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The Dramatic Art of Robert Lepage: Fragments ofIdentityJosette Féral (translated by Leslie Wickes and Roland Perron)Published online: 08 Jan 2010.

To cite this article: Josette Fral (translated by Leslie Wickes and Roland Perron) (2009) The Dramatic Art of RobertLepage: Fragments of Identity , Contemporary Theatre Review, 19:2, 143-154, DOI: 10.1080/10486800902770804

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The Dramatic Art of Robert Lepage:Fragments of Identity1

Josette Feral (translated by Leslie Wickes andRoland Perron)

It’s difficult to find an approach to the work of Robert Lepage that has notalready been examined. Nevertheless, I will seize this opportunity to reflectupon a question that has been close to my heart for quite a while – one thatponders the reasons for the success of Lepage’s work by focusing onpossible factors that differ from those usually advanced, such as theaesthetic of his works and the incontestable talent that suffuses them. Iwould like to suggest that one of the reasons for Lepage’s phenomenalsuccess – success among such widely differing cultures as those of NorthAmerica, Europe and Asia – springs from the fact that his audiences, nomatter what their cultural origins, unconsciously find in his work themodel of today’s constructions of identity, and the values linked to them.

This question might lead one to believe that Lepage’s work mainlyaddresses intercultural issues. There’s no doubt that this aspect is at thecentre of Lepage’s oeuvre, but it is not the object of my inquiry. Rather,my concern is to show how Lepage’s work reflects the fabrication of ouridentities as ‘subjects’ in a society where the sense of the collective and ofthe ethical gradually begin to reassert themselves. Thus, it is a question oftaking the discussion to an existential level, almost an ontological one,which touches upon the stages of the constitution of the individuals weare, as subjects. The work of the influential contemporary philosopherCharles Taylor2 will be important here. Taylor’s thought seems to gofurther than that of several others – Christopher Lasch, Gilles Lipovetsky,Daniel Bell – whose earlier works bring to light the ills of contemporaryindividualism, but do not always offer ethical solutions to the problem, in

Josette Feral, Department de theatre, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Case postale8888, succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal (Quebec), Canada, H3C 3P8.E-mail: feral.josette@uqam.ca

1. This article is a revisedversion of a talk givenin London in spring2006 at the RobertLepage Colloquiumorganized by leGroupe de rechercheset d’etudes sur leCanada francophoneau Royaume-Uni. Thiscolloquium took placeat Canada House, aswell as at BirkbeckCollege, University ofLondon. A French-language version waspublished in themagazine Theatre/public, 188 (March2008), 23–9. Mythanks to EmilieOlivier and EdwigePerrot for preliminaryresearch anddiscussions that led tothe revision of thisarticle.

2. Charles Taylor, Sourcesof the Self: The Makingof the Modern Identity(Cambridge, MA:Harvard UniversityPress, 1996), and TheMalaise of Modernity(Concord: AnansiPress, 1995).

Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 19(2), 2009, 143–154

Contemporary Theatre Review ISSN 1048-6801 print/ISSN 1477-2264 online� 2009 Taylor & Francis http://www.informaworld.com

DOI: 10.1080/10486800902770804

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that Taylor proposes to show how this individualism can nevertheless beinscribed in a moral perspective. He does this especially inThe Malaise ofModernity, a book that reprises his cycle of lectures broadcast by Radio-Canada in 1991. Taylor presents here the assessment of modernity’s driftand the ‘ideal of authenticity’ previously formulated by other thinkerssuch as Lasch, Bell, Lipovetsky, or Allan Bloom. But Taylor goes further,in attempting to evaluate rationally the qualities and faults of this ideal,its values and its deviant paths, as he attempts to establish an ‘ethic ofauthenticity’ upon which one can build ‘positive’ modes of life. Laschhad aimed at explaining narcissism as the fundamental trait ofcontemporary culture, via the history and evolution of social structuresand the organization of work. His analysis was part of a socio-historicaleffort. Taylor, on the other hand, identifies the positive and negativetendencies in our society, but he places himself in a constructivist veinthat attempts to make functional the culture in which we find ourselves,whatever it may be. Where Lasch mistrusts the objective of self-realization as being tainted with egotism, Taylor proposes that one mightrationally evaluate its qualities and faults in order to bring out thepositive modes of life that tend towards this ideal. Taylor’s objective is topersuade people that full self-realization does not exclude moral demandsthat transcend self. For this, he is one of the principal spokespersons,along with Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Walzer and Michael Sandel.Thus Taylor argues for the ideal of authenticity and affirmation of selfonly if it is accompanied by a quest for ethical and moral values.

These reflections find fertile ground for actualization in the way thatLepage conceives his characters, and makes them evolve. This is what myanalysis will attempt to show, by considering the three principles thatdefine identity according to Taylor: identity seen as a quest forauthenticity, the necessity of a ‘common horizon of meanings’, andthe artistic creation as paradigm of the quest for authenticity.

The Ideal of Authenticity, or the Birth of the ModernNotion of Identity

Taylor reminds us that the notion of identity as it is understood today –as a creation, a search, and an understanding of the self as a uniquebeing – coalesced during the Enlightenment. Before the eighteenthcentury, individuals were generally defined by their social status, theirplace within the hierarchy, and their role in social and familial structures.Their position within society, handed down from generation togeneration and often considered immutable, was attended with moralvalues and coded behaviours that structured the social and were passedon through the generations within each social stratum. Individuals knewtheir place in the grand organization of the world and traditionsmaintained an order that would require several centuries to dislodge.

During the eighteenth century the concept of belonging to a universeregulated by externally imposed laws and moral values (decreed byreligion, the king, or society) was called into question, notably under theimpetus of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This concept gave way to the idea

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that human beings were endowed with an internal moral compass, a‘quasi-natural’ intuition of what was good and what was evil. Rousseauaffirms that the morality and the behaviours that follow from this proceedfrom the individual’s ‘internal voice’ and his appropriation of his ownfreedom of thought, choice, and action. As Taylor reminds us, ‘Beforethe late eighteenth century no one thought that the differences betweenhuman beings had this kind of moral significance.’3

Taylor also reminds us that after Rousseau effected this profoundchange of paradigm in the period’s thought, it was the Romanticphilosophers – and Johann Gottfried Herder in particular – who furtherdeveloped the idea of identity as a principle of the uniqueness, thesincerity, and the originality of the individual, and, by extension, the ideathat identity is a creation, a construction, and a process. For Herder, eachperson possesses within himself his own measure of things and ownmethod of assuming his place as a human being in the world. In this view,where individuals are considered unique and as having something toimpart, a person can be considered uniquely distinctive, providing, ofcourse, that they are true to themselves and discover for themselves themanifestations and principles of self-knowledge. The notion of identitythus appears to be a quest for authenticity. Consequently, according toTaylor, beginning with Herder, authenticity, defined as a perfect accordwith oneself and one’s intrinsic moral values, is established as the new ideal.

Being true to myself means being true to my own originality, and this is

something only I can articulate and discover. In articulating it, I am also

defining myself. I am realizing a potential that is properly my own. This is

the background understanding to the modern ideal of authenticity, and to

the goals of self-fulfilment or self-realization in which it is usually couched.4

This modern conception of a moral ideal founded on the discovery andthe construction of the authentic self is presented throughout Lepage’swork. It directs it, serves as its philosophical anchor, and may explain itsimpact on the public. Lepage’s characters unconsciously re-enact the verymodel of our functioning as moral and social subjects today and allow thespectators to recognize themselves in each and every character. Indeed,throughout most of Lepage’s work – whether his sagas or his soloperformances – asserting one’s own identity implies asserting one’s ownoriginality. It is this quest for identity and authenticity that serves as thedirecting thread of the action of most, if not all, of the works (see, forexample, The Far Side of the Moon and The Andersen Project).

Authenticity as a moral ideal is clearly evident in Lepage’s work asearly as The Dragon Trilogy, and was not lost on Lorraine Camerlain,who remarked in 1987: ‘This is a spectacular [. . .] text that proposes acertain philosophy. Without didacticism or provocation, the workproposes a quest for an ideal whose roots are in the self’.5 Thetwo incarnations of this quest for authenticity are the charactersPierre and Yukali, who only realize their true selves in the third act, atthe end of a narrative that affects all the characters. Society is nolonger responsible for events or the characters’ destinies. Individualsare entirely responsible for their composition as subjects. In Vinci,

3. Taylor, The Malaise ofModernity, p. 28.

4. Ibid., p. 29.

5. Lorraine Camerlain,‘OK on Change:Le Langage Createur’,Jeu, Quebec, 45.4(1987), 83–97 (p. 96).

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it is Philippe who seeks his own integrity and ‘at the end ofhis voyage, [. . .] contemplates the humility of the little villageof Vinci: he has made this simplicity, this generous accessibilityhis, over the course of his voyage’.6 In The Andersen Project, itis Frederic Lapointe who searches for himself and travels toFrance to seek legitimacy. Frederic discovers, however, that thislegitimacy is to be found within himself and that anyone whostraddles a border has a dark side that they must recognize – andaccept – to find their ‘true’ self. In fact, these characters, who are allartists, make sincerity and self-creation the ultimate goals of theirexistence.

The Identity Process as Moral Anchor

This quest for authenticity and identity has been interrogated bymany scholars before Taylor, and is not new as such. What makesTaylor interesting in reference to Lepage is that he goes one stepfurther: he offers the necessity of a moral anchor as the initialfoundation for a reflection on identity. He notes: ‘Since we cannot dowithout an orientation to the good, and since we cannot beindifferent to our place relative to the good, and since this place issomething that must always change and become, [the issue of thedirection of our lives must arise for us]’.7 For Taylor, it is a questionhere of an internal morality, quasi-innate, not imposed fromoutside, and present in each of us, sometimes intersecting universalintuitions of good. Thus, in Taylor’s perspective, identity is first ofall a moral orientation. From this affirmation stem several con-sequences or principles, each essential to the definition of identity andits nature and workings, which will allow us to shed light on Lepage’swork.

When identity is viewed as a paradigm of the moral ideal ofauthenticity, a significant implication is that ‘each of us has to discoverwhat it is to be ourselves [. . .]’. But the discovery of the self can’t bemade by consulting pre-existing models of identity, or throughhypothesis. It can be made only by articulating the self afresh. ‘Wediscover our potential by giving expression in our speech and action towhat is original in us’. Taylor adds: ‘The notion that revelation comesthrough expression is what I want to capture in speaking of the‘‘expressivism’’ of the modern notion of the individual’.8 Thus identity isnever given at the outset; it is a process, a path, a quest and aconstruction. It is fashioned over time. It is moving, ever-changing andbecoming.

We are very close to Judith Butler’s definition of the subject and thegender, which constitutes it. Indeed, she defines gender as ‘performa-tive’ and therefore as the result of actions arising from individuals whoare constantly replaying their identities and their gender categoriza-tion. Identity emerges as a fluid component that is put into play andredefined on a daily basis by the subject him/herself in each of theiractions. It is therefore not a value that, once defined, is fixed; it is

6. Diane Pavlovic, ‘DuDecollage a l’Envol’,Jeu, Quebec, 42.1(1987), 86–99 (p. 88).

7. Taylor, Sources of theSelf, p. 47.

8. Taylor, The Malaise ofModernity, p. 61.

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a process, an evolution, a creation. It is redefined with each action of theindividual.9

The Lepagian characters seem to do precisely this both in the soloperformances (Vinci, The Far Side of the Moon, The Andersen Project) andin the sagas. They become by doing. ‘We discover what we have it in usto be by becoming that mode of life’,10 in the words of Taylor. In Vinci,Philippe is the very archetype of the individual questing for his own trueidentity. The same is true of Philippe and Andre in The Far Side of theMoon. Like Frederic in The Andersen Project, Philippe seeks legitimiza-tion and is searching for himself in his voyage through France. Philippeand Andre discover themselves by becoming themselves and althoughthis discovery does not lead them to happiness, it carries within itself asense of accomplishment of self that reaches out and touches theaudience. They in turn are able to recognize their own story behind thatof the characters – who are neither heroes nor anti-heroes. The path thecharacters follow is often quasi-initiatory (without being foregrounded assuch) and involves a process of metamorphosis and self-transformation.In The Andersen Project, the play ends with this self-acceptance (anundramatic acceptance: ‘well, if that’s what it takes . . .’) mediated by adog – Fanny – who will accomplish what Frederic refuses to do, on hisbehalf (by having a litter of offspring). Frederic Lapointe in The AndersenProject is a librettist hired at the Palais Garnier for a prestigious operaproduction but who stands as a cogwheel in a huge co-production andcultural machine in which his talent is not really involved. Unrecognized,Frederic becomes aware of the failure of this professional experience justas he is confirmed as a failure in his love life. This is also the meaning thatcan be ascribed to the travels of characters who criss-cross the world,both literally and figuratively, in order to travel better within themselvesand to (re-)find themselves, to discover their identity rather than simplyaffirming it.

Hence the importance of time in the construction of identity. If theself is necessarily a process of becoming, then one can only (re)cognize orrediscover the stable elements within the self at the end of one’sadventures. As we find in Sources of the Self:

It is also that as a being who grows and becomes I can only know myself

through the history of my maturations and regressions, overcomings and

defeats. My self-understanding necessarily has temporal depth and

incorporates narrative.11

Thus the individual life develops in time, like a story, a story which ismade of the moment, immediate and present, and of events, eitherimportant or trivial, interwoven with one another to make up theframework of identity. Thus ‘making sense of my present action [. . .]requires a narrative understanding of my life, a sense of what I havebecome which can only be given in a story [. . .] And as I project my lifeforward and endorse the existing direction or give it in a new one, Iproject a future story, not just a state of the momentary future but a bentfor my whole life to come.’12 This is what Frederic Lapointe comes tounderstand at the end of The Andersen Project when he finally decides

9. Contrary to Simone deBeauvoir, who affirmsthat one is not born awoman, one becomes awoman, Judith Butleraffirms that identity isnot a destiny, but ratherthe result ofperformative actionsposed by the subject(and by society). Byreturning theresponsibility ofbecoming to society aswell as to the individual,and making use of thedistinction, unique tothe English language,between sex and gender,Butler shifts the controlof one’s destiny to thesubject. If the sex of theindividual is truly abiological given,gender, in contrast, isthe result of a symbolicconstruction; itbelongsto the ‘performative’. Ifgender is performative,identity is equally so.Identity is not simplygender; gender is only apart of the constructionof identity, which takesmany other factors intoaccount (culture,generation, dominantsocial or economicmodel, religion . . .).Butler sums this up asfollows: ‘In this sense,gender is in no way astable identity or a locusagency from whichvarious acts proceed;rather, it is an identitytenuously constitutedin time – an identityinstituted through astylized repetition ofacts. [. . .] Thisformulation moves theconception of genderoff the ground of asubstantial model ofidentity to one thatrequires a conceptionof a constituted socialtemporality’ (JudithButler, ‘PerformativeActs and GenderConstitution: An Essayin Phenomenology andFeminist Theory’, inPerforming Feminisms,Feminist CriticalTheory and Theatre, ed.by Sue-Ellen Case[Baltimore andLondon: Johns

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that his relationship with Marie is more important to him than his refusalto have a child.

This story at the heart of Lepage’s work is always double: it is the storyof the author, but also the story of the characters who narrate themselves.Thus Needles and Opium frames several stories, one within the other –including the story of Lepage himself, as well as those of the characters.This method of fictionalizing is a recurrent aesthetic process character-istic of Lepage’s work.

For the characters (and for the subject Lepage), the story takes theform of a trip through time – the time of History (Cocteau, Andersen, avoyage to the moon, travels through other cultures), but also the time ofan individual’s personal universe (passage through childhood, travelthrough the unconscious, voyages through memory). This trip isessential to the comprehension and construction of self.

The importance of the story/stories in Lepage’s work merits somedevelopment. These stories structure the different threads of thenarration in concentric series of frames where everything we see is partof a bigger story that is being told to the spectator. For example, TheAndersen Project is primarily the story of Frederic recounting hisexperience during his residence at the Palais Garnier. At the core ofthis macro-story, the secondary tales are framed, one within the other:the story of the mermaid – the young dryad who dreamed ofdiscovering Paris – and the story of Hans Christian Andersen. A thirdlevel of narrative frames this tale: it is the story of the presentcharacters – the story of the young dog Fanny, that of thepsychologist, that of Didier and his dealers, that of Marie, that ofArnaud, director of the Opera, that of Rachid, cleaner at the peepshow, that of the director’s daughter who reclaims the story from theshadows.13

All these stories demonstrate how Lepage not only creates hischaracters but helps the spectator to recognize how an individual’sidentity is formed. Within these micro-stories we detect a larger story –that of the quest for identity by each of these characters via theirconsciousness of the past, of the trivial events that structure their present.As Lepage observes, ‘He [the actor] composes with this double that islarger than himself, more dramatic, reflecting as much shadow as hehimself sometimes contemplates.’14

Lepage’s vision of identity is obviously completely inseparable from anexamination of memory, as Taylor argues: ‘to the extent that we moveback, we determine what we are by what we have become, by the story ofhow we got there’.15 This is not accomplished on the model of a clearprogression necessarily leading to a particular goal, or even a destiny thatwill ultimately be revealed, as in Greek tragedy or Romantic drama. Theaffirmation of identity is made up of progressions and regressions, ofsuccesses as well as failures. In this, Lepage’s stories are determinedlypost-modern.

We come to understand in part what really characterizes the moral states

we seek through the very effort of trying, and at first failing, to achieve

them.16

Hopkins UniversityPress, 1990], 270–83[pp. 270–1]).

This is a profoundmodification of thevision of the feminine.See my furtherdevelopment of thissubject in theconclusion (‘Entrenostalgie et mutation’)to Josette Feral, ‘Miseen Scene et Jeu del’Acteur’,vol. 3: Voix desFemmes, ed. by JosetteFeral (Montreal:Quebec-Amerique,2007), 541–61(pp. 556–7). Theparallel with Taylor’sthought is quiteinteresting. If Butlerstresses the fact thatgender and identity areconstructed incorrelation, in anextremely complexrelationship betweenthe collective and thesubjective, the intimateand the social, theconscious and theunconscious, and thebiological and thecultural, Taylor, for hispart, only treatsidentity, with littlereference to questionsof gender, but one caneasily suppose that hisvision and Butler’scontain fundamentalsthat draw themtogether. In both cases,their vision makes thesubject responsible forhis or her own destiny.

10. Taylor, The Malaise ofModernity, p. 61. Notethat in Lepage’sproductions, thequestion of gender isnot truly addressed inrelation to thecharacters’ affirmationof identity. This onlyintervenes via thegroup, to the extentthat Lepage himself,comfortably playingboth masculine andfeminine characters,seems to transgress theborder betweengenres, which is notdone by any of hischaracters.

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The emphasis Taylor places on failures seems especially important here.In fact, the trajectories are not created either through a mode ofintrospection or through a detached or critical analysis. They are, aboveall, created through action. This voyage through the (re)cognizing of theself is lived on a daily basis without drama or great emotion, and dependson the geographic position of the subject, those they associate with, andthe events they experience. In the words of Taylor:

I define who I am by defining where I speak from, in the family tree, in

social space, in the geography of social statuses and functions, in my

intimate relations to the ones I love, and also crucially in the space of moral

and spiritual orientation within which my most important defining

relations are lived out.17

What, then, is identity? For the subject, identity requires a lookbackward, a doubling of perspective in order to observe oneself, toappropriate the codes, to transform and repeat them, to play with them,to expand their meaning, to agree with them or enter into conflict withthem. The zone of conflict is essential; as Taylor would say, it is inherentin the quest for the authentic self. This is apparent in the meeting withthe psychologist in The Andersen Project, for example, and also in The FarSide of the Moon through Philippe’s failed lecture in Moscow.

There exists a border, a gulf between the self and the social or moralcode, which is an individual, unexplored territory. The self is situatedprecisely between the daily self and the authentic self, between the selfrestricted by acquired socio-cultural restraints and the self that dreams ofan entirely subjective freedom. Lepage stages this paradox in TheAndersen Project but it is already there in The Dragon Trilogy, forexample, where Lepage plays with cultural cliches. The play ‘profits herefrom complete sentences, with their clarity and their evidence, in order toextract the truth they contain in other ways . . .’ (my emphasis).18

Fouquet argues of Lepage that:

Lepage’s work incessantly underlines this doubling of personality, this

doubly-representative figure of identity. The individual doubles and

transforms (see Philippe and Andre, the two faces of the same individual,

or Frederic Lapointe and the director of the Opera Garnier, who can be

viewed as the double figure of the creator and his manipulator). In fact, it

would be quite impossible to imagine the actor without his shadow (a

theme that The Andersen Project stresses), or the character without his

double.19

It is perhaps the recourse to video that most expresses this play ondoubling. When the video is live, that is to say, when the intervention ofvideo is direct and it records the characters already in action on the stage,it doubles them, it observes them, it becomes their mirror. Examples ofthis can be found in the solo performance Elsinore, or even in TheAndersen Project (the play both begins and ends with a projection ofFrederic’s face on the screen). ‘The video frequently intervenes as theresult of a game of multiple symbolic mirrors surrounding the camera

11. Taylor, Sources of theSelf, p. 50.

12. Ibid., p. 61. Thesereflections could bethe perfect illustrationof the majority ofLepagian characters:Pierre and Yukali inThe Dragon Trilogy,Philippe in Vinci, andRobert in Needles andOpium.

13. Thus identity buildsitself on the memorythat constructs itselffrom the individual’ssubjectivity. Nowmemory is aconstruction ofremembrances andreads itself like a stringof micro-stories thatultimately found ouridentity and allow usto be. Daniel Schacterhas aptly shown howthese memories areconstructions. Heexplains: ‘We cannotseparate our memoriesof the actual events ofour lives from what wehave previouslyexperienced [. . .]What we have livedthrough in the pastdetermines what weextract from what weencounter in our dailylives; memories arerecords of the way welived certain events,not replicas of theevents themselves. Theexperiences areencoded by cerebralnetworks whoseconnections arealready shaped byprevious encounterswith the world. Thispre-existingknowledge powerfullyinfluences the way inwhich we encode andstore new memories,contributing to thetexture and the qualityof our futurememories’ (DanielSchacter, A laRecherche de laMemoire. Le Passe,l’Esprit, le Cerveau[Bruxelles: De BoeckUniversity, 1999],p. 20).

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equipment. The reflections created allow the transmission of an imagefrom one mirror to another and finally onto a surface exposed to thespectator’s view.’20 It is the presence of the other and of the self, of theother within the self, that Lepage’s dramaturgy once again characterizeshere.

Furthermore, the fact that Lepage himself plays all the parts (Vinci,Needles and Opium, The Far Side of the Moon, The Andersen Project)allows this constitutive duality of the subject to metamorphose in amultiplicity of ways. The diversity of the characters reflects back on thediverse facets of a single individual with all the numerous ambiguities andparadoxes of human nature.21

The Necessity of Exchanging: From the Interpersonal to theIntercultural

The first principle mentioned above is followed by a second that isequally essential: the identity of any individual possesses a fundamentallydialogical character. As Taylor explains, one is an ego only to the degreethat one is among other egos. It follows that we cannot comprehend anego without reference to the other egos which surround it. Moreover, acommon space is needed to serve as a fertile ground for exchange.

We define [our identity] always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle

against, the identities our significant others want to recognize in us.22

Therefore, identity can only be understood and read in relation to theOther, within a network of connections made up of transmission, but stillmore, of interlocution. According to Taylor, there exist privilegednetworks of interlocution and exchange: within our modern westerncivilization, the intimate and private relationships – those belonging tofamily, work, and, above all, to love – provide a space which is particularlyfruitful and propitious to the discovery and the exploration of the self.23

This is what Lepage’s solo shows perfectly bring into play – withsimplicity and naturalness. His works do justice to the importance ofdaily life. The many characters who people his plays, solos, and sagasrepresent common people taken from our surroundings. Without beingarchetypes, they stand for everyday figures: parents, children, spouses,lovers, co-workers – in short, characters from the universes of family,love, or work. It is within these interpersonal networks that identities arewoven and undone before our eyes, that characters take shape, as we sawin Marie and Frederic in The Andersen Project.

This necessity for interpersonal relations is linked to the ontologicalneed for dialogue and exchange, but also to the need for recognition,which is equally essential for constructing an identity. ‘But theimportance of recognition has been modified and intensified by theunderstanding of identity emerging with the ideal of authenticity’.24

Formerly, in the society of the ancien regime, recognition was given tothose who were born to it. Nowadays, in a society that aims at beingdemocratic and egalitarian, where everyone has a right to be what they

14. In Ludovic Fouquet,Robert Lepage,l’horizon en images(Quebec: L’instantmeme, 2005), p. 75.

15. Taylor, Sources of theSelf, p. 48.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid., p. 35.

18. Diane Pavlovic, ‘LeSable et les Etoiles’,Jeu, Quebec, 42.1(1987), 121–140(p. 126).

19. In Fouquet, RobertLepage, l’horizon enimages, p. 75, Lepagecontinues: ‘The actorwho evolves in theframework of theprofession exists as astoryteller and as asilhouetted shadow,the shadow issometimes the onlything visible. [. . .] He[the actor] mustcollaborate with thedouble that is larger,more dramatic, and asa shadow, reflects asmuch as hecontemplates’.

20. Ibid., p. 170.

21. An observation thatDiane Pavlovic hasalready made aboutVinci: ‘At the ending,when he gathers thediverse characters ofthe play into so manyfaces of the sameindividual (the youngintellectual, the ‘‘oldpig’’, the ‘‘Britishguide’’ [. . .] and the‘‘Shabby Mona Lisawho yearns forfreedom’’ havebecome the mulitipleaspects of Philippe’spersonality), hepresents an image thatis stronger because ofthe contradictions thatshape each individual,and because onceagain, the imageespouses the form of

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are, recognition is no longer uniquely linked to social status and dependsentirely on the way others perceive us. The paradox of modern identitymaintains that this authenticity of the subject, on which identity rests,proceeds from within the subject, while still relying for its emergence ona recognition by one’s ‘meaningful others’.

In view of this dependency on the other, there always exists a risk offailure, since it is always possible that recognition does not arise (see, inVinci, the character of Philippe, a young artist not yet owned by societyand who does not feel at home anywhere). As Taylor says, the oppressionof non-recognition is born of the prejudices of both parties. Theseprejudices hinder dialogue and the exchange which is essential for thecreation of identities because they are primarily a non-recognition of thedifference of individuals and of their cultures.

The Inscription in the Horizon of Collective Meaning

Taylor posits a third principle: the necessity of orienting the identityprocess towards a horizon of meaning shared by all. The question ofthe meaning of life is fundamental ‘either in the form of a threatenedloss of meaning or because making sense of our life is the object of aquest’.25 In our western societies, which are defined around notions oforiginality, of freedom of choice, and of equality in the face ofdifference, the question of meaning is cast adrift. Everyone draws hisown geography, his own cartography, his inner space. But still, to avoidthe individualistic driftings of the ideal of authenticity, it is necessary torest on collective roots, a common memory, a culture – a commonmoral space. There must exist a zone shared with the other, withoutwhich there can be no exchange or constitutive dialogue. Authenticityis grounded on a recognition of the equality that exists in the value ofdifferences.

If men and women are equal, it is not because they are different, but

because overriding the difference are some properties, common or

complementary, which are of value. They are beings capable of reason,

or love, or memory, or dialogical recognition. To come together on a

mutual recognition of difference [. . .] we have to share also some standards

of value on which the identities concerned check out as equal [. . .].

Recognising difference, like self-choosing, requires a horizon of signifi-

cance, in this case a shared one.26

This shared horizon is articulated around essential questions,concerning history, nature, and society, and it includes the necessity tobe conscious of one’s place in a collective project, in a commonmemory. Individuals cannot exist except in relation to the collectivewithin which they originate. Their microcosm is only seen in light of themacrocosm in which they are integrated. This does not mean that theindividual must adhere uncritically to the collective norms alreadyestablished. On the contrary, opposition and conflict are constitutive ofidentity.

the show: logically,these diversecharacters had to beinterpreted by a singleperformer’ (Pavlovic,‘Du Decollage al’Envol’, pp. 90–1).

22. Taylor, The Malaise ofModernity, p. 33.

23. Taylor observes: ‘Thetransition I am talkingabout here is onewhich upsets thesehierarchies, whichdisplaces the locus ofthe good life fromsome special range ofhigher activities andplaces it within ‘‘life’’itself. The full humanlife is now defined interms of labour andproduction, on onehand, and marriageand family, on theother’ (Taylor, Sourcesof the Self, p. 213).

24. Taylor, The Malaise ofModernity, p. 47.

25. Taylor, Sources of theSelf, p. 18.

26. Taylor, The Malaise ofModernity, pp. 51–2.

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Identity, which is dialogical, is also dialectical: it only progressesthrough exchange and conflict, by confronting paradoxes, through theblending and complementarity of contrary notions and realities. Thus,‘[i]f authenticity is being true to ourselves, is recovering our own ‘‘senseof existence’’, then perhaps we can only achieve it integrally if werecognize that this sense connects us to a wider whole’.27

There again, Lepage is in perfect agreement with this thought.‘Opening to the macrocosm is but a means for apprehending themicrocosm’.28 Reflecting the notion of individual identity does notpreclude him from inscribing it within the collective; individual storiesare set in the collective context of larger history; individual cultureremains inseparable from a universal culture; everyone’s personalquestions, concerning life, death, love, and so on, intersect with thoseasked by the whole of humankind.

Lepage mixes the present and the past, what is near us and what isdistant, the individual and the collective. However, rather than opposingthese terms which would present too simplistic a vision of life and things,he presents them shoulder to shoulder, he frames them one withinanother. The story of each character is joined with that of the others andwith the larger history. With regard to dramaturgy, Lepage oftensucceeds in expressing the extent to which identity is fundamentallydialogical, double, by superimposing universal or international themesupon more ‘Quebecois’ anecdotes, images drawn from a history ofhumanity (as with war and Hiroshima) upon others that are moreindividual. This philosophy of complementarity echoes the Asian yin andyang philosophy, which stands out in the works of Lepage (The DragonTrilogy, The Seven Branches of the River Ota). Complementarity is afundamental principle, which brings man into relation with the cosmosand the forces of the universe.29 This is another way of inscribing thesubject in a horizon of moral significance. In The Trilogy, Lepage hasthe Japanese artist Youkali say about Pierre’s creative work, ‘You put theuniverse in a small room’. Lorraine Camerlain notes that Youkali’sremark ‘aptly illustrates how Pierre’s work, a metaphor for the play itself,establishes a creative relationship between the large and the small,between the being and the world [. . .] between the national and theinternational’.30

Art as a Source of Morals

Identity is a discovery, a progress, a quest for and a construction ofmeaning, the ideal horizon of that which stands as good, both for the selfand for the collective within which we are inscribed. However, ‘[w]ediscover what we have it in us to be by becoming that mode of life, bygiving expression in our speech and action to what is original in us’.31

This suggests the importance given to formulation and to self-expression,of which artistic creation seems to be the paradigm. This explains theimportance here of the figure of the artist (Cocteau or Davis in Needlesand Opium, Philippe in Vinci, and Pierre and Youkali in The DragonTrilogy), a fundamental figure to the extent that all the characters seek

27. Ibid., p. 91.

28. Ludovic Fouquet,Robert Lepage,l’horizon en images(Quebec: L’instantmeme, 2005), p. 279.

29. In LorraineCamerlain. ‘OK onChange’, p. 89.

30. Ibid.

31. Taylor, The Malaise ofModernity, p. 61.

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their liberation and the revelation of their identity in art. ‘The artistbecomes in some way the paradigm case of the human being, as agent oforiginal self-definition.’32 Artists make authenticity the source of theirfaith: their ideal. We owe this vision of the idealistic artist toRomanticism.33 Yet Lepage does not situate himself far from this vision.Concerning Vinci, Lepage comments: ‘Integrity is one of the themes ofVinci [. . .] Integrity is the tendency to discover who we are, in order todetermine our morals. I am under the impression that a good manyartists are doing the contrary’.34 In other words, Lepage makes his desirefor integrity the moral vector of his work.

The upright artist, respectful towards the ethics that he has set forhimself, is the agent of original self-definition, which he expresses bymeans of aesthetic forms chosen for their accord with the subject. Thisvision of the artist in its modern sense gives birth to the image of theartist as the creator of cultural values. Taylor observes: ‘I discover myselfthrough my work as an artist, through what I create. My self-discoverypasses through a creation, the making of something original and new.I forge a new artistic language [. . .] and through this and this aloneI become what I have it in me to be.’35 ‘Art is a conflict,’ [says Leonardto Philippe in Vinci], ‘If there is no conflict, there can be no art, [. . .]there can be no artists. Art is a paradox, a contradiction.’36

In other words, the act of creation is a process that is as dialectical asidentity, from which it is inseparable, since it refuses, rejects,deconstructs. Often it attacks norms, but paradoxically, if it passesthrough conflict, through refusal (refusal of conditioning, or sanctionedbehaviour) by calling into question that which is given, it cannot do sooutside a collective horizon of meaning. It is on this point that RobertLepage and Charles Taylor concur.

Conclusion

Identity, according to Taylor, implies a relationship to the good, to themoral laws that our modern societies have been searching for. Thesemorals are not, however, situated within externally fixed boundaries, butare rather to be found within the individual: by being authentic, true, andliving by the values and standards he has set for himself, the individualbecomes ethical. But this authenticity must be sought; it is notimmediately given; it is a process in time. Thus, this identity process isto be understood in light of this relationship to memory advocated byLepage in his plays.

Authenticity implies a creation, a construction, a discovery which isoften carried out in opposition to established rules, to tradition.Nevertheless, we cannot entirely free ourselves from a larger conscious-ness of ourselves in the world, space, and time. Constructing one’sidentity also means possessing horizons of meaning, for without these,creation loses the perspective which can save it from insignificance.Identity implies the collective, because of collective consciousness andmemory, but also because of its inescapable need for the Other. Identityis a dialogue, an interpersonal and intercultural exchange. Journeying,

32. Ibid., p. 62.

33. Although thisawareness started inthe eighteenthcentury, not tomention with muchearlier thinkers such asHorace.

34. Carole Frechette,‘L’arte e un veicolo:entretien avec RobertLegape’, Jeu, 42.1(1987), 109–126(p. 118).

35. Taylor, The Malaise ofModernity, p. 62.

36. Solange Levesque,‘Harmonie etcontrepoint’, Jeu, 42.1(1987), 100–108(p. 107).

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the character of the Stranger, time and space; all these are Lepage’sattempts to allow this dialogue to emerge, and to express its urgency.Journeying stands as an initiatory quest inviting one to discover oneselfthrough the Other.

Finally, since authenticity is self-definition in deeds and in expression,artistic creation becomes its paradigm. The artist, in his consciousness ofhimself and of the world, in his knowledge of memory and space, and inthe necessary integrity which his own definition requires, becomes thevery figure of authenticity as a moral ideal. His works and his art becomethe place and the means of exchange and dialogue, moving from theindividual towards the universal. It is in view of this relation to identity,to recognition, and to authenticity that the plays of Lepage are nowparticularly relevant and engaged with our times.

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