lame: ROBERT LEPAGE “ ‘ Age: 35 : Place or blrth: Quebec. ; nlstlnctlve characterlstlcs: Appears to lack eyebrows.
Career to date: An actor, writer, director, sometimes even composer, Lepage quickly achieved fame for his work with Theatre Repere, which he joined in 1982. The name ‘repere’ translates as ‘landmark’, but is actually derived from the company’s working method — ‘REsources, Partion, Evaluation, REpresentation’ — which is about developing a performance not from a theme but from an image or object. lntemational in vision and dealing in big theatrical metaphors. chage’s work is ever evolving and highly visual. Since 1989 he has been Artistic Director of the French Theatre division of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
Key productlons: The Dragon 's Trilogy (1985—9 1 ) evolved into a six-hour show performed in English, French and Chinese. Tectonic Plates (1988—91) started life in a Toronto ice-house, was revived in a former Quebec synagogue and reworked for Glasgow’s Tramway where much of it was performed knee-deep in water. He directed the French element of a bi-lingual Romeo ~ and Juliet (1990) in which the Francophone Capulets met the t ’ English-speaking Montagus driving pick-up trucks on the ~« Canadian plains. Polygraph and Needles and Opium have both ' been seen in Britain. and he directed a mud—splattered Midsummer Night's Dream for the Royal National Theatre. He accessible. It is, in short, truly theatrical.’ His
has recently directed three more Shakespeares which are heading weak point is the quality of verse-speaking in his
this way soon. Shakesperian productions.
Clalm to cult status: He appeared in the excellent contemporary Pollcy statement: ‘If you start with an . .
satire Jesus of Montreal and recently directed Peter Gabriel’s Us intellectual idea, you’ll get a lot of discussion, Dr Finsms Lights the ughts stage show. but we never do that. We start with a resource, (Fesuval) Hebbel Tm’ What Is he brlnglng to Edlnburgh? His operatic debut is a double- which is something you can only have an bill of Bartok‘s Bluebeard ’s Castle and Schoenberg’s Erwartung impression about.‘ 225 5756’ 2548 Aug' 730W" for the Canadian Opera Company, warmly received in Toronto Greatest Excess: His National Theatre £6‘£ls'
and New York earlier this year. Midsummer Night’s Dream was performed in — What do the crltlcs say about hlm? Richard Eyre has said: untold gallons of mud; front row spectators had ‘Robert’s work has wit and it has humanity. It’s elusive, but also to be provided with protective macs. Bluebeard's Castle and Emanung
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Company, Playhouse Theatre, 225
Roman LEPAGE
Schoenberg’s Emanung marks Lepago’s operatic debut
Berling, Royal Lyceum Theatre.
Name: PETER SELLARS fragmentation of King Lear. He has also
A993 36- appeared in Miami Vice and The Equalizer and 5756' 2849 Aug' 730mm Place Ol birth: USA. directed a rock video for Herbie Hancock. £8435
Dlstlnctlve characteristlcs: Spiky, quivering mOp- What Is he brlnglng to Edinburgh? The Persians, PETER STEIN
top, jazzy wardrobe. Aeschylus’s 4728C play and the oldest Western
Career to date: As a Harvard undergraduate in 1980 drama in eXistence, is directed by Sellars as a Julius Caesar (Festival) Salzberg Sellars was already directing for the American comment on the Gulf War: for the Greeks read Festival. Royal Highland
Repertory Theatre and by l983, after studying in the USA, for Xerxes and the Persians read Exhibition Hall. 225 5756. 1-2 Japan. China and India, he’d become Artistic Director Sadam Hussein and the Iraqis. Sellars sides Sept, 2.30pm. £15. of the Boston Shakespeare Company. At only 26 he against cold-hearted American imperialism, thus Falstaff (Festival) Welsh National moved on to head up the American National Theatre giving the tragedy a grim Wildcat relevancc- Opera. Playhouse Thea“, 225 Company at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC. Theatrical tricks include Sign language. 5756, 2—4 Sept. 7.30pm, £8—£35. In 1986 he took over the Los Angeles Festival, microphones and Javanese dance, but there’s no becoming Boston Opera Theatre’s Artistic Adviser in set and mimimal costume. $90. . ’ . . Pollcy statement: Opera 18 the artwork of the The persims (Festival) Salzberg 3y producuons, scnars s ambmous and often future. . . the gesamtkunstwerk in which,w1th all Festival/MC 93 93 Bobigny controversial productions have included Handel’s the new technology. there Will be radical R0 a1 L ccum "meat; 225.5756 Orlando(l982)setin outers ace,aGork -Gershwin chan eS.’ y y e, i . P .y . g 16—21 Aug 7.30pm £6—£15. melange called Hang Onto Me (1984), Sophocles’ Ajax featuring lile “99333 B)’ the 383 0f 27» 56113“ had i ’ i a Rambo-style Vietnam general who loses his marbles, the directed over 100 productions. ‘ premiere of John Adams’s and Alice Goodman’s Nixon in China ' ' (I988) and 3 Mozart trilogy (1989) comprising Don Giovanni set in a crime-ridden ghetto, Figaro in the Trump Tower and Cost fan tutte in a roadside Cape Cod Diner. More recently his six- hour Saint Francois d 'Assise, which used 40 television monitors, set the 1992 Salzberg Festival alight, and he has completed his first film. a silent feature called The Cabinet of Dr Ramirez. What do the crltlcs say about him? It’s not hard to upset the opera world but Sellars has managed to do so with more vigour than most. His use of 20th century settings to make political statements is an obvious point of contention and his tendency to follow a brilliant idea to its logical conclusion can lead to self- indulgence. At his best, though, he produces work of magnificent beauty and profundity. Last year’s Saint Francois d’Assise was greeted by boos, but by the end of the show the cheers had won out. Clalm to cult status: Sellars appeared alongside Woody Allen and Norman Mailer in Jean-Luc Goddard’s 1987 movie
PETER SELLARS
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