Robert Wilson's insane, brilliant 14-hour avant-garde theatre experiments in the 1970s often were punishments even to the brave audiences willing to go along with him. But they were packed with theatre ideas and experiments that have been appropriated and digested by a generation and a half of more conventional directors. Here, for the first time on this scale, Wilson's body of work is treated as a whole, and its innovations labeled and catalogued for the ages. Extremely useful both for those who are seeking entry to Wilson's oeuvre, and for Wilson veterans longing for a better understanding of what exactly it was they saw in Einstein on the Beach, CIVIL WarS, and other projects.

'Holmberg's special achievement lies in his acute attention not only to the aesthetic components of Wilson's work, but also to its aesthetic principles ... The book is organised according to clusters of ideas which with what feels like the help of a good editor, pulls together the prodigious amount of material Wilson has generated. Above all, it shows anyone who wishes to discover or rediscover Wilson just how marvellous he really is.' New Theatre Quarterly