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ON BEARING WITNESS TO A POETIC RITUAL. ROBERT WILSON’S DEAFMAN GLANCE AS SEEN BY JANOS PILINSZKY! ——~<~o»—___ ENIKO SEPSI In various ways, France played an important part in sparking the aesthetic-poetic change which took place in the 1970s in the work of the Hungarian poet Janos Pilinszky. One of the main influences was a consequence of Pilinszky’s access to Robert Wilson’s theater, especially the Paris performance of Deafman Glance in 1971. This ritualistic theater, which I define as “poetic,” inspired not only Conversations with Sheryl Sutton but also some poetic works of short “drama” and some poems. This essay examines the poetic implications of this theatrical approach to rituals in the poems and prose of Pilinszky, as well as his views on spectatorship and witnessing at a time when liturgy and ritual overlapped in Wilson’s thinking theater. My inquiry is based primarily on two letters that I discovered in the early Robert Wilson Archives at Columbia University. INTRODUCTION In various ways, France played an important part in sparking the aestheticpoetic change which took place in the 1970s in the work of the Hungarian poet Janos Pilinszky (1921-1981). These influences lay initially in Pilinszky’s discovery of the work of Simone Weil and in the liturgical renewal that served as a model for his concept of theater, but they were prompted perhaps most importantly by his access to Robert Wilson’s theater, especially the Paris performance of Deafman Glance in 1971. This mute theater of images had switched to an unfamiliar tempo on stage, a kind of immobility in movement which inspired not only Conversations with Sheryl Sutton,” an imaginary dialogue written by Pilinszky, but also some poetic pieces of short “drama” and some poems. In this essay, I examine the poetic implications of this theatrical approach to rituals in the poems and prose of Pilinszky, as well as his views on spectatorship and bearing witness at a time when, in Wilson’s thinking theater, liturgy and ritual overlapped. 1 "This text was first published in Jay Malarcher (ed.): Text & Presentation, 2017, The Comparative Drama Conference Series 14, Jefferson (N.C.), McFarland, 2018, 167-179. ? Robert Wilson’s main and only professional actress at the time.
