The Blue Dragon
Created by Marie Michaud and Robert Lepage
Directed by Robert Lepage
Starring Robert Lepage, Marie Michaud and Tai Wei Foo
At the National Arts Centre in Ottawa Three and a half stars
In 1985, Robert Lepage's The Dragons' Trilogy opened the window of Quebecois theatre and let in the world. After two decades of drama that was about affirming the existence of "chez nous," Lepage's multilingual, continent-spanning, six-hour epic was a revivifying breath of fresh air.
As Michel Tremblay has written, "for the first time, the Quebecois had the right to travel elsewhere to suffer instead of staying irremediably prisoner of the pays and its misfortunes."
But while Lepage's globe-trotting characters then and since have indeed enjoyed brooding abroad, they almost all return back home eventually.
The one exception is conceptual artist Pierre Lamontagne, who at the end of The Dragons' Trilogy departs for China, apparently for good.
Now, almost 25 years after he was created, Pierre has returned - to the stage, anyway - in The Blue Dragon , a stand-alone sequel written by Lepage and Marie Michaud, who was also a co-creator of the original trilogy.
Now in his 50s, Pierre (Lepage) is living in Shanghai, where he runs an art gallery and has taken a shine - professionally and personally - to a young dancer-turned-artist named Xiao Ling (Tai Wei Foo).
Pierre still has no intention of moving back to Quebec, which he complains is full of "small, provincial people." But while he boasts about being on the "cutting edge" in China, he is beginning to realize that, in his middle age, his life-in-exile more closely resembles a spoon than a knife.
His worldview is shaken up by a visit from his old friend and flame, Claire Forêt (Michaud), a businesswoman who has come to the country to adopt a child.
Just as Claire waited too long to give birth - and is drowning herself in alcohol to forget her woes - Pierre is no longer able to create art of his own and can only exhibit the work of others.
Both are in awe of the fertility - artistic and biological - of Ling, whose career is just kicking off. She carries around a camera phone to record her emotions, snapping pictures of herself at moments of turmoil and then painting them in distorted colours on a canvas.
The Blue Dragon 's central premise, then, is a neoconservative's nightmare: the rise of a strong, virile China and the decline of an idea-starved, infertile West. Do the Chinese view the Western world the way Claire's younger colleagues view her? "I open my mouth and they look at me like I'm a black-and-white television set," she complains to Pierre.
And yet, there are questions about the march of progress in the Middle Kingdom. Ling's ability to blossom as a person and an artist is in doubt in authoritarian China, as a crucial plot twist in this love triangle makes clear.
The Blue Dragon 's staging is typically cinematic. Lepage and designer Michel Gauthier have created a bi-level set to marvel at that constantly metamorphoses into airports, train stations and boats.
The technical gadgetry doesn't overwhelm, however. Ling's dances interacting with projected images of falling snow are absolutely gorgeous, but some of the most magical moments of mise en scène are simple - as when Lepage crosses the stage, placing glasses upside down and on their sides along a counter to evoke the coming and going of a party.
The National Arts Centre presented the French original of The Blue Dragon this month, and now it is presenting the English version. While Lepage is a masterful performer in both languages, the hilarious Michaud occasionally gets tongue-tied performing in English, often missing her beats when a scene requires big emotion. Singapore's Foo, who is the choreographer and also makes her acting debut, also stumbles around a bit in the more dramatic moments. As a result, though the show is funny and endlessly thought-provoking, it is not quite as moving as it could be.
The decision to give The Blue Dragon three different endings, which we see one after another, has been hotly debated. Some view this as indecisive dramaturgical sacrilege, but Lepage has always been more interested in theme than plot, and the trifurcated conclusion feeds well into his concerns here.
To borrow a metaphor from the play, which itself borrows from a Chinese myth about the Yangtze, we are all babies placed in baskets in the river, transported by currents beyond our control, even or especially in an era when we think we've mastered the elements - or our emotions.
The Blue Dragon may not be one of Lepage's more revolutionary works, but few plays plug so directly into our current anxieties. It's just such a delight to experience theatre like this.
The Blue Dragon plays Ottawa's National Arts Centre until April 11.
J. Kelly Nestruck