Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate Robert Lepage on receiving the 2001 London Evening Standard theatre award for best play.
The award winning play, “The Far Side of the Moon”, the English version of his “La face cachée de la lune”, was a sold-out success at the National Theatre in London this past summer. This is the first time a foreign playwright has been so honoured. His accomplishment brings honour to all Canadians.
Robert Lepage has a rich and varied body of work, with which most of us are familiar. After his start in 1984 with Théâtre Repère, his career was marked by successes at the National Arts Centre, and with major companies in Germany, Great Britain and Sweden. In all of these, as in his screen debut, Robert Lepage moves his audience with his bold and skilled handling of images and new technologies.
He has mounted some of Shakespeare's major works, as well as his own creations, which include “Vinci”, “The Dragon's Trilogy” and the film “Possible Worlds”.
On behalf of the government, I congratulate Mr. Lepage on this accomplishment and wish him continued—and greater—artistic success.