Earlier this week San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater launched the eagerly anticipated North American premiere of a new version of The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets. At the helm is famed visionary director/designer/artist Robert Wilson, who collaborated with the late writer William S. Burroughs and quirky songmeister Tom Waits on this visually dazzling, Faustian fairytale. The opening was the occasion for great fanfare.
Black Rider's plot is taken from Carl Maria von Weber's 1821 German Romantic opera Der Freischutz ("The Free-Shooter"), which itself is based on a German folktale. Rock singer and sometime actor Marianne Faithfull stars as Pegleg, the devil incarnate. New York actor Matt McGrath is Wilhelm, the young clerk who sells his soul in exchange for some enchanted bullets. With flawless marksmanship, he'll surely win the hand of his true love.
Part of the excitement is because theatre icon Wilson has never yet had a major work staged in San Francisco. The show sold more advance tickets than any show in A.C.T.'s illustrious, three-decades-plus history. This work is said to be one of experimentalist Wilson's most accessible.
"I've wanted to bring Wilson's work here for 10 years," said A.C.T. artistic director Carey Perloff. She saw--and "adored"--Black Rider in its original form at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. It premiered there 15 years ago, with Burroughs' text translated into German. That production then toured throughout Europe, as well as at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival in 1993. More recently, A.C.T. joined forces with the Barbican in London to coproduce the first English-language version of the musical, which recently closed there. Following this San Francisco run, the production transfers to the Sydney Festival in Australia.
The Black Rider, according to press materials, is a macabre fable of "love, evil, and human folly steeped in the folklore of the past and bursting with the art of the future." Wilson borrowed idioms freely from German Expressionism, cabaret, and silent films to create his distinctive, visually startling theatrical world.
At 63, New York–based Wilson is perhaps best known, internationally, for his five-hour, multimedia Einstein on the Beach (in collaboration with avant-garde composer Philip Glass) and continues to be radically inventive over a decades-long career. In A.C.T.'s program, associate editor Jessica Werner observed, "Even in today's increasingly multimedia world, Wilson's work remains marvelously unclassifiable, yet instantly identifiable. New York Times culture critic John Rockwell has written that 'within the universe of avant-garde theater, at least, the term Wilsonian means something almost as distinct as Brechtian.'"
At a recent press conference, Black Rider stars Faithfull and McGrath giggled nervously about the challenges inherent in working with the famously fussy director. Among many other credits, McGrath has appeared on Broadway in Cabaret as the emcee, and also in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Off-Broadway in the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The two actors--along with the rest of the multinational cast (a total of four Brits, four Americans, and four other Europeans)—have worked together since the London premiere, so they've had ample time to adjust to the demands of this particularly demanding play.
Just how exacting is Wilson? "He storyboards everything before going into production," said Perloff. "He's a painter, one of the great visual artists. He shapes everything very meticulously." His directions, she said, veer toward comments such as, "Walk very very slowly here, turn and look here." But, said Perloff, Wilson also discusses the big gesture, the intention of the scene, what the piece is about. However, "He's very meticulous about the choreography, and about dynamics--how something builds, either physically or vocally."
For her part, Faithfull has an insider's perspective on the text. She was friends with Burroughs, the Beat-era icon and notorious junkie whose signature novel was Naked Lunch. Thus she understands that Black Rider's dark script arose out of Burroughs' guilt and grief at accidentally shooting and killing his wife (in Mexico, in 1951). Faithfull told the assembled press that she strived toward revealing the vulnerable as well as the evil qualities of her satanic character; she glimpses Burroughs' troubled soul through that character.
This, by the way, is Faithfull's first stage role in 11 years. The one-time girlfriend of Mick Jagger, she established her own singing career (her most memorable song, "As Tears Go By," was written by the Rolling Stones) and then acted on stage and screen. She was a captivating Ophelia in Tony Richardson's 1969 film Hamlet opposite Nicol Williamson. She was cast in Black Rider when Wilson asked Waits whom he imagined singing his music. "Marianne Faithfull," said the fedora-topped musician.
Among the other performers are Mary Margaret O'Hara as Wilhelm's object of desire, plus an eight-member orchestra under the direction of Bent Clausen and associate David Coulter. Wilson himself designed set and lights; costumes are by Frida Parmeggiani.
In terms of technical demands and star power, this is A.C.T.'s most ambitious venture ever. "The makeup alone is an art form," said Perloff. "It's like having genius scene painters on hand to do makeup every night. The makeup's not naturalistic; it's extremely precise. It takes five makeup artists. The backstage work to make this show--the flying, the incredibly meticulous, precise lighting, startling lighting--all that takes a lot of doing. It's very demanding musically." It's been said Wilson paints with light.
Waits attended rehearsals daily, making last-minute changes to the score, which is described as "dreamy and brooding." Greg Cohen collaborated with musical arrangements.
"It's the greatest adventure we've ever had," confided Perloff. "It stretches you in every possible way. It's one of the most thrilling things we've ever done."
"Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets," is presented by and at American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. Through Sept. 26. $35-80. www.act-sf.org. (415) 749-2228.