877

About the show

Written, designed, directed and performed by Robert Lepage, 887 is a journey into the realm of memory.

The idea for this project originated from Lepage’s childhood memories. Years later, he plunges into the depths of memory and questions the relevance of certain recollections. Why do we remember the phone number from our youth, yet forget our current one? How does a childhood song withstand the test of time, permanently ingrained in our minds, while the name of a loved one escapes us? Why does meaningless information stay with us, while other, more useful information falls away? How does memory work? What are its underlying mechanisms? How does personal memory resonate within collective memory?

887 considers various commemorative markers — the names of parks, streets, stelae and monuments — and the historical heritage around us that we no longer notice. The play also focuses on oblivion, the unconscious and memory that fades over time, whose limits are now compensated for by digital storage, mountains of data and virtual memory.

In this era, how is theatre — an art based on the act of remembering — still relevant today? Somewhere between theatre performance and conference, Lepage reveals the suffering of an actor who, by definition and in order to survive, must remember not only his text, but also his past, as well as the historical and social realities that have shaped his identity.