Robert Lepage

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Robert Lepage (born December 12, 1957 in Quebec City) is a playwright, actor and film director from Quebec City, Quebec, and is one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists.

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[edit] Life and work

Lepage was raised in Quebec City. At age five, he was diagnosed with a rare form of alopecia, which caused complete hair loss over his whole body. As a teenager he struggled with depression, and turned to drama classes to conquer his shyness.

Between 1975 and 1978, he studied theatre at Quebec City's Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique. He subsequently participated in workshops at Alain Knapp's theatre school in Paris, France.

After coming back to Quebec City, he wrote, directed and played in a few independent productions and joined Théâtre Repère in 1982. With that company, he created Circulations (1984), which was presented across Canada and won an award as best Canadian production during La Quinzaine Internationale de Théâtre de Québec. The following year, he created The Dragons' Trilogy and immediately received international recognition. Vinci (1986), Polygraphe (1987-1990) and Tectonic Plates (1988-1990) followed and were also toured around the world.

He was the artistic director of the National Arts Centre's Théâtre français in Ottawa from 1989 to 1993, and continued to stage plays. His productions of Needles and Opium, Coriolanus, Macbeth, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream were all created in that period.

In 1993, Lepage founded Ex Machina, a multidisciplinary production company, for which he is artistic director. Lepage and Ex Machina have toured numerous productions internationally to critical and popular acclaim, most notably The Seven Streams of the River Ota (1994), Elsinore (1995), Geometry of Miracles (1998) and The Far Side of the Moon (2000), a solo show in which he compared the competition of the Americans and Soviets in the space race to two brothers' competitive relationship after their mother's death.[dubious — see talk page] It went to win numerous awards, including four trophies at le Gala des Masques, a Time Out Award and the prestigious Evening Standard Award. Far Side of the Moon was adapted by Lepage -- who plays both brothers -- into a critically acclaimed 2003 film of the same name. The Far Side of the Moon is inspired from the relationship between Robert and his brother David, a successful professor at Carleton University.

Lepage has also been involved in music productions, being the stage director for the critically acclaimed Secret World Tour by Peter Gabriel in 1993-1994, and the subsequent Growing Up tour in 2003-2004. He proved to be as gifted in opera as in theatre, staging Bluebeard's Castle and Erwartung at the Canadian Opera Company, The Damnation of Faust in Japan and Paris, and Lorin Maazel's Nineteen Eighty-four at Covent Garden's Royal Opera House in London in 2005. Finally, Cirque du Soleil asked him to create the permanent Las Vegas show named KA at the MGM Grand in 2005.

His latest work to date is Le Project Andersen (The Andersen Project), a one man show inspired by the life and works of Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen and his tale 'The Dryad'.

[edit] Plays

  • Le projet Andersen (The Andersen Project)
  • Busker's Opera
  • La face cachée de la lune (The Far Side of the Moon)
  • Zulu Time
  • La Tempête
  • La Géométrie des miracles (Geometry of Miracles)
  • Les Sept Branches de la Rivière Ota (The Seven Streams of the River Ota)
  • Elseneur (Elsinor)
  • Les Aiguilles et l'Opium (Needles and Opium)
  • Les Plaques tectoniques (Tectonic Plates)
  • La Trilogie des Dragons (The Dragon Trilogy)
  • Le Polygraphe (Polygraph)
  • Vinci
  • Circulations

[edit] Movies

[edit] Actor

[edit] Writer

[edit] Director

[edit] Honours

In 1994, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his particularly imaginative and innovative work". [1] In 1999, he was made an Officer of the National Order of Quebec. In 2001 he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.

[edit] Further reading

  • Dundjerovic, Aleksandar: The cinema of Robert Lepage. The poetics of memory, Walflower Press, 2003; ISBN 1-903364-33-7

[edit] External links


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See also: List of articles about Quebec City · History of Quebec City
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