Without Peter Gabriel, no Robert Lepage? The renowned Quebec playwright admits that the British artist who became his friend through their collaboration, and who will kick off his North American tour at Quebec’s Videotron Center on Friday, directly influenced his career choice.
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“The reason I do what I do today is because I saw him perform during his time at Genesis. “I still have the poster in my office,” Robert Lepage admitted in an interview with the Journal on Monday.
The show he is referring to took place at the Grand Théâtre de Québec in 1973. At the time, Genesis was in its big progressive rock phase and Peter Gabriel was known for his theatricality on stage.
Everything to seduce the young Robert Lepage.
“It changed my life. It gave me a taste for making shows that used music, lights and effects to tell stories.”
Robert Lepage Photo Cédric Bélanger/Le Journal de Québec
“Hello, this is Peter Gabriel.
As fate would have it, the paths of the two creators crossed in London in the early 1990s.
On the recommendation of a friend, Peter Gabriel went to the Royal National Theater to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a Shakespeare play first staged by a North American, Robert Lepage.
After the performance, the phone rang in the Quebecois dressing room: “Hello, this is Peter Gabriel, do you think we can meet?”
At a restaurant in the English capital, he offered her the staging of his Secret World tour, a show he rehearsed at the Colisée in Quebec in 1993. The pair repeated the same trick in 2002 with an eye on the Growing Up Tour.
“We became close, good friends. It’s only the Atlantic that separates us. When I’m in London, I call him,” says Robert Lepage, who praises Gabriel’s human qualities.
“He’s so approachable, so easy-going, so confident, so genuinely interested in other people. Big rock stars often only meet you for themselves. They want to learn.”
Creative consultant
Robert Lepage did not have time to organize the i/o tour, which comes to America in the spring after an initial series of concerts in Europe. At his friend’s request, he agreed to serve as a creative consultant.
“He called me last minute. I managed to find three short weeks left and right in my schedule, took trips to England and helped him clarify his ideas. I wasn’t the one who came up with the concept for the show. On the other hand, when I attended the show in Europe, I gave notes to the lighting designer and the video designer…”
Peter Gabriel in concert in Berlin, May 26, 2023, during the European part of his i/o tour. Photo AFP
The Quebec creator praises the audacity of Peter Gabriel, who has decided to play 11 new songs from an album called i/o, which has not yet been released but from which several excerpts are available. He doesn’t know if the music program, which included classics like Sledgehammer, Solsbury Hill and In Your Eyes but not Shock The Monkey, will remain the same in Quebec.
He should know the answer before anyone else when Peter Gabriel arrives in Quebec, suggests Robert Lepage. “I’m not bound by a contract, but he expects me to help him.”
- Peter Gabriel at the Videotron Center in Quebec, September 8th, and at the Bell Center in Montreal, September 13th.