Zugl.: Mainz, Univ., Magisterarbeit.

Avec l’avènement du numérique, nous étions à même de penser que ces avancées technologiques sans précédent assureraient la pérennité archivistique et concrétiseraient le triomphe de la connaissance. Or, force est de constater que rien n’a jamais été autant perdu, oublié. La migration des archives – d’un support vers un autre toujours plus performant – entraine leur effacement, leur perte. L’obsession pour la conservation à outrance fait partie de ces phénomènes d’hypermnésie amnésiante actuels qui conduisent inéluctablement les sociétés vers la disparition de leur historicité. Le spectacle solo 887 (créé à Québec, en 2015) de Robert Lepage repose sur les traces du passé – mémoire à la fois intime et collective ancrée dans les années 1960 et 1970. Le titre fait référence à l’adresse où l’artiste a vécu son enfance : au 887 de l’avenue Murray, dans le quartier Montcalm, à Québec. La pièce met en lumière un aspect paradoxal de l’oubli soit qu’on doit, par les différentes modalités mémorielles, faire l’effort de ne pas oublier et en même temps qu’on doit oublier pour se souvenir. En effet, de récentes études, au sein des neurosciences, démontrent que l’oubli est non seulement indissociable de la mémoire – étant son corollaire et non un adversaire – mais qu’il est vital. Le solo 887 lutte inlassablement contre les surgissements amnésiques et en ce sens, nous avançons qu’il est une œuvre de résistance contre l’oubli trouvant sa régulation en se remémorant autant qu’il oublie. C’est sur ce paradoxe que cette recherche portera. Elle interroge l’autobiographie lepagienne révélant que l’authenticité du discours mémoriel nécessite l’adhésion du public et exige sa coprésence pour reconstruire les fragments du passé. Les traces mnésiques jaillissent, dans 887, à travers l’architecture de la scène par les images, les écrans – des surfaces d’inscription s’il en est – les objets et les personnages. Les personnages façonnés par l’artiste s’imposent tels des lieux de mémoire et les interactions qui s’opèrent entre les différentes composantes du plateau scénique – incluant l’acteur – sont des médiations du passé. Ce mémoire s’appuie sur des considérations diamétralement opposées. D’une part, sur les travaux d’Henri Bergson et de Paul Ricœur pour qui l’oubli est l’anéantissement de toute vie et d’autre part, sur ceux de Friedrich Nietzsche qui le perçoit comme l’une des conditions essentielles de toute action. Au terme de cette étude, c’est une vision renouvelée de l’oubli que nous tentons d’apporter. / With the advent of digital technology, we were in a position to think that these unprecedented technological advances would ensure archival sustainability and make the triumph of knowledge a reality. However, it is clear that nothing has ever been so lost and forgotten. The migration of archives - from one medium to another ever more powerful - leads to their deletion, their loss. The obsession for excessive preservation is part of the current phenomena of “amnesing hypermagnesia,” which inexorably leads societies towards the disappearance of their historicity. Robert Lepage’s solo show 887 (premiered in Quebec City in 2015) is based on the traces of the past - a memory that is both intimate and collective, rooted in the 1960s and 1970s. The title refers to the address where the artist spent his childhood : 887 Murray Avenue, in the Montcalm district of Quebec City. The piece brings to light a paradoxical aspect of forgetting, namely that one must, through the various modalities of memory, make the effort not to forget and at the same time, one must forget in order to remember. Indeed, recent studies in neuroscience show that forgetting is not only inseparable from memory - being its corollary and not an adversary - but that it is vital. Solo 887 fights tirelessly against amnesic surges. In this sense we argue that it is a work of resistance against forgetting, finding its regulation by remembering as much as it forgets. It is on this paradox that this research will focus. It questions the Lepagian autobiography revealing that the authenticity of the memorial discourse requires the adhesion of the audience and demands its copresence to reconstruct the fragments of the past. In 887, the mnemonic traces spring up, through the architecture of the scene by the images, the screens - surfaces of inscription if any - the objects and the characters. The characters shaped by the artist stand as places of memory, and the interactions that take place between the different components of the stage - including the actor - are mediations of the past. This memory is based on opposed considerations. On the one hand, on Henri Bergson and Paul Ricœur’s, for whom forgetting is the destruction of all life, and on the other hand, on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, who sees it as one of the essential conditions of all action. At the end of this study, it is a renewed vision of oblivion that we are trying to bring about.

In this research I have explored the performance making process of world renowned director Robert Lepage. This exploration informed my own process, creating an original performance called GAIJIN, where my roles included producer / director / designer and co-writer. The practice-led research strategy employed in this research has allowed me to navigate the sometimes slippery slope of connecting various performance discourses with the pragmatics of the performance making process. The reason for this research is my strong interest in the director’s role and my affinity with the practice of Robert Lepage. My observation of the performance making process of Robert Lepage prompted the creation of a conceptual framework informed by Hans-Thies Lehmann’s work Postdramatic Theatre. These theoretical concerns were then further investigated in the creation of my own show. This research process has uncovered a performance making process that foregrounds the working principles of simultaneity and synaesthesia, which together offer a changed conception of the performance text in live performance. Simultaneity is a space of chaotic interaction where many resources are used to build a perpetually evolving performance text. Synaesthesia is the type of navigation required – an engagement consisting of interrelated sense-impressions that uniquely connect the performance makers with the abundance of content and stimulus; they search for poetic connections and harmonious movement between the resources. This engagement relies on intuitive playmaking where the artists must exhibit restraint and reserve to privilege the interaction of resources and observe the emerging performance. This process has the potential to create a performance that is built by referential layers of theatrical signifiers and impressions. This research offers an insight into the practices of Robert Lepage as well as a lens through which to view other unique devising processes. It also offers a performance making language that is worthy of consideration by all performance makers, from directors to performers. The significance of this process is its inherent qualities of innovation produced by all manner of art forms and resources interacting in a unique performance making space.

Robert Lepage’s play The Dragons’ Trilogy stretches across space and time, travelling through three generations and three major Canadian cities, each section named for a dragon in the Chinese game Mahjong. The Blue Dragon continues the story of Pierre Lamontagne twenty years later, and in doing so, rounds out and completes the cycle of the three Dragons of The Dragons’ Trilogy. This thesis studies the evolution of Lepage’s treatment of the Other and the Self in The Dragons’ Trilogy and The Blue Dragon. Grouping these two plays together should be a foregone conclusion, because of the titles of each section and the character of Pierre Lamontagne, who appears in both plays, but it has in fact been discussed very little. This thesis thus examines the transformation of characters such as Pierre, who, from one play to the other, and through language and space, find the Other in the Self. To address this issue, the second chapter explores the question of plurilingualism, in order to show how the plurality of languages in the plays and among the characters promotes the ideal of communication and communion with the Other. In the third chapter, the thesis examines the theatrical space of the two plays; from the closed-off city of Québec during the 1930s in The Green Dragon to Pierre Lamontagne’s intimate and modern loft in The Blue Dragon, the imagined worlds perfectly mirror the interior journeys of the characters. Finally, the last chapter, which studies the characters, focuses on the question of stereotypes, the quests for identity, and the role artistic creation plays within these quests. Ultimately, this thesis demonstrates that in The Dragons’ Trilogy and The Blue Dragon, although Otherness may at first appear to be the opposite of Self, it is in fact found within identity. / Thesis (Master, French) -- Queen's University, 2012-12-20 17:04:10.317

Il presente lavoro cerca di avvicinarsi alla complessità dell'attuale status quaestionis della performance teatrale, con uno sguardo e una prospettiva estetica, rivolto in particolare alla drammaturgia postdrammatica degli ultimi trent'anni; uno sguardo che trova nello studio analitico di tre re-enactements – This is theatre like it was to be expected and foreseen (1982; 2012) e The Power of Theatrical Madness (1984; 2012) di Jan Fabre, seguiti da Les Aiguilles et l'Opium (1991; 2013) di Robert Lepage – un luogo privilegiato di osservazione. / This research tries to approach the complexity of the current status quaestionis of theatrical performance, with an aesthetic perspective focused on the postdramatic theatre of the last thirty years; a look that finds in the analysis of three re-enactements - This is theater like it was to be expected and Foreseen (1982; 2012) and The Power of Theatrical Madness (1984; 2012) by Jan Fabre, followed by Needles and Opium (1991; 2013) by Robert Lepage - a privileged place of observation.