From internationally acclaimed playwright and author Robert Lepage
comes 887 -- an autobiographical story originally toured as a solo
show. Framed by Lepage's attempt to memorize Michèle Lalonde's poem
"Speak White," 887 is an exploration of memory, culture, and community
in Quebec.
As the 40th anniversary of La Nuit de la poésie in Montreal approaches,
playwright Robert Lepage is invited to recite Michèle Lalonde's seminal
poem "Speak White" from memory on the special night. After agonizing
hours spent attempting to memorize the piece, Lepage finds himself
unable to recall a single line. In a last effort he decides to employ a
mnemonic device dating back to ancient Greece called the Memory Palace
-- a technique of imagination and association. Lepage's Memory Palace is
887 Murray Avenue, the apartment block where he grew up. Winding his way
around the rooms of the building and the lives of the tenants therein,
Lepage guides the reader through a world of recollections of 1960s
Quebec, the decade that shaped the province's cultural and political
consciousness.
A mesmerizing and multifaceted glimpse into the realm of memory, 887
is a tour of culture and community in 1960s Quebec through one masterful
artist's remarkable, boundary-defying perspective.
