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" 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. "

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" 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.' "

Robert Lepage

Best

Theatre

Work

" 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. "

" 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 never questioned if I was effeminate or not. That didn't matter in the theatre. "

" My naivety is to assume people will think there's compassion and solidarity in wanting to play someone even though we are not them. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Robert Lepage

School

Architecture

" I am interested in suffering and, in particular, the Buddhist idea that in pain, you can find beauty. "

" 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. "

" You're only as good as your last movie, period. It's a business. "

" I never thought of my father when I was growing up. Truly. He was a strong, silent man who worked hard to support his family. "

" I studied as an actor at the theatre conservatoire in Quebec, but by the time I got to my third year, I was more interested in directing. There's more to it than helping actors get round a stage: it's a wonderful way of telling stories. "

" I was brought up by a father and mother who were radically different. "

" I'm a follower of people not necessarily connected with the theater. "

" We should never overestimate an audience's culture, but we should never underestimate their intelligence. "

" With the social media phenomenon, where people's opinions inform so much of what we do with our lives, where the number of 'likes' decides what we should program, I cringe. "

" My taste comes from when I was 12 years old and saw Genesis or Laurie Anderson or some performance artist who had put paint on himself. I've seen a lot of theater, but that's not what woke up my taste to become a director; nontheatrical things were much more theatrical than the theater I was seeing. "

" For me, theater will always be very, very much alive, but not necessarily in the theatrical tradition. "

" Making art in big cities is often frustrating and difficult. It's why artists are drawn to smaller places. "

" Theatre is different. We can spend two weeks around a table talking about subtext. In opera, there is a score, and people already know their parts. And they move differently. I find all this liberating. "

" I enjoy juggling four or five different projects in the air and finding connections and disconnections between them. "

" I was a privileged observer to be there when Celine Dion opened at Caesars Palace and then the second Gulf War started. It was an odd thing to see the impact both events had on Vegas. The place was riding high after Celine, but overnight, once war was declared, it was deserted. "

" Opera should be a place for art forms to meet. I've worked a lot with Peter Gabriel; his music isn't operatic, but he creates big, popular gatherings to which architecture, dance, and music are all invited. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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? "

" A lot of people hated every moment of my 'Ring.' And a lot of people who had never been to an opera bought subscriptions to the next season. "

" Of course theater will always be associated intimately to literature, but the themes or whatever have to penetrate you by the senses. Theater is a sensuous experience, and that's its main difference from film or any other dramatic art. "

" The safety prospects in 'Ka' are the highest in the world. "