Robert Lepage

[on the forced cancellation at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2018 of his production featuring a largely white cast celebrating black history and music on a complaint of cultural appropriation] Theatre has been based on a very simple principle, that of playing someone else. Pretending to be someone else. Stepping into the shoes of another person to try to understand them and, in the process, perhaps understanding ourselves better. This ancient ritual requires that we borrow, for the duration of the performance, someone else's look, voice, accent and, at times, even gender. But when we are no longer allowed to step into someone else's shoes, when it is forbidden to identify with someone else, theatre is denied its very nature. It is prevented from performing its primary function and is thus rendered meaningless. Over the course of my career, I have devoted entire shows denouncing injustices done through history to specific cultural groups, without actors from said groups. These shows have been performed all over the world, in front of very diverse audiences, without anyone accusing me of cultural appropriation, let alone of racism. Show less «

I've chose to work in theatre more than any other artistic expression because it doesn't exist without a community. Even if you do a one-man show, even if you're alone on-stage, you're not really alone: there's a community of people that surrounds you to help you out. I'm interested in that paradox: you feel lonely, you want to express loneliness, but you're in a crowd actually. You have a whole crowd of people helping you out, doing it. Show less «

[on "The Blue Dragon" in 2012] 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. And then suddenly there was this thaw, this opening up on some levels. By trying to know what's happened to Pierre Lamontagne, now that he's 50 and in a midlife crisis, you realize that China is also going through the same process. That was the impression Marie [Michaud, the play's co-writer] and I had when we went to Shanghai in 2008. A lot of the artists there were expressing these questions: Where do we go now? And are we allowed to go there? China was just feeling its way. Show less «

Middle-class kids of my generation, our first contact [with Asia] - probably the first book we ever read - was "The Blue Lotus". Your parents would buy you Tintins because they knew you'd learn how to read that way. So the first impression we had of China was this 1930s comic - Japan invades Nanjing; the bad Communists; the bad Japanese! Show less «

[on Mars et Avril (2012)] Martin Villeneuve is an amazing young thinker. The thing that appealed to me the most is that it's the first time in Quebec that a work tries to project ourselves into the future. We have a tendency in Quebec - and I include myself in this - to describe ourselves using the past. We're always nostalgic. And this guy has the courage to say, "Yeah, but what happens 50 years from now?" He's made a very beautiful, poetic science-fiction film about Montreal and I find that very courageous and surprising. Show less «

Truth is bliss.

After completing a Ring cycle, you want to do something with just a chair and an acoustic guitar. [Laughs] And maybe a candle. Show less «

I've always had a passion for geography. Even at a very young age. 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. And the most foreign thing to our culture back then was China. That for me was the big mystery to try to pierce. Show less «