Walking Down Walls: The Visual World of Needles and Opium

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By Shannon Stockwell

A technological transformation is taking place on the Geary stage. Actors are putting on their harnesses and walking down the walls of a revolving cube in Robert Lepage’s Needles and Opium, which runs from March 30 to April 23 at The Geary Theater.


Needles and Opium is an exploration of creativity, addiction, and loneliness. It follows the lives of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, and a lovesick man named Robert (based on Robert Lepage). As these tales interweave, projections swirl, the entire set revolves, and the actors burst out of the walls and floor.

These technological and acrobatic feats are signature elements for Lepage, whose theatrical credits include two Cirque du Soleil shows. But they are not just for show. To Lepage, the spinning cube that makes up the main element of Needles and Opium’s scenic design reflects the vertigo caused by opium, heroin, and love. The way the actors (Wellesley Robertson III and Olivier Normand, both trained acrobats) have to clamber and adjust their balance as the cube spins evokes feelings of struggling to stay on one’s feet when love is lost or found. And being confined to that cube could mimic the claustrophobia and loneliness of being an outsider in a place that you do not call home.

Lepage believes the key to theater is transformation—not just of characters, but of the mise-en-scène. He says: “[I am] drawn to plays in which the characters are transformed, but also to plays in which the sets are transformed and matter transcended. It’s incredible to be able to travel through time and place, to infinity, all on a single stage.”

Needles and Opium runs from March 30 through April 23 at The Geary Theater. Click here to purchase tickets through our website.

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