Read more
This book theorizes auteur Robert Lepage's scenography-based approach to adapting canonical texts. Lepage's technique is defined here as 'scenographic dramaturgy', a process and product that de-privileges dramatic text and relies instead on evocative, visual performance and intercultural collaboration to re-envision extant plays and operas. Following a detailed analysis of Lepage's adaptive process and its place in the continuum of scenic writing and auteur theatre, this book features four case studies charting the role of Lepage's scenographic dramaturgy in re-'writing' extant texts, including Shakespeare's Tempest on Huron-Wendat territory, Stravinsky's Nightingale in a twenty-seven ton pool, and Wagner's Ring cycle via the infamous, sixteen-million-dollar Metropolitan Opera production. The final case study offers the first interrogation of Lepage's twenty-first century 'auto-adaptations' of his own seminal texts, The Dragons' Trilogy and Needles & Opium. Though aimed at academic readers, this book will also appeal to practitioners given its focus on performance-making, adaptation and intercultural collaboration.
List of contents
1. Introduction.- 2. Scenographic Dramaturgy & Auteuring Adaptations.- 3. The Nightingale and Other Short Fables: Re-Authoring Atypical Opera.- 4. Making Music Visible: Robert Lepage Adapts Aspects of Siegfried Without Shifting a Word.- 5. Adapting 'Le Grand Will' in Wendake: Ex Machina and the Huron-Wendat Nation's La Tempête.- 6. Re-'Writing' The Dragons' Trilogy and Needles & Opium for the Twenty-First Century: Robert Lepage's Auto-Adaptations.- 7 Conclusion.
About the author
Melissa Poll is SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University, Canada. Her research on Robert Lepage, performance-making, interculturalism and contemporary theatre criticism has been published in
Body, Space & Technology Journal,
Interventions/Contemporary Theatre Review,
Canadian Theatre Review and
Theatre Research in Canada.
Summary
This book theorizes auteur Robert Lepage’s scenography-based approach to adapting canonical texts. Lepage’s technique is defined here as ‘scenographic dramaturgy’, a process and product that de-privileges dramatic text and relies instead on evocative, visual performance and intercultural collaboration to re-envision extant plays and operas. Following a detailed analysis of Lepage’s adaptive process and its place in the continuum of scenic writing and auteur theatre, this book features four case studies charting the role of Lepage’s scenographic dramaturgy in re-‘writing’ extant texts, including Shakespeare’s Tempest on Huron-Wendat territory, Stravinsky’s Nightingale in a twenty-seven ton pool, and Wagner’s Ring cycle via the infamous, sixteen-million-dollar Metropolitan Opera production. The final case study offers the first interrogation of Lepage’s twenty-first century ‘auto-adaptations’ of his own seminal texts, The Dragons’ Trilogy and Needles & Opium. Though aimed at academic readers, this book will also appeal to practitioners given its focus on performance-making, adaptation and intercultural collaboration.
Additional text
“The strengths of this book can get hidden beneath overly technical academic language but overall, it makes a series of points very strongly and should be of value to readers who care about the inimitable work of Robert Lepage.” (Philip Fisher, British Theatre Guide, britishtheatreguide.info, July 10, 2018)
Report
"The strengths of this book can get hidden beneath overly technical academic language but overall, it makes a series of points very strongly and should be of value to readers who care about the inimitable work of Robert Lepage." (Philip Fisher, British Theatre Guide, britishtheatreguide.info, July 10, 2018)
