Robert Lepage / Ex Machina: Revolutions in Theatrical Space by James Reynolds

Reviewed by: Robert Lepage / Ex Machina: Revolutions in Theatrical Space by James Reynolds Alan Filewod ROBERT LEPAGE / EX MACHINA: REVOLUTIONS IN THEATRICAL SPACE. By James Reynolds. Engage series. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. 256. The “revolutions” in the title of this exhaustively researched study refer at first glance to the immense impact Robert Lepage has had on international theatre culture through the works he has produced with the team of designers, scenographers, architects, project managers, dramaturgs, performers, and technicians he has assembled in his Quebec City–based company, Ex Machina. Their numerous international [End Page 396] collaborations (famously with New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, and also with Cirque du Soleil in shows like KĀ and Totem) reveal both the strengths and weaknesses of Ex Machina’s business model of what we might call “venture creativity.” As James Reynolds demonstrates, that model is capable of breathtaking innovations in performance technology because it is financed by high-end partnerships capable of investing millions of dollars in product development—the product in this case being transferable mise en scène. The “revolutions” of the title refer as well to Lepage and Ex Machina’s dynamic formalist experiments in what Reynolds calls the “architecting” of performance, conceiving shows in terms of the spatial and textual relations of bodies and objects. His historical analysis traces Lepage’s exploration of architectural principles in scenographic space through a dazzling body of work over four decades that is at once more varied and more consistent than many readers might know. Following an introduction that introduces key terms and considers the foundation of Lepage’s career in his first major works with Théâtre Repère (notably The Dragon’s Trilogy and Vinci), Reynolds moves through the Lepage / Ex Machina collaborations in historical order, using each chronological segment to explore a particular thematic principle. Drawing on archives, criticism, interviews, and personal observation, Reynolds organizes his narrative in a structure he describes as “cinematic,” using the dramaturgy of a three-act screenplay as outlined in Robert McKee’s Story. He describes this decision to foreground cinema as a direct correlate to Ex Machina’s ongoing exploration of cinematic montage in performance. Reynolds’s first “act” uses Lepage’s work from 1995 to 1999 to establish the foundational principles of his aesthetic: “geo-poetry” (the embodied experience of place by which ideas germinate), “sceno-graphic acting” (performance that can “coherently blend hyperrealism, gestic acting and physical theatre”), and “concrete narrative” (stories told by bodies and space) from 1995 to the turn of the century (39). The second describes Ex Machina’s development cycles, in which various projects move simultaneously along the steps of the creative process, from conception and storyboarding to prototypes with stand-in performers to construction and rehearsal, between 2000 and 2008. It was during this time that Lepage cemented his relationships with Cirque du Soleil and the Metropolitan Opera, secured his footing in Quebec (having moved in 1997 into Caserne, Ex Machina’s production/rehearsal facility in 1997), and at the same time solidified his reputation as a leading global theatre-maker. In part 3, Reynolds focuses on Lepage’s major accomplishments from 2008 to 2018, especially the Ring cycle at the Met, with its $10 million set, and the development of new work, some as yet unfinished. Reynolds’s personal observations of Lepage in rehearsal are detailed and revelatory. He interweaves personal narrative and reflection with more distanced discourse that, like Lepage’s scenographic actor, moves like a camera, zooming in on the shows and rehearsals that Reynolds observed in person, and using a wider frame when discussing events he did not actually personally see. Reynolds’s discussions of the shows and the complex institutional arrangements that made them possible are erudite and perceptive. If there is one disappointment, it is that in a study that examines scenography in such finely gained detail, there are no illustrations. I found myself turning to Google Images frequently to understand what I was reading. That may say more about the precarious state of academic publishing than editorial decisions, but this is one book where links to a supporting website would have been helpful. Two key terms recur as...

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