As suggested by its title, Geometry of Miracles is at the intersection of two basics avenues - materialism and spirituality - as incarnated by two great gurus of our century : the American Frank Lloyd Wright, a scholarly architect, and the Russian George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff an epicurean philosopher, both surrounded by a throng of devoted disciples.

A particularly fertile thematic melting pot, the meeting of the two masters and their followers gives us the opportunity to explore both the conformity and disparity of two approaches which, after the fashion of the theatrical creation, merge while seeking a balance between the individual and the group.

Robert Lepage’s approach to the theater has followed two clear paths : on the one hand is his work with classical, (mainly Shakespearean) texts, but also with contemporary authors such as Brecht, and on the other hand is the creation of a new work forged hand in hand with the elaboration of the actor’s performance; a collective work which makes use of the performers as much to define their characters as to treat the sources of inspiration (The Dragon’s Trilogy, Polygraph, Tectonic Plates, The Seven Streams of the River Ota).
Geometry of Miracles takes the second road, but like all of Robert Lepage’s work, there is never any repetition of method.

Of course there are some recurrent elements from previous works, such as the game of clichés, this recycling where the unlived, the “ retrieved ” is always one step ahead of lived experience, as if a reflection of our own inability to go beyond the simple absorption of knowledge through modern media, as if we were irreparably forbidden to live, to directly feel, with information replacing consciousness (yet another cliché). The clearest example is still the opening line of The Dragon’s Trilogy where the heroine claims to have never been in China, even though the entire play will take place in the Far East.

The group: the response to the desert...

Before starting upon the technological cabaret Zulu Time, his most hi tech project to date, Geometry of Miracles will also be the occasion for Robert Lepage to try his hand at the relinquishment that Wright’s desert seems to summon.
Where in the past, he would have made use of a technical trick like that brilliant, long reverberation which signifies the passage of time in a restaurant (Polygraph), here he leaves it up to the very essence of the theater : the bodies of the actors, of which Robert Lepage has rarely asked so much, and their song, two human emanations by which he favors collective expression.

Thus we will have what Robert Lepage had never apprehended apart from a few short moments from his historic plays (Macbeth): the ancient chorus.

One after another - a swarm of wax magnate Johnson’s secretaries, a ring of Gurdjieff’s disciples, a group of Wright’s apprentice architects - this group dynamic which seems so incongruous within the framework of this triumphant and individualistic America but, if we take a second look, adapts itself rather well to the image of these companies vaunting their dynamism through their armies of secretaries studiously lined up behind their typewriters, a pattern in an infinite patchwork. This expression of the group is one of the driving forces behind the seduction of these new gurus, each with their own style, who were Gurdjieff and Wright.

Through his heavy emphasis on the body and song of the actors, Geometry of Miracles may turn out to be Robert Lepage’s most “ choreographic ” work yet, in every sense of the word.

About the characters:

This is the first time that Robert Lepage draws upon characters who really existed, not by conjuring them up or making them play their proper texts or music as for Cocteau and Davis in Needles and Opium, but by imagining them in their everyday lives.

The question is one of professors and students, of mentors and disciples, of gurus and victims, and of the affirmation of the identity of individuals who must sometimes confront their masters with thought, as in the case of Frank L. Wright’s disciple, hostile to Gurdjieff but mentally prepared to find in him a new master and who, ironically, ends up with Le Corbusier, Wright’s brilliant enemy.

As a backdrop, the architecture of Wright and the teachings of Gurdjieff, which are based on the clash of individuals and on the theories of repetitive movement.

Around Frank Lloyd Wright and Georgi I. Gurdjieff gravitate Olgivanna, Wright’s third wife and admirer of Gurdjieff, Herbert Johnson, the Johnson Wax magnate who commissions a building from Wright, and Wes and disciples of the architect.

And in counterpoint to the simultaneous absence and omnipresence of Wright is the invasive lecherous presence of Gurdjieff.

Written and directed by /Conception et mise en scène Robert Lepage

Dramaturg / Dramaturgie Rebecca Connally

Assistants to the direction / Assistance à la mise en scène Bruno Bazin, Lise Castonguay

Written and performed by / Conception et interprétation
Jean-François Blanchard
Marie Brassard
Thaddeus Phillips
Rodrigue Proteau
Anthony Howell
Kevin McCoy
Catherine Tardif
Daniel Bélanger
Tea Alagic
Denis Gaudreault

Set / Décors Carl Fillion
Costumes & wigs / Costumes Marie-Chantale Vaillancourt
Images / Conception des images Jacques Collin, Carl Fillion
Assisted by / Assisté de Véronique Couturier
Drawings(*) / Dessins(*) Marie-Claude Pelletier, Bernard White
Lighting / Conception des éclairages Éric Fauque
Properties / Accessoires Sylvie Courbron
Original music composed by / Musique Originale composée par Michel F.Côté
With / avec la collaboration de Diane Labrosse
Additional Music / Musique additionnelle Bach, Goodman / Kurtz / Sampson, Manoukian / Mouradian / Bartikian, Indeep

Technical support / Soutien technique aux projections Musée de la Civilisation, Québec

Production: Ex Machina

Co-production : Salzburger Festspiele; Pilar de Yzaguirre - Ysarca, Madrid; Créteil Maison des Arts; Festival d'Automne à Paris; Royal National Theatre, London; Tramway - Cultural and Leisure Services, Glasgow; City Council EXPO '98, Lisboa; Change Performing Arts, Milano; Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, Canada; Hancher Auditorium, Iowa City; Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York; Sydney Festival; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis; Northrop Auditorium, Minneapolis; Le Manège, Scène Nationale de Maubeuge; La Maison de la Culture de Gatineau ; Le Centre Culturel de Drummondville; Les Productions d'Albert, Sainte-Foy; Le Centre Culturel de l'Université de Sherbrooke; Le Palace, Granby Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Flynn Theatre, Burlington

Producer for Ex Machina Michel Bernatchez
Associate Production - Europe and Japan Richard Castelli - Epidemic
Associate Production - The Americas, Asia (except Japan), Australia, NZ Menno Plukker Theatre Agent

Ex Machina is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Quebec's Arts and Literature Council
and the City of Quebec.