Robert Lepage is one of the world's most celebrated and most inventive theatre makers. He is from and continues to live and work in Quebec City, in the north of Quebec, the French speaking country on the North East coast of the North American peninsula. He is very much from the "North"! Robert makes theatre which creates its own visual and poetic language from real and often simple stories. His theatre is spectacularly imaginative and always told through a thoroughly collaborative process involving actors, technicians and designers from the very beginning, in collecting, suggesting and interpreting new material. Sometimes his work is epic - telling stories across continents and over many years (The Dragon's Trilogy, Lipsynch) and sometimes it is intimate and focussed (The Far Side of The Moon, The Andersen Project). It is always particular, truthful, unusual and beautiful. You can find more about Robert's productions and his company Ex Machina here.

In 2007 Northern Stage was lucky enough to collaborate with Robert and his whole creative team in a three-way partnership with Ex Machina and Theatre Sans Frontieres, who are based in Hexham in the UK and have a long association with Robert and his work. 27 members of his team arrived in Newcastle from all over the world (Spain, Germany, France, America, Tenerife and of course Quebec) for a three week period of final rehearsals and development before the world premiere of Lipsynch. We showed five and a half hours of new material investigating language, speech, song and love to our audience in Newcastle. Lipsynch went on to become a mammoth and widely acclaimed nine hour cycle of stories which continues to tour internationally today.

This unique experience gave Northern Stage the opportunity to work alongside and get to know Robert and his colleagues and collaborators. We spoke about many things but one thing was the North. Robert believes that there is a connection between Quebec City and Newcastle which is in part to do with being some hundreds of miles from a "cultural capital "(London/Montreal). This gives us a very particular identity and cultural confidence but also a generosituy of spirit which can get lost in a bigger, more central city. For Robert, North is synonymous with a strong sense of place and a distinctive voice. I spoke extensively with him about developing a project to bring together different experiences of Northernness, and at one point he memorably remarked "All the brains are in the North, the good food and the best sex are in the South" which he acknowledged to be both provocative and mischievous - like the best of his work! I am delighted that Robert has agreed to be part of Northern Stages by sharing with us his thoughts about Northernness. I very much hope you enjoy listening to him and to finding out more about his work.

Versatile in every form of theatre craft, Robert Lepage is equally talented as a director, scenic artist, playwright, actor and film director. His creative and original approach to theatre has won him international acclaim and shaken the dogma of classical stage direction to its foundations, especially through his use of new technologies. Contemporary history is his source of inspiration, and his modern and unusual work transcends all boundaries.

Robert Lepage was born in Quebec in 1957. He took an early interest in geography, and when he later discovered all art forms, theatre caught his particular attention. He entered the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Québec in 1975 at the age of 17. After a study period in Paris in 1978 he returned to Quebec and became involved in many creative projects, gaining experience as actor, author and director. Two years later he joined the Théâtre Repère.

In 1984, his play Circulations toured Canada and received Best Canadian Production award at the Quinzaine Internationale de Théâtre de Québec. The next year The Dragons’ Trilogy gained him an international reputation, quickly followed by Vinci (1986), Polygraph (1987) and Tectonic Plates (1988). In 1988 he formed his own professional management company, Robert Lepage Inc. (RLI).

From 1989 to 1993 he was Artistic Director of the Théâtre français at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Meanwhile pursuing his own creative projects, he directed Needles and Opium (1991), Coriolanus, Macbeth, and The Tempest (1992). With A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1992 he became the first North American to direct a Shakespeare play at the Royal National Theatre in London.

A turning point in his career came with the founding of his multidisciplinary production company, Ex Machina, in 1994. Under his artistic direction, this new team produced a steady output of plays, beginning with The Seven Streams of the River Ota (1994),  A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1995) and a solo production, Elsinore (1995). In 1994, he made his début in the world of cinema. He wrote and directed his first feature film, Le Confessional, which appeared the following year at the Cannes Festival Directors’ Fortnight. He went on to direct Polygraph in 1996, Nô in 1997, Possible Worlds in 2000 (his first feature film written in English), and finally, in 2003, a film adaptation of his play The Far Side of the Moon.

La Caserne, a multidisciplinary production centre in Quebec City, opened in 1997 under Robert Lepage’s leadership. In their new quarters he and his team created and produced Geometry of Miracles (1998), Zulu Time (1999), The Far Side of The Moon (2000), La Casa Azul (2001), a new version of The Dragons’ Trilogy with a new cast (2003) and The Busker’s Opera (2004). This was followed by The Andersen Project (2005), Lipsynch (2007), The Blue Dragon (2008) and Eonnagata (2009).

Robert Lepage made a grand entrance in the opera world when he staged the successful double bill: Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung (1993). His presence on the operatic stage continued with La Damnation de Faust presented for the first time in the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto, Japan (1999), then at the Opera National de Paris and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Among his achievements in opera: 1984 based on the novel by George Orwell, with Maestro Lorin Maazel providing the musical direction (2005), The Rake’s Progress (2007) and The Nightingale and Other short Fables which premiered at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto on October 17. Robert Lepage is often asked to turn his creative hand to new fields. In 1993, he directed Peter Gabriel’s Secret World Tour. In 2000, he was involved in producing Métissages, an exhibition at the Musée de la civilisation in Quebec City. In 2002, he joined forces with Peter Gabriel again to direct Growing Up Tour. He later designed and directed Cirque du Solei

Where is it happening?

Online

What makes this project Northern?

A theatre-maker from (and continuing to live in) Quebec City, in the north of Quebec, the French speaking country, on the North East coast of the North American peninsula.