Needles and Opium

In 1949, the poet Jean Cocteau returns to Paris from New York after a screening of »The Eagle with Two Heads«. During the flight, he begins writing his »Letter to the Americans«, reflecting on a city that had both captivated and exhausted him. At the same time, Miles Davis sets foot in Europe for the first time, bringing bebop to Paris. The jazz clubs are packed, the nights seem endless, yet what sounds like a new beginning already carries the shadow of a exhausted future. Forty years later, a man from Quebec sits alone in his room at the Hôtel La Louisiane in Paris. He is trying to forget a lost love. His spiritual torment mirrors Cocteau’s addiction to opium and Davis’s to heroin. The sketches of the »prince of poets« and the blue notes of the jazz musician accompany his leap into oblivion.
At FIND 2026, a new version of a modern classic, Robert Lepage’s »Needles and Opium«, is being presented in Germany for the first time, several decades after its world premiere. In his hypnotic production, originally created in 1991 and subsequently celebrated around the globe, Lepage explores the interplay of art, addiction, intoxication and unrequited love on both sides of the Atlantic, using virtuoso video techniques, music, acting and acrobatics.

ROBERT LEPAGE, born in Quebec in 1957, has been one of the world’s most important contemporary storytellers and theatre makers for more than three decades with his productions for theatre, opera, dance circus and film. In 2022, FIND dedicated a focus to him and showed the legendary production »The Seven Streams of the River Ōta« and his highly acclaimed solo piece »887«. In 2024, his production »Glaube, Geld, Krieg und Liebe« premiered at Schaubühne.

WITH: Olivier Normand, Wellesley Robertson III
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Normand Bissonnette
SET DESIGN: Carl Fillion
PROPERTIES DESIGN: Claudia Gendreau
COSTUME DESIGN: François St-Aubin
MUSIC AND SOUND DESIGN: Jean-Sébastien Côté
LIGHTING DESIGN: Bruno Matte
IMAGE DESIGN: Lionel Arnould
DIRECTORS AGENT: Lynda Beaulieu

PRODUCTION AND TOUR MANAGER: Eric Gingras, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: Olivier Bourque, STAGE MANAGER: Adèle Saint-Amand, SOUND MANAGER: Marcin Bunar, VIDEO MANAGER: Thomas Payette, LIGHTING MANAGER: Jean-François Piché, COSTUMES AND PROPS MANAGER: Marilou Nadeau, AUTOMATION OPERATOR: Tobie Horswill, HEAD STAGEHAND: Jean-Félix Labrie, RIGGER: Julien Leclerc, AUTOMATION CONSULTANT: Tobie Horswill, Stanislas Elie, VIDEO CONSULTANT: Catherine Guay, MAKE-UP: Jean Bégin, COSTUME BUILDING: Carl Bezanson, Julie Sauriol, SET BUILDING: Scène Éthique, Astuces Décor, TRUMPET PLAYED BY: Craig L. Pedersen, ACROBATICS CONSULTANTS: Geneviève Bérubé, Yves Gagnon, Jean-Sébastien Fortin, Jean-François Faber