SOURCE: Savran, David. “Whistling in the Dark.” Performing Arts Journal, no. 43 (January 1993): 25-7.

In the following review, Savran assesses a 1992 New York City production of Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights in terms of director Robert Wilson's contemporary associations with the play's critique of Western rationalism.

Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights has an immaculate pedigree in the American theatrical avant-garde. Although originally written as an opera libretto on the eve of World War II, in 1938, Gertrude Stein's text was first performed in the United States in 1951 as the inaugural production of the Living Theatre. In 1979, as directed by Larry Kornfeld with music by Al Carmines, it graced the final years of the Judson Poets Theatre. Under Richard Foreman's direction, it was performed at the Festival d'Automne in Paris in 1982. Most recently, in July 1992, Robert Wilson brought his own new production, mounted in collaboration with Berlin's Hebbel Theater, to New...