbled words. We were invited to come and go at will during this five-hour work, but it was well over an hour before people started scrambling over legs for a break, and they all came back for more. The 'events' in Glass's intricately-patterned score unfold at a glacial pace, and so do Wilson’s images, but their needle-sharp super-reality is mesmerising - or was until the first technical glitch, when a gantry on which a small boy had been standing with a glowing white cube in his hand obstinately refused to be flown out of sight. More glitches followed: Wilson came on to apologise for the fact that we wouldn't get the full effect tonight.
Sometimes the dance is serenely classical, at others it evokes a collision between Modern Times and the 'Ministry for Silly Walks'; the chorus brilliantly manages Glass's softly-pulsating close-harmony effects. The Einstein fiddler’s endless riffs – and answering ones from a solo saxophonist and mezzo – have epic sweep; the nuclear message is gracefully understated; and when we briefly get Einstein alone on his beach, the effect is breathtaking. If you’re looking for 'meaning', this is a monumentally boring show. But if you just say yes, it’s intermittently glorious.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments