Avant-Garde Epic: Robert Wilson's Odyssey and the Experimental Turn

Abstract

Robert Wilson is famous for his disparagement of “the text,” for his desire to break free from the strictures of the written word and compel his audience to engage with performance on a different level. So it was with some trepidation, and a sense of irony, that I began to watch his production of the Odyssey, now (as I write) moved from Athens to Milan.* For the play opens with Homer’s prologue, recited in ancient Greek—so far, so good: I feel on relatively safe ground. It continues in modern Greek, and this is the language with which it will remain throughout. But in Milan, the majority of the audience are not following the spoken word with their ears, but are, rather, reading the surtitles projected above the performance space. I find myself referring to the surtitles too, and using them to recall Simon Armitage’s English translation which I had re-read only that morning. For behind the spoken modern Greek and the projected Italian surtitles is Armitage’s version, written for radio and first broadcast by the BBC in 2004, and now translated into modern Greek for Wilson’s production. All this translation (from ancient Greek to English, to modern Greek, to Italian) may leave us wondering why Wilson chose Armitage’s text. Of course, the American director would naturally have gravitated towards an English translation of Homer’s epic poem. Even the task of having that translation translated into modern Greek (by Yorgos Depastas) and into Italian (by Isabella Babbucci) for this collabo-