LA MAGIE DE L’ESPACE DANS LES AIGUILLES ET L’OPIUM DE ROBERT LEPAGE

The paper puts foreword a semiotic analysis of the spaces in Robert Lepage's dramatic production Needles and Opium, where the Quebec-based creator mobilises a complex and highly significant spatial typology, framed using identifiable, non-identifiable, coagulating, open and closed, near and far spaces. The architecture of space and Lepage's predilection for certain geometric figures, such as the square and the cube, are a constant feature of his aesthetics. In Needles and Opium, the conceptualisation of space is made all the more complex by the fact that the stage is full of dichotomies and spatio-temporal binomials, subsumed under the stage-cube that undergoes metamorphosis throughout the show via permanent rotation and spatial closure/opening. The spatial poetics of Lepage fosters emotionally rich spaces, filled with the experiences of the characters as their mental state changes upon their experiences and, implicitly, the spaces they pass through.