“H-100 seconds to midnight”, the new play by Bob Wilson, with music by Philip Glass and Dickie Landry, opens next Friday in Hamburg.

Although the world premiere will not take place until Friday 9 September at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg, “previews” of H—100 seconds to midnight, the new theatrical and musical show by American stage director Bob Wilson, will be offered from Monday to Thursday. The play, conceived during the confinement of 2020, addresses, according to Wilson’s website, “questions about the human species arose—about our vulnerability and the vast spaces of human imagination, about our clumsiness and our gift for flight. We like to think of ourselves as the center, yet we are but a tiny grain of sand in a cosmos spanning millions of galaxies”.

Wilson explains that the work is inspired by the thoughts of Stephen Hawking and the writings of Lebanese writer and painter Etel Adnan. In the play, the Doomsday Clock has been advanced to 100 seconds before midnight, as we witness questions about the cosmos, space travel, galaxies and space-time.

For the creation of this work, Wilson has again collaborated with two of his long-time partners: choreographer Lucinda Childs and composer Philip Glass, with musical contributions also from Louisiana saxophonist and composer Richard “Dickie” Landry, who was part of the Philip Glass Ensemble when Einstein on the Beach was premiered.

H—100 seconds to midnight will run for a total of fifteen performances in Hamburg until 10 December.