I don't disagree with the critics often, and I'm not destroyed by bad criticism anymore. There comes a point when you go beyond it.
— Robert Lepage
Why is it that I can remember so easily the lyrics to the opening theme song of 'Gilligan's Island?' Why do I remember these trivial things, and I can't remember the names of important collaborators?
Why do we remember stuff from when we were 5 years old but not important facts that are more recent?
Sylvie Guillem is the best dancer in the world.
We have a tendency in Quebec - and I include myself in this - to describe ourselves using the past. We're always nostalgic.
When we did 'The Dragons' Trilogy,' China was a big, mysterious piece of rock that we never thought would even move. It was impenetrable, impossible to deal with.
Cirque du Soleil distinguished itself by being a circus with no animals. Before then, circus was partly about showing how man can tame other species.
People talk about fantastic memories of childhood, but I remember children being cruel to me and wanting to come out of childhood as soon as possible because I knew adults were generally more contained in their cruelty.
A puppet, for example, is just a piece of wood, a couple of rivets, but put them together, and if you know how to do it, and the audience's imagination joins in with this, then a miracle will come out of that machine. That is what we and the audience do in the theatre - we create miracles in that space.
I admire people who can spend every aspect of their life in one discipline and really go all the way. I feel the only way I could achieve some type of excellence is if I connect to other people, other disciplines.
The real writing of a piece comes only when you are performing it. It is why I like theatre. In film and TV, the image is locked forever, but in theatre, there is constant change; each performance is part of the writing process.
Of course I had friends, but it was very limiting because there was always a chance that at every corner, someone would be laughing at me or waiting to beat me up. I had a very lonely childhood because of that.
I remember my first review in London said I was the next Peter Brook. I said: 'No way. I'm not Peter Brook. I don't have the maturity, the experience, the intelligence. Don't burden me.'
Theatre's still expensive compared to downloading on Netflix; that has to be addressed. It doesn't mean it has to be over-subsidised by the state, but it's something we're trying to figure out.
If you're going to do a show about somebody who dumped you, it's much richer if you have three characters dealing with different aspects of that theme. There is more space for people to identify with it.
Reading fairytales to children expands their imaginations.
People think that it is negative, but in fact, chaos can be very fertile.
Vegas is the city of temptation. I think, perhaps, it is an experiment by NASA. If we're going to send people to Mars, how will we create false economies and cultures to satisfy them? Vegas has the answer. People go there when they've nothing left to lose.
There's nothing sadder than when things happen the way you've planned them, because we don't have a lot of imagination, you know.
I was brought up by a father and mother who were radically different.
Theatre comes alive when someone cross-dresses onstage.
In Grade 2, when we had to do a presentation in front of the class, I'd always do things about Ireland or Italy. I could draw maps; I could name all the capitals: I was completely drawn to other lands. I discovered with time that it's a thirst for other people, for otherness, for something fascinating and mysterious.
Usually, on Broadway or in Hollywood, you come up with a project, and you have to convince the producers that it's safe.
Every time we make a new invention, we think we're going to save the world, but eventually, we understand that the real virtues of that new invention have mostly to do with commerce. Then we feel a huge emptiness, and we want to fill it with beauty.
I enjoy juggling four or five different projects in the air and finding connections and disconnections between them.
I was interested in theatre, and the only experience that I had in high school was as an actor. But when I got in Conservatoire, my teachers would give me a lot of flack because I wasn't rehearsing my lines; I'd be doing stage management. I was interested in sound. I was interested in architecture. I was interested in every aspect of theatre.
The great advantage of the circus, and the reason it is so popular, is really the ideal combination of art and sport. It's the ideal art form, in a certain way, if you want to be accessible.
Writing is very much perceived as something distinct from performance. I don't see it like that.
I don't think there is any kind of magic about what I do. All of the connections are there, somewhere in the subconscious or in the collective unconscious. If I let the elements speak to each other, then these coincidences will happen. And they do happen. They happen all the time.
I'm trying to tell history with a capital H through histories with a small h. It moves people, because you know in your own personal relationships, your own story, there's an echo to a much larger reality.
We should never overestimate an audience's culture, but we should never underestimate their intelligence.
Without meaning to sound crass, I've never had any psychological... help. It's because I feel my work is so revealing about who I am and what I am trying to understand about myself. It's a therapeutic process.
Making art in big cities is often frustrating and difficult. It's why artists are drawn to smaller places.
Chaos is a good thing.
I haven't become a satanist, but I am fascinated by the character of the devil.
I want to be surprised by life... I think that's more interesting.
We tend to forget that in those days before the Internet and HBO and Imax and 3-D cinema, opera was the thing. Opera and theatre. If you were a man of the world and you mingled among the happy few, you would be at the opera.
You're only as good as your last movie, period. It's a business.
I've always had a passion for geography. Even at a very young age.
If Darwin's theories are true, then we have within us the physical memory of when we were fish or apes.
The important thing is not to know where you are going, to be open to accidents. That's what keeps it fun.
In real life, I am not a lonely person; I have lots of good friends and am active socially. But there are certain aspects of my life when I have felt very alone, utterly alone, and one of them is when I am performing on my own.
I can't really define myself as a dramatist or as an actor or as someone who is interested in music.
I find it very strange when people say that they are trying to solve 'Uncle Vanya' or find a solution for 'Henry V.' Plays aren't puzzles. They are about playing. But so much theatre has become about performing and acting rather than playing, which is a great pity because audiences are captivated by watching people play.
I am interested in suffering and, in particular, the Buddhist idea that in pain, you can find beauty.
During the tour of 'Circulations,' we spent a lot of time in Canadian Chinatowns. I was fascinated by the idea that you can cross the road and enter this dream world, this vision of China.
Artists always try to make something that is going to be relevant and up-to-the-minute.
I think theatre must be an event, an experience, not compete with cinema. When people are able to download stories on Netflix, you need to give them a good reason to jump into the car and drive two hours. It has to be something you can only see in the theatre, and it has to be worth it.
I wouldn't be happy to be a specialist. There are some very interesting artists in history who refused to be nailed down into a category, like Da Vinci or Jean Cocteau. You could say Cocteau was a great poet but also a film-maker, interested in theatre, sculpture, and could never identify with any of these forms exclusively.
Often, particularly towards the end of the process, I think of myself less as a theatre director and more as someone who just directs the traffic. My job is to move the ideas and bits of the show into the places where they work best. Sometimes my job is also to say, 'No.'
