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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the collaborative power of imagination in creating art and experiences.
Robert Lepage highlights how raw materials alone are insufficient to create magic; it is the combination of skillful craftsmanship and the audience's imagination that brings art to life. In theatre, this collaboration transforms simple elements into extraordinary experiences, illustrating the profound impact of creativity and shared imagination.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech at a theatre opening to emphasize the power of collaboration in art.
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 will always demand the right for theatre to talk about anything and anyone. Without exception. None.
I'm tempted to say, 'Writing treatments is like designing a film by hiring six million monkeys to tear out pages of an encyclopedia, then you put the pages through a paper-shredder, randomly grab whatever intact lines are left, sing them in Italian to a Spanish deaf-mute, and then make story decisions with the guy via conference call.' But no... compared to writing treatments, that makes sense, too.
This is the theory… that anything that is art… is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it’s irritating.
Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you're making art.
I see things with my own eyes, just as if they were the first eyes that ever saw, and then I set about to tell, as best I can, just what I've seen.
I think that when we look at something that's well acted and a story that's well told, it allows us to be a mirror of who we are as human beings and as a culture, and offers a glimpse of where we're headed.
When something's made in the smallest volume - as a one-off couture piece - or in large quantities, deep care is critical to determine authentic, successful design and, ultimately, manufacture.
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