Gaping Orifices in Müller’s Quartett, dir. Robert Wilson

In Heiner Müller’s play “Quartet,” the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont of Les Liaisons Dangereuses have become old, saggy, warty, perhaps syphilitic, but are ever more determined to woo and exchange body fluids with unsuspecting young virgin nieces.

Yet in all the rave reviews Wilson’s Quartett has received so far, not a single reviewer has mentioned the best thing in the whole play, which is, seriously, this giant orifice dangling center stage in the photo pictured above. Having Marquise and Valmont mince and hoot and fall into conniptions around this black mess really shows us this other version of hell, where there is no sun but a huge, unfathomable black sucky thing called desire.

“The Annihilation of the Niece”