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" 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. "

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

Robert Lepage

Four

Finding

Air

" The thing that's interesting about Trump is that when you read 'Coriolanus,' you'd be tempted to draw parallels. But I don't do that. "

" When we work on a new theatre piece, we improvise a lot. But it's the opposite in opera, where everything is fixed. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" In Las Vegas, you confront yourself with your darkest desires, because they're all possible there. "

" I need to have many things cooking at the same time. "

" 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. "

" If you decide to work with the opera world, chances are there are going to be people who resist that. "

" 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. "

" The first time someone stood up in front of the fire and told the story while illustrating it with shadows on the walls of the quarry, that was the birth of theater. "

" 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. "

" Nothing is worse than having your dreams come true. "

" 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. "

" Everybody loves Vegas, and everybody puts it down, especially intellectuals and artists. We have to rub our feet on it, but we're all secretly thrilled to be there. "

" 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. "

" I haven't become a satanist, but I am fascinated by the character of the devil. "

" As a kid, my dad moved us to the upper town, which was in a higher class of people, and we would see the lower town below. Every day, we could see where we came from and where we were now. "

" I like doing very small, intimate things in the morning and then, in the afternoon, to be working on something in a big stadium. "

Robert Lepage

Doing

Small

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I'm not good at doing show business; I'm a theatre person. I don't reveal anything about my life. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" I had been warned by other directors that opera is hell. The singers don't want to do what you want. "

" My father had barely any education. He could hardly write or count. But his great pride was that he was perfectly bilingual. In the household, he entertained this idea that we had to speak both languages. "

" I will always demand the right for theatre to talk about anything and anyone. Without exception. None. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "