Rilke, One Million Words – 23 January 2025

Torn Page’s production of Rilke, One Million Words provided a rich tapestry of specific imagery and advice juxtaposed with hesitance. Drawn from a combination of Rilke (Ivo Muller)’s correspondence, poetry, and religious influences, this 60 minute experience was aesthetically beautiful and rich with insightful sayings, all of which could inspire a whole play in and of themselves. Before even entering the space, audiences were invited to open a jar and pull out a line of Rilke to carry with them both into the space, and back out.

Though every word of this production was pure, well thought out poetry, after a while I began to struggle to discern character development. It was powerful to see a portrayal of a poet so decisive and descriptive also be somewhat lost. Rilke had an incredible amount of faith in the universe and trust in the delicate fragility of the world. He was not portrayed as a man of action, but rather a man cycling through the rich history of the world and trying to find some sense in the passivity of the cycles. As he implies in the repeated biblical section, in some respects we are all a breath away from what we seek; in others, we are at an impossible impasse where the gap is too wide to bridge. This production holds space to explore that balance.

One cannot speak of this show without mentioning the letters. Old, faded letters cover the floor and are occasionally interacted with, as some of the play’s most profound sections come from Rilke’s correspondence with a younger poet. Because this was a solo show, this younger poet never appeared. It made me wonder how much of this written communication was Rilke’s ability to put thoughts out into the universe, rather than mentoring a young poet. When writing is your primary form of expression, does all your writing become an elevated expression?

The essence of this experience was watching a man process his thoughts, his art, his demons, his spirituality, and a whole world of others with whom he both interacted and withdrew. It was an examination of the breadth and depth of a human in isolation— in essence, studying the inner workings of a human as we would an animal. How does he respond to faith? How does he respond to praise? How does he respond to questions? When is he the instructor versus the learner? What does he care about and how does it carry him? What hurts in a visceral, existential way? What is the true makeup of a man? Is that one man, Rilke, or is that humanity? 

When it comes down to it, the specifics shift, but the ability to relate to them does not. While Rilke may describe one item with fierce specificity, Ivo Muller does so with such feeling that audience members pictured the objects that conjured those feelings for us, rather than the objects he described. It is in this way that Rilke, One Million Words transcends language— it uses a single phrase to conjure infinite meanings. Despite the specificity of the words, we all left with a unique experience.

I attended this production on a press pass from Spin Cycle.