Robert Lepage to launch 4-part, 360-degree play

Innovative theatre artist Robert Lepage is preparing to raise the curtain on an epic, multi-year, 360-degree play to be staged at theatres-in-the-round in Canada and Europe.

Global theatre association 360 Network, a collection of theatre-in-the-round venues, commissioned the new production from acclaimed the Quebec artist.

Entitled Cartes, the overall work will encompass four parts representing the four suits (spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds) in a deck of playing cards. The first instalmentset in Las Vegas in 2003 as the Iraq War is getting underwaywill debut at Madrid's Teatro Circo Price in May.

It is also slated to play Toronto's Luminato arts and culture festival in June, atLondon's the Roundhouse in Feb. 2013 andalso other venues across Europe.

Though Lepage has been working on the production at his La Caserne studio in Quebec, even the participating venues don't know exactly what they're going to get, according to Marcus Davey, chief executive of the Roundhouse."We're all going to the first night in Madrid and then we'll seebut we know it's going to be wonderful," he told The Guardian.

Eventually Lepage intends to unite the four parts into one marathon performance piece spanning 12 hours. His ambitious, nine-hour production Lipsynch isa precedent, having earned warm reviews and toured the world.

In recent years, Lepage has balanced work at home in Canada such asToronto's currentThe Blue Dragon revival andhis First Nations twist on The Tempest with high-profile international projectslike Cirque du Soleil's Ka and Totem, hiscomplex overhaul of Wagner's Ring Cyclefor New York's Metropolitan Opera and the widely hailed opera The Nightingale and Other Short Fables.