Collaboration, Translation, Interpretation

Abstract

Robert Lepage, the innovative French-Canadian director whose production of A Midsummer Night's Dream last year joined the repertoire of the National Theatre, developed his working methods out of the resource-based technique of improvisation and creation devised by Anna and Lawrence Halprin at the San Francisco Dance Workshop. His devised shows, widely acclaimed for their arresting visual imagery, include The Dragons' Trilogy, Vinci, Tectonic Plates, and Opium and Needles. Here he discusses in interview his ideas on interculturalism and how these influence his approach to Shakespeare. He was interviewed at the National Theatre in London by Christie Carson, a doctoral student at the University of Glasgow, who is working on a dissertation which compares the approach taken to intercultural projects by the theatre communities of Scotland and Canada. A graduate of Queen's University, Kingston, and the University of Toronto, Christie Carson has also recently been a contributor to a commemorative publication analyzing the work performed as part of the C. P. Taylor retrospective at the 1992 Edinburgh Festival.