The author offers an ambitious and informative study of the work of one of Quebec's most important and innovative theatre artists. Lepage, awarded the Prix Europe in 2007, has earned for himself, and his Ex Machina theatre company, international accolades. In his analysis of selected productions – The Dragons' Trilogy, Tectonic Plates, The Seven Streams of the River Ota, Zulu Time and Lepage's staging of Shakespeare – Dundjerović demonstrates an understanding of the reasons for this success and a thorough knowledge of Lepage's biography, his theatre and his theatre practice, as well as of the existing scholarship on his work, although reference to the latter is somewhat limited, particularly with respect to French-language criticism and publications. While his focus is primarily on the creative process and what he labels the creative mise en scène, the author also situates Lepage and his theatre in the sociocultural and political context of Canada, in Quebec's theatre history and tradition, as well as within the larger framework of contemporary theatre practice. He thus provides a comprehensive overview as well as a more in-depth study of theatricality.

While its scope and breadth are therefore considerable, the analysis is somewhat compromised by the author's undertaking to cover so much material. It is difficult to sustain a consistent and cohesive argument while addressing the history, content, production and reception of Lepage's ambitious works, and the discussion of these aspects is somewhat uneven. Theatre scholars may take issue with Dundjerović's somewhat blurred use of terms such as transformative theatricality, score, performativity, writer–deviser, performance narrative or auteur. His blurred notion of intercultural theatre is particularly problematic. While he acknowledges the accusations of cultural tourism or cultural colonialism levied against Lepage, he does not successfully refute them and instead claims that the director and his company ‘devise material for a world stage, addressing national and international audiences alike, making theatre that communicates cross-culturally to an increasingly global community of theatre-goers’ (p. 207). While this is undoubtedly the intent, productions such as The Buskers' Opera, The Dragons' Trilogy and particularly Zulu Time raise, as scholars such as Karen Fricker have suggested, important questions with respect to Lepage's (mis)representation, and perhaps exploitation, of the Other, his global view suggesting instead a Western gaze. Dundjerović's interpretation is, however, undoubtedly a result of his tremendous admiration for an artist he has studied extensively, and therefore remains a significant tribute to the genius of Robert Lepage.