Robert Lepage S Original Stage Productions

This book calls upon globalisation, queer, cinema, and affect studies to explore key Robert Lepage productions from 1984 to 2008, analysing the systems through which his work is produced and disseminated.

This book explores the development of Robert Lepage’s distinctive approach to stage direction in the early (1984-1994) and middle (1995-2008) stages of his career, arguing that globalisation had a defining effect on shaping his aesthetic and his professional trajectory. In addition to globalisation theory, the book draws on cinema studies, queer theory, and theories of affect and reception. Each of six chapters treats a particular aspect of globalisation, using this as a means to explore one or more of Lepage’s productions. Productions discussed include The Dragon’s Trilogy, Needles and Opium, and The Far Side of the Moon. Making theatre global: Robert Lepage’s original stage productions will be of interest to scholars of contemporary theatre, advanced-level undergraduates, and arts lovers keen for new perspectives on one of the most talked-about theatre artists of the early 21st century.

The Theatricality of Robert Lepage studies several productions, including The Dragons' Trilogy, Vinci and Tectonic Plates, The Seven Streams of River Ota, Zulu Time, and The Far Side of the Moon. Dundjerovic provides major new insights into Lepage's creative process through an examination of his workshops, open rehearsals, and performances, as well as interviews with Lepage and his collaborators. Outlining the key production elements of Lepage's theatricality, Dundjerovic provides a practitioner's view of how Lepage creates as a director, actor, and writer and explores Lepage's practice within both the local Québécois and the international theatre context.

A leader in theatre production for a global community, Robert Lepage - actor, cineaste, and director - revolutionized the Toronto theatre scene from the 1980s onwards by challenging conventional notions of language, identity, and national belonging. Exploring Lepage’s twenty-five-year history on the Toronto stage, Jane Koustas analyzes his importance in the Canadian and international theatre scenes. Outlining the reasons behind Lepage’s success in Toronto, Koustas skilfully engages with a wide range of journalistic and scholarly texts, moving between French and English critical reception of his work. For Lepage, Toronto offered the best of both worlds: he could remain an ardent Quebecer while being welcomed as a fellow Canadian. Lepage, raised in a bilingual family, brought to his Toronto productions an understanding of English and Canadian culture that resisted presenting French against English and the rest of Canada versus Quebec. Instead, he took Toronto audiences on a global theatre voyage that transformed traditional geopolitical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries and questioned identity. Investigating the relationship between Quebec’s master dramaturge and Toronto, a burgeoning cosmopolitan city determined to be a global cultural capital, Robert Lepage on the Toronto Stage analyzes the success of one of the few Québécois artists to have achieved fame in English Canada.

This book theorizes auteur Robert Lepage’s scenography-based approach to adapting canonical texts. Lepage’s technique is defined here as ‘scenographic dramaturgy’, a process and product that de-privileges dramatic text and relies instead on evocative, visual performance and intercultural collaboration to re-envision extant plays and operas. Following a detailed analysis of Lepage’s adaptive process and its place in the continuum of scenic writing and auteur theatre, this book features four case studies charting the role of Lepage’s scenographic dramaturgy in re-‘writing’ extant texts, including Shakespeare’s Tempest on Huron-Wendat territory, Stravinsky’s Nightingale in a twenty-seven ton pool, and Wagner’s Ring cycle via the infamous, sixteen-million-dollar Metropolitan Opera production. The final case study offers the first interrogation of Lepage’s twenty-first century ‘auto-adaptations’ of his own seminal texts, The Dragons’ Trilogy and Needles & Opium. Though aimed at academic readers, this book will also appeal to practitioners given its focus on performance-making, adaptation and intercultural collaboration.

Robert Lepage is one of Canada’s foremost theatre authors and directors. His company, Ex Machina, has toured to international acclaim and he has lent his talents to areas as diverse as opera, film, solo performance and installation art. His most celebrated work blends acute personal narratives with bold global themes through collaborative and multimedia theatricality. This book is the first to combine: • An overview of the key phases in Lepage’s life and career • An examination of the issues and questions pertinent to his work • A discussion of The Dragons’ Trilogy as a paradigm of his working methods • A variety of practical exercises designed to give an insight into Lepage’s creative process. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are of unbeatable value for today’s student.

Routledge Performance Practitioners is a series of introductory guides to the key theatre-makers of the last century. Each volume explains the background to and the work of one of the major influences on twentieth- and twenty-first-century performance. Robert Lepage is one of Canada’s foremost playwrights and directors. His company, Ex Machina, has toured to international acclaim and he has lent his talents to areas as diverse as opera, concert tours, acting, and installation art. His most celebrated work blends acute personal narratives with bold global themes. This is the first book to combine: an overview of the key phases in Lepage’s life and career an examination of the issues and questions pertinent to his work a discussion of The Dragons’ Trilogy as a paradigm of his working methods a variety of practical exercises designed to give an insight into Lepage’s creative process. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners are unbeatable value for today’s student.

Robert Lepage has imposed himself in the past three decades as a Wunderkind of contemporary theatre, with eagerly awaited and widely acclaimed productions at the most prestigious theatre festivals and venues around the world. Soon after his international breakthrough with The Dragon’s Trilogy (1984), Lepage’s work became an object of particular scrutiny for critics and scholars, and continues to be subject to media exposure, inspiring cultural critique, academic study and the admiration of audiences across the world. A recurrent fascination with the formal novelty of his theatrical approach imbues most, if not all, critical considerations. However, in spite of the wide interest provoked, little space has been devoted to the quintessential impact of his work on spectatorship, and, most importantly, to connecting the dots between his creative practice and its substantial impact on audiences. Intermediality and Spectatorship in the Theatre Work of Robert Lepage bridges this gap by exploring the notion that intermediality – observed both as a mise-en-scene strategy and a perceptual effect in performance – is situated at the core of the director’s approach. This approach is situated in direct relation to the evolving expectations and medial competencies of spectators, demonstrating an in-depth understanding of the ways in which different media can be engaged in the creative process in a holistic way in order to alter the regime of spectatorship, to enhance its creative and cognitive potential. Lepage’s work and theatre making process are analysed here from an interdisciplinary perspective that combines theatre, media and cultural studies, and which is applied to his solo shows, namely Vinci (1986), Needles and Opium (1991), Elsinore (1995), Far Side of the Moon (2000) and Project Andersen (2005). In bringing to the forefront interconnecting notions of intermediality and contemporary spectatorship, the book highlights the director’s preoccupation with an ongoing dialogue with audiences across the world, and their particular involvement in the development of one of the most innovative practices of the Western theatre landscape.