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.'
Interpretation
A theatre director's role is about guiding creative ideas to their best expression.
In this quote, Robert Lepage emphasizes the importance of a director's role in the creative process as one that involves not only organization and management but also discerning judgment. By likening his work to directing traffic, he highlights the necessity of moving creative elements to their optimal positions and sometimes making difficult decisions to omit certain ideas that do not serve the overall vision, underscoring the collaborative yet hierarchical nature of theatrical production.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about the responsibilities of a theatre director during a drama class.
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.
I will always demand the right for theatre to talk about anything and anyone. Without exception. None.
The purpose of writing is both to keep up with life and to run ahead of it. I am little comfort to myself, although I am the only comfort I have, excepting perhaps streets, clouds, the sun, the faces and voices of kids and the aged, and similar accidents of beauty, innocence, truth and loneliness.
I try to bring the audience's own drama - tears and laughter they know about - to them.
Bikes and planes aren’t about going fast or having fun; they’re toys, but serious ones.
I do a lot of curiosity buying; I buy it if I like the album cover, I buy it if I like the name of the band, anything that sparks my imagination.
I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop. At the time that I am bored or understand - I use those words interchangeably - another appetite has formed. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I'm not one. I'd rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can't ignore.
To sing opera, one needs two things: the voice and the passion - and above all, the passion.
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