Next week I make a presentation for the theatre class, I chose Robert Lepage, his work destroys me, especially the two films Le Confessional and Nō. The first presentation was done six weeks ago and the student chose One Yellow Rabbit who I’m friends with, they offered me a scholarship to take their summer lab intensive ten years ago which was the greatest birthday present ever. I kept my mouth shut when the class discussed their work and sometimes drew conclusions I didn’t agree with. I think it would not be as much fun if I jumped in and said I actually have Marshall McLuhan right here standing behind this poster and you’re wrong….. Fun times researching many of Robert Lepage’s projects, I only knew the two films and attended two plays Coriolanus and 887. The night I saw Coriolanus in Stratford, after it ended the crowd gave a standing ovation to the actors, I went to the sound and light technicians at the back of the hall and stood there applauding them. They smiled and took a slow bow for me, it was definitely as much their show. 887 was about growing up in Ville de Québec, it had so many technical feats that mesmerized all. The next day I dropped off a package of my music at the stage door, personally addressed to him and hoped some day he might consider doing a project with me as musician. It was 2018, any day now I’m going to get that phone call. For the presentation I collected snapshots and videos excerpts of some productions. There was a guy in Hamilton when I lived off Highway Six, a musician who reminded me visually of young Harry Nilsson, he was called Mayor McCa and one time he wrote a song after enjoying the view of a window washer on a skyscraper, accompanied by a slow reggae groove he sang “Hey Man, you got a nice job”, that’s how I feel learning many more details about Robert Lepage’s productions, particularly The Ring Cycle, The Seven Streams of the River Ota and the pieces based on a deck of playing cards. There was one excerpt of him running a workshop at an American University and he explains his process, “we trust that the show will tell us what to do”. Authors talk about the characters announcing this or that as if the writer was last to know, painters talk about not knowing why the painting required them going this way or that way but it did and it works. I try to get students to write from a gender they don’t identify with or from the view of being an object or from something that greatly upsets them so they might experience the song writing itself, but much of their success/ failure has to do with trusting anyone telling them what to do. When Lepage expresses his process and that he trusts in the piece revealing itself, I don’t think many people can understand those words even though sharing reflections like that, might be doing something generous and useful. Watching black and white 1950s footage of John Cage performing Water Walk and throughout some audience members roar with laughter because they see/ hear no sense in calling this music.