In Connecting Flights, Quebec actor, director, and theatre guru Robert Lepage connects with his work, his influences, his audiences – and, of course, with Quebec arts journalist Rémy Charest. Charest, through countless interviews with Lepage during 1994-95, has ingeniously constructed a volume of casual conversations that demystify the man and his art.

Originally published in French in 1995, this version is translated by Wanda Romer Taylor. While the book was first released in England in 1997 and did receive some acclaim, the Canadian edition of Connecting Flights is somewhat different in that it contains a foreword by the thought-provoking author of Voltaire’s Bastards, John Ralston Saul. In it, he talks of his own viewing experience of Lepage’s play “The Seven Streams of the River Ota,” and how, for him, it revealed that Lepage was pushing at the boundaries of traditional theatre. He notes that although these themes work at stretching our imaginations eastward, the core of the director’s imagination comes out of “this place, out of this experience,” this place being Canada.

And indeed, Lepage, in answer to Charest’s probing questions, explores the origins of his creative process, all the while acknowledging the place that Quebec and Canada hold within it. What is interesting is that although Lepage credits this influence, he believes that he would not capitalize on it in the same way were it not for his travels to the East and elsewhere. He claims that Quebec needs to define itself in relation to English Canada, the U.S., France, and England. And while Lepage does not engage in these conversations with Charest in order to make political statements, he clarifies his own position by pointing out that he is torn by nationalism. He agrees that Quebeckers are different, and therefore should assert and develop their culture. However, he states solidly that nationalism leads some people to become closed and exclusive, which he finds extremely repulsive.

Most of Connecting Flights is devoted to Lepage’s thoughts on his completed work. Charest leads him to discuss the recurring motifs and themes, such as drugs, particularly opium, suicide, train trips, shaving, the moon, and nudity. In explicit detail, he works through the roster of his productions, discussing the meaning they held for him as finished works. Charest structures the book as a kind of travelogue documenting Lepage’s journey through the creative process, accounting for the mental journeys as well as the physical ones.

While classified as biography, this work reads like a long, fascinating conversation, a documentary of words that has the power to superimpose images on the reader’s mind. With Charest’s help, this endeavour is yet another theatrical success for Lepage.