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International Journal of Francophone Studies Volume 9 Number 3

© 2006 Intellect Ltd.
English Language. doi: 10.1386/ijfs.9.3.395/1

Staging the/an Other: The Dragons’

Trilogy Take II
Jane Koustas Brock University, Ontario

Abstract Keywords
Recent studies on the work of Robert Lepage underline the centrality of confron- alterity
tation with the Other in the theatre of this internationally known and acclaimed immigrant theatre
Quebec dramaturge, cineaste, actor and producer. Characterized by the contact, Quebec theatre
collision and mixing of languages, Lepage’s theatre challenges audiences around Robert Lepage
the world forcing them to experience the between zone, that liminal space other
between, or outside, comfortable linguistic, cultural and geographical boundaries
in which the Other is frequently no longer easily identifiable. From early produc-
tions such as Circulations in the 1980s to his most recent production, The
Andersen Project, staging the Other has been a central preoccupation of the
Lepage project. However, as the recent remake of The Dragons’ Trilogy suggests,
perceptions of the Other may change over time as the Other’s place in society
evolves. This article provides an overview of Lepage’s theatre with emphasis on the
importance of language in the representation of the Other and focuses particularly
on The Dragons’ Trilogy. It suggests that what was intended, and indeed per-
ceived, to be a sympathetic, albeit stereotyped, portrayal of the immigrant in
Canada and Quebec in the 1980s appears as a misstep in a new millennium and
in a new Quebec in which immigrants, including immigrant writers, have found
their own voice.

Résumé
Les études récentes sur Robert Lepage signalent l’importance de la place de l’Autre
dans l’œuvre de ce Québécois, cinéaste, dramaturge, metteur en scène d’une reno-
mmée internationale. Dans un théâtre qui se caractérise par le mélange des langues
et par le contact, parfois brutal, entre cultures, le public se trouve souvent dans un
espace intermédiaire à l’extérieur ou entre les zones de confort habituelles et entre
les frontières linguistiques, géographiques et culturelles connues. La figure de
l’Autre devient donc floue et moins facilement reconnaissable. Depuis les produc-
tions de jeunesse comme Circulations jusqu’aux derniers spectacles tel Le Projet
Andersen la présence et l’importance de l’Autre s’avèrent une préoccupation con-
stante dans le théâtre de Lepage. Cependant, comme le suggère la reprise de La
Trilogie des Dragons, la place de l’Autre est susceptible d’évoluer au sein de la
société exigeant par la suite un regard nouveau. Cette étude propose, en premier
lieu, un survol de l’œuvre de Lepage dans lequel nous insistons sur le rôle de la
langue dans la rencontre avec l’Autre. La Trilogie des Dragons fait l’objet d’une
analyse plus profonde car nous proposons que le portrait plutôt compatissant,
quoique stéréotypé, de l’immigrant ou de néo-québécois mise en scène dans les

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1 Rémy Charest, Robert

années 1980 ne convient plus, la population migrante, y compris les écrivains,
Lepage: Quelques zones ayant déjà trouvé sa propre voix dans le nouveau millénaire et dans un Québec
de libérté, Québec: plus moderne.
L’instant même,
1995, p. 32.
2 Théâtre du Trident,
Le Projet Andersen:
In an interview with journalist Rémy Charest, Robert Lepage, commenting
spectacle solo de Robert on the interactive, collaborative and dynamic aspect of his work, stated:
Lepage, 2005, p. 6.
3 Karen Fricker, ‘Robert Généralement, le théâtre est le lieu de la littérature. Tout commence autour
Lepage: Product of d’un texte. Mais je me sens revenir à cette idée du théâtre comme lieu de ren-
Quebec’, paper
contre entre l’architecture, la musique, la danse, la littérature, l’acrobatie, le
presented at ‘Quebec’
Conference, Dublin, jeu, etc. Dans tous mes spectacles, c’est ce qui m’intéressait le plus : rassem-
February 2006. bler des artisans, associer des formes et des disciplines diverses.1
4 Segments of this
section appeared Lepage’s theatre is indeed a rendezvous or ‘rencontre’ of numerous art
previously in Jane forms and, of course, their projection into the field of technology, ren-
Koustas, ‘Images
of Alterity in dezvous here meaning an arranged, rather than accidental meeting. It is,
Contemporary as many scholars have noted, a ‘rencontre’ of different languages, the-
Quebec Theatre’, in atrical practices and cultures or, at least of Lepage’s interpretation of
Susan Ireland and
Patrice Proulx (eds.), these. Irène Perelli-Contos’ and Chantal Hébert’s focus on metaphorical
Textualizing the voyages and multidisciplinarity, Ludovic Fouquet’s use of the horizon
Immigrant Experience image, Erin Manning’s discussion of deterritorialization, Sherry Simon’s
in Contemporary
Quebec, Westport, CT: study of language, Aleksandar Dundjerovic’s focus on crossings and
Praeger, 2004. Karen Fricker’s study of globalization, for example, all underline the cen-
trality of negotiations with the Other in the theatre of Robert Lepage.
From the heroine’s encounter with the New York mugger in the 1984
production of Circulations, to the complex, and decidedly uncomfortable
position and positioning of Frédéric, the Quebec artist commissioned by
the French to write the libretto for an opera about the Dane, Hans
Christian Andersen, a sort of Europudding as the director notes (The
Andersen Project), there is a constant: ‘Chez Robert Lepage, c’est par le
voyage, le mouvement vers l’Autre – l’étranger – qu’un Québécois tente
de découvrir ce qui le touche et l’anime’.2
This article will focus on the nature of this encounter with the Other in
the theatre of Robert Lepage particularly in the latest version of The
Dragons’ Trilogy. I contend that the ‘mouvement vers l’Autre’, undoubtedly
genuinely sincere and meaningful in the original productions of this play
in the 1980s became, as Karen Fricker demonstrates, a misstep in the new
millennium because the Other had, in the meantime, found a distinct,
authentic place and voice in Quebec both on and offstage.3
The position and role of the Other is central to Clément Moisan’s and
Renate Hildebrand’s 2001 study, Ces Étrangers du dedans: une histoire de
l’écriture migrante au Québec (1937–1997) in which the authors cast an
interesting light on the highly politicized and much studied question of eth-
nicity and immigrant or migrant writing in Quebec.4 ‘Étranger’, usually
translated as ‘foreigner’, also means ‘outsider’. Moisan and Hildebrand’s title
suggests, however, that the outsider, or foreigner, is now ‘dedans’ or inside.
If immigrant or migrant writing was once viewed as marginal or outside
the traditional norms and understanding of what was defined as Quebec
literature, it is now ‘dedans’ and an important, vibrant part of the same.

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This is not to imply, however, that there is unanimity or conformity with 5 Clément Moisan and
respect to the understanding of the significance of textualizing, or staging, Renate Hildebrand,
the immigrant experience. As the twenty or so articles in Le Devoir and Ces étrangers du
dedans: une histoire de
other newspapers generated by the controversy over Monique Larue’s l’écriture migrante au
1996 study, L’Arpenteur et le navigateur demonstrate, notions of ethnicity Québec (1937–1997),
and belonging remain on the forefront of political and academic debate. Montreal: Nota Bene,
2001, p. 294.
Described as racist by some, Larue’s study of the place of immigrant writ-
ing and writers, as opposed to that held by ‘dyed in the wool’ or ‘Québécois 6 Jean-Cléo Godin and
Laurent Mailhot, Le
de souche’ writers, embroiled in bitter controversy such major figures on Théâtre québécois
the Québec literary scene as Pierre Nepveu, Lise Bissonnette and Marc contemporain.
Angenot.5 The importance of the question, whatever one’s take on Larue’s Montreal: Hurtubise,
1973, p. 12.
address, suggests that the cogency of the issue cannot be denied but it is
arguably more productive to conclude instead, as do Moisan and 7 Pierre L’Hérault,
‘L’Espace immigrant
Hildebrand, that migrant or immigrant writing has informed and tra- et l’espace amérindien
versed Quebec literature. The authors contend that immigrant writers dans le théâtre québé-
have transformed Quebec literature from the inside and that consequently cois depuis 1977’, in
Betty Bednarski and
the lines between Other, immigrant, outsider and ‘pure laine’ or ‘de Irène Oore (eds.),
souche’ Quebec writers and readers have become blurred perhaps to the Nouveaux regards sur le
point of imperceptibility. théâtre québécois,
Montreal: XYZ, 1997,
It is useful to recognize firstly that it is in theatre that one would most p. 151.
naturally expect to find indicators of social transition. Frequently identified
as the literary genre most closely linked to society, because of its depen-
dence on an immediate and favourable response, the theatre has long
served as both a catalyst and measure of social change.
Laurent Mailhot and Jean-Cléo Godin note:

Des trois genres littéraires traditionnels, c’est peut-être le théâtre qui, par ses
caractéristiques particulières, est le plus lié au milieu. Non seulement parce
qu’il reflète, s’en nourrit, l’attaque, mais parce que son succès, son existence
dépend directement de la réception qui [sic] donnera ce milieu. Le théâtre est
placé entre deux miroirs très rapprochés.6

Quebec immigrant drama has been a major force on the theatre scene for
a number of years. As suggested above, the influence of the immigrant and
the immigrant experience should be measured not only by the recognition
and popularity of ‘néo-québécois’ writers, but also by their impact on the
literary system, in this case on theatre. Pierre L’Hérault claims:

Elle (la représentation de la diversité culturelle) aura été en effet l’une des
brèches par la quelle l’hétérogène s’est introduit dans le discours québé-
cois faisant de l’espace identitaire un lieu de tension, un lieu de croise-
ment d’appartenances multiples, un lieu de trafic plus que d’intégration
et d’identification.7

He further explains how the change in attitude towards alterity, once viewed
as a threat and now as a shared value, accounts for the production of plays by
Quebec writers which attempt to consider the complexity of the immigrant
experience. In 1970, Françoise Loranger’s Médium Saignant staged, with
amazing insight and foresight, the language battles engaged by Montreal
anglophones, francophones and allophones. René-Daniel Dubois with Ne

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8 Nepveu, quoted in
blâmez jamais les Bédouins (1984), Gilbert Dupuis with Les Transporteurs du
Pierre L’Hérault, monde (1984), Marie-Claire Blais with L’Île (1988), Christian Bédard with
‘Pour une Nomades urbains (1993) and Dominic Champagne and his co-authors, includ-
cartographie de
l’hétérogène: dérives
ing Wadji Mouawad, with Cabaret neiges noires (1994), made an admirable
identitaires des attempt to voice the minority presence and struggle. While these authors
années 1980’, in made a commendable effort to address the question of ex/inclusion, it was
Sherry Simon, et al.
(ed.), Fictions de
arguably nonetheless from a centrist point of view, with perhaps the excep-
l’identitaire, Montreal: tion of Champagne: the ‘insider’ endeavoured to draw in or incorporate the
XYZ, 1991, p. 56. outsider. Indeed, Pierre Nepveu noted in 1989, that one must reflect on the
9 id. end of Quebec literature and think instead of continual uprooting and a mul-
10 Yann Rousset,
titude of reference points: ‘Il faut penser la ‘fin’ de la littérature québécoise …
‘Présentation’, in dans une perspective d’un dépaysement persistant et d’une pluralité des
Chantal Hébert and points de référence’.8 This plurality of reference points implies a new perspec-
Irène Perelli-Contos
(eds.), Théâtre,
tive for the theatre that, as L’Hérault notes, includes the margins and invites
multidiscplinarité et exchange on the peripheries as foreignness and marginality become part of
multiculturalisme, the imaginative space.9
Montréal: Nuit
Blanche, 1997, p. 7.
This exchange between centre and periphery, which adds a new
dimension to theatre, is the subject of Hébert’s and Perelli-Contos’ collec-
11 Gilbert David,
‘L’autre et le même:
tion, Théâtre, multidisciplinarité et multiculturalisme. As Yann Rousset
théâtre de France et explains in the introduction, recent theatre in Quebec can best be charac-
théâtre québécois terized by the breakdown of traditional barriers and the subsequent
contemporain’, in
Chantal Hébert and
borrowing from other cultures. He states:
Irène Perelli-Contos
(eds.), Théâtre, Qu’est-ce que réellement le théâtre? On conviendra qu’il est devenu de plus
multidisciplinarité et en plus périlleux depuis les années 1980, d’en arrêter une définition
multiculturalisme,
Montreal: Nuit homogène. Aborderions-nous la question de la fin du règne du logos, que
Blanche, 2000, nous devrions traiter de celles de l’éclatement des frontières entre disciplines
p. 90. artistiques, des emprunts (historiques, thématiques, linguistiques, artistiques
etc.) faits par des créateurs du théâtre actuel à d’autres cultures, à la mondi-
alisation des médias et de l’expansion rapide de nouvelles technologies.10

Clearly, in this collapsing of traditional boundaries, through this drawing of

the centre towards the periphery and vice versa, the denotations Other, out-
sider, foreigner, immigrant, which define traditional notions of ‘alterity’, as
opposed to ‘us’, or in this case ‘québécois’, are confused if not conflated.
Gilbert David suggests this in an article significantly entitled ‘L’autre et le
même’ in which he underlines the importance of companies such as
Carbone 14, le Groupe de la Veillée, Les Deux Mondes, le Théâtre Repère and
le Théâtre UBU in the move to ‘faire de l’ici un ailleurs’. The contribution of
dramatists such as Gilles Maheu whose multidisciplinary Rivages à l’abandon,
based on texts by Heiner Müller, combines many ‘languages’ of theatre from
around the world clearly illustrates that, from all perspectives – text, staging,
theme – Quebec theatre is, as David suggests, in permanent dialogue with
the theatrum mundi.11
According to L’Hérault, commenting on Quebec theatre of the 1980s,
Robert Lepage also celebrated the insertion of the ‘foreign’ into the interfer-
ential space. Lepage, through both the issues he explored and his the
atricalization of the questions of cultural and linguistic identity, belonging
and of the immigrant versus native divide, was on the forefront of this
movement. He states: ‘On peut mesurer l’évolution de la dramaturgie, à cet

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égard, en prenant comme repère le théâtre de Robert Lepage qui célèbre l’en- 12 Pierre L’Hérault,
trée obligée dans l’espace interférentiel sans pour autant gommer l’espace ‘L’Espace immigrant
québécois’.12 It is important to recognize that the frequently challenging and et l’espace amérindien
dans le théâtre
uncomfortable encounter with the Other has consistently been a central québécois depuis
trope in Lepage’s work, from Circulations, one of his earliest productions 1977’, p. 153.
staged in 1980s, to the ongoing Andersen Project and The Dragons’ Trilogy. 13 Press Kit, Ex Machina
The following brief overview of his theatre demonstrates the centrality of Archives.
language in this contact/confrontation/collision with the Other and 14 id.
Lepage’s contribution, as L’Hérault states above, to the staging of images of
alterity. 15 Shawn Huffman,
‘Adrift: Affective
Like all Ex Machina productions, Circulations was inspired by a ‘con- Dislocation in Robert
crete visual source’,13 in this case a road map. When Louise, the Quebec Lepage’s Tectonic
heroine leaves a miserable home life to ‘voir le monde’, she does so in both Plates’, in J. Donohoe
and Jane Koustas
senses of the expression: she sets out to see the world but also to learn (eds.), Theater sans
about life. However, the audience is expected not only to follow Louise’s frontières: Essays on the
geographic and existentialist journey, but also to explore with her the Dramatic Universe of
Robert Lepage,
question of language. Although billed as trilingual, ‘one third French, one Lansing, MI:
third English, one third movement’,14 ‘in French and English’ does not Michigan State
imply here the simultaneous translation usually associated with Canadian University Press,
2000, p. 162.
bilingualism. ‘Bi and tri’ mean here instead the combination of languages
as all are used without translation. There is, therefore, neither an original
nor target language; it is instead a ‘play’ on the very idea of translation.
Just like Louise, the audience must ‘circulate’ between cultures and lan-
guages, finding itself curiously uprooted and at a cultural intersection.
In Vinci, a solo performance by Lepage, the meeting of languages, cul-
tures as well as the confrontation with the Other is also central: the title is
a play on Caesar’s victorious boast uttered as the cultural conqueror
acquired new territories and refers as well to the artist of the Mona Lisa.
The main character, Philippe, travels through Europe to cope with his
anguish following the suicide of a dear friend. Focusing in part on the
Mona Lisa, played by Lepage, the play centres on the role of the painting as
an international cultural icon. Languages (Quebec and continental
French, Italian and English) and identities blend and clash creating both
comic and poignant scenes: a girl, played by Lepage, in a Paris Burger King
discourses on the meaning of ‘Burgerkingness’, turns her face and
becomes the Mona Lisa.
The three central characters – a deaf-mute, an artist and a bilingual
transvestite – connect in Tectonic Plates and move and separate like the
continents, the geographical land masses described by the title. The play
brings together characters from South America, Italy, Alaska and Quebec
who switch among French, English, Spanish and Italian. Once again, con-
frontation with the Other, and the interference of different languages, is
important since the central narrative, and the much more subtle subtext,
rely on their combining and colliding. As Shawn Huffman notes:
‘Communication is not immune to drift either. The dispersal of meaning,
from its emission to the chance that it will be intercepted and correctly
decoded, is also a major issue in Lepage’s play.’15
Polygraph, set against the background of the Berlin Wall, also centres on
the clashing of languages and cultures and the breaking down of ‘walls’
that separate. Similarly, in Needles and Opium the audience embarks on a

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16 Segments of this sec-

voyage that straddles cultures, languages and historical moments. Robert, a
tion have appeared lovesick Quebecker, books into a Paris hotel where he encounters Miles
previously in Jane Davis, Jean Cocteau, who, along with Jean-Paul Sartre, had occupied the
Koustas, ‘Shifting
Identities in the
same hotel room. Robert’s hopeless and eventually comical efforts to reach
Theatre of Robert his lover through various telephone operators provide a concrete example
Lepage’, in Danielle of a breakdown in communication. His unsuccessful attempts stand in
Schaub and Christl
Verduyn (eds.),
sharp contrast with the ability of the hotel room’s former occupants to
Identity, Community, transcend language, cultural differences and time through their art.
Nations, Jerusalem: In The Seven Streams of the River Ota spectators are taken on a linguistic,
The Hebrew
University Magnes
geographic, cultural and time-bending journey to Hiroshima immediately
Press, 2002, following the bombing, to modern Japan, to a New York rooming house in
pp. 136–48. the 1960s, to a central European concentration camp during the Second
17 Lepage, quoted in World War, to contemporary Amsterdam, to Quebec and elsewhere.16
Marie Laliberté, When East meets West, cultures and languages collide and combine. As in
‘Alphabet du monde
moderne’, Voir, 11
the productions discussed above, the dialogue switches back and forth
May 2000. among several languages, in this case, French, English, Japanese, Czech
www.voir.ca/artsdela and Polish, frequently without translation. While there is, in principle a
scene.aspx?Darticles
7534 Accessed
‘target’ text, the public nonetheless experiences two, if not more, languages
20 July 2003. simultaneously and, like the characters, finds itself on the interface. When
18 For further discussion
it is used at all, translation is frequently subverted. The use of English or
of this production see French surtitles when Japanese is spoken confuses the source–target text
Jane Koustas, ‘Zulu dichotomy as titles usually provide translation from, not into, the author’s
Time: Theatre Beyond
Translation’, Theatre
language. An anglophone or francophone audience would thus expect the
Research in Canada, surtitles, not the spoken text, to be in Japanese as English or French are
24: 1–1, 2004, Lepage’s ‘source’ languages. Thus, while neither Lepage nor his actors
pp. 1–21.
speak Japanese, their characters do and the English or French appearing in
the titles seems to be the translation rather than the original.
In The Geometry of Miracles, characters from Quebec, the USA, France
and Russia, meet, frequently by chance, interact in a variety of languages
and confront each other taking the audience on a journey that defies time
and geographic and linguistic barriers. Based on a metaphysical link and
mythical encounter between Frank Lloyd Wright, the founder of ‘organic
architecture’, and guru Georgei Gurdijieff, the proponent of ‘organic
living’ who counted Wright’s third wife, Olgivanna, among his disciples,
the story moves from Russia, to Paris, to Wisconsin and to the Arizona
desert as the language switches back and forth among English, French,
Serbo-Croatian and Russian. Even when surtitles are used, the audience
experiences two languages simultaneously and must frequently rely on the
other languages of theatre: dance, including a sort of tai-chi favoured by
Gurdjieff, is used extensively and seems as curiously uprooted in the
Arizona desert as Olgivanna’s Serbo-Croatian.
Zulu Time takes spectators to the liminal, generic space of the airport
and its appendages, the equally colourless and anonymous bars, hotels
and transit zones in which ‘chacun est seul dans la multitude’.17
Language here functions at the level of a code, the international language
of aviation and the military in which ‘Z’ for Zulu is the final letter.
However, genuine communication is sabotaged by the isolation and
anonymity of hapless travellers whose loneliness is rendered more tragic
as it stands in sharp contrast to their easy access to global encounters and
destinations.18

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The Far Side of the Moon finds Philippe similarly ‘lost in space’. A failed, 19 Harbourfront Centre,
or at least failing, academic, he attempts to explain, in philosophical World Leaders: A Festival
terms, the need for the moon landing, while, at the same time, preparing a of Creative Genius,
Toronto, 2001.
video destined for space aliens in which he explains life of earth. Haunted
by his mother’s suicide, tormented by his enormously successful, totally 20 Further discussion of
this production refers
fatuous brother, Philippe searches for contact with an Other beyond the to this version.
confines of the planet. While language and its commensurate potential
21 Segments of this
incomprehensibility do not play as central a role in this solo performance, section appeared previ-
travel, clashes with the Other and the sentiment of finding oneself adrift ously in Jane Koustas,
between cultural and temporal zones remain key elements; Philippe’s ‘Robert Lepage’s
Language/Dragon
unsuccessful thesis studies the differences between the American and Trilogy’, International
Soviet space programmes but his meetings with an eminent Russian scien- Journal of Canadian
tist are sabotaged because of scheduling problems due to time zones. Studies, 30, 2004,
pp. 35–50.
The Buskers’ Opera takes spectators on a rollicking adventure of multilin-
gual, multicultural dance and music in a cabaret style performance that 22 Press Kit, Ex Machina
stages Otherness through the confrontation and celebration of international, Archives.
artistic traditions as well as through the clashing and combining of both per-
sonal and political narratives. The production begins with a meeting between
a talent agent and a Quebec musician stranded abroad. When the latter
claims, in French, that music is the universal language, the agent informs
him that English is the universal language and advises him to learn it. As the
production takes spectators from London to Louisiana, with several stops in
between, they are confronted with Arabic, Hebrew, French and English texts
and images, the Other hence becoming a very fluid, volatile entity.
In the Andersen Project, Frédéric, jet-lagged, disoriented and lonely,
attempts to understand why he was commissioned by the Palais Garnier to
prepare the libretto for an opera to celebrate Andersen’s anniversary. He
quickly learns that he is merely the token non-European in an equally
token European Union gesture of inclusion. His Quebec French standing in
sharp contrast to the Parisian opera director’s deliberately stilted and con-
descending commentary, his English failing him during a meeting with the
Danes, Frédéric, like other Lepage characters, wrestles with issues of lan-
guage, identity and belonging in confrontation with the Other.
In sum, Lepage and his productions travel the world earning for their
creator recognition as ‘a renaissance man – author, director, designer,
media-mixing artist and actor … one of the major creative forces in the
world’.19 While all of Lepage’s multi/intercultural and linguistic produc-
tions could be accurately described as ‘theatre sans frontières’ (Donohoe
and Koustas 2000), La Trilogie des dragons or The Dragons’ Trilogy, featured
in the Festival de Théâtre des Amériques, May 200320 in Montreal and
one of Lepage’s first and greatest successes, is of particular interest and it
is on this, the most frequently staged of Lepage’s productions, that this
study will now focus.21
In the Dragons’ Trilogy, a multilingual English, French, Chinese and
Japanese play billed as a ‘lyrical epic about the meeting of cultures’,22 the
audience is taken on a cultural and linguistic voyage that spans seventy-
five years and three cities: Quebec, Toronto and Vancouver. As in
Circulations, the confrontation of cultures and the volatile nature of the
Other form the framework of the play. The immigrant experience is
explored from a new angle. Natalie Rewa notes:

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23 Natalie Rewa, ‘Clichés

Lepage departs from traditional explorations of cultural communities. In a
of Ethnicity Subverted: strikingly flexible playing space the production elicits an intertextual discourse
Robert Lepage’s La among the disparate texts connoting ethnic experience. Superimposed on a
Trilogie des dragons’,
Theatre History in
simple narrative exploring the lives of two québécois women is a metatext
Canada/Histoire du which questions the validity of narrow, highly individualized, artistic portray-
théâtre au Canada, 11: als of multiculturalism … Lepage concentrates on presenting distinct cultural
2, Fall 1990, p. 159.
perspectives and modes of expression rather than crude conflict of cultures.23
24 Paul Bennett, ‘À la
recherche de l’Orient
profond’, Le Soleil,
Recognized as ‘un spectacle envoûtant’24 when it first opened in Quebec
14 November 1985. City in November 1985, heralded as ‘imagistic theatre at its best’25 when
25 Robert Crew, ‘Imagistic
it played in Toronto for a second time in March 1988, The Dragons’ Trilogy
Theatre at its Best’, The was declared a ‘masterpiece’ by The Times of London (July 1987),26 praised
Toronto Star, 19 May for its ‘dazzling originality’ and ‘strong universal appeal’ by the Irish Times
1988, B4.
(Galway, August 1987) and described as ‘exhilarating’ by the New York
26 Irving Wardle, Times (July 1987).27 In 1989, Le Devoir commented ‘les dragons enflam-
‘Masterpiece of ment le tout-Paris’ (April–May 1989).28 The production toured for seven
Revivalism’, The
Times, London, years in over thirty cities.29 Influential British theatre critic Irving Wardle
18 June 1986. said the show ‘triumphantly demolishes the idea of Canada’s cultural
27 Quoted in Alberto dependence on Europe and the United States’.30 It is by far the most widely
Manguel, ‘Theatre of travelled, frequently produced and most studied of Lepage’s works. An
the Miraculous’, entire issue of Jeu was devoted to the play in 1987. While the production’s
Saturday Night,
January 1989, p. 34. initial success in Canada could perhaps be partially attributed to the pub-
lic’s fascination with ‘magical transformations’31 as well the play’s rele-
28 Jean-Paul Bury, ‘La
critique parisienne vance during the heady times of the Canadian multicultural debate, its
accueille international and lasting appeal are of particular interest. The Dragons’
favorablement La Trilogy, originally subtitled ‘the Orient revisited’, ‘returned triumphant’32
Trilogie des dragons’, Le
Devoir, 24 April 1989, as ‘the cornerstone’ for the 2003 Festival de théâtre des Amériques in
p. 11. Montreal. The Montreal performance alone generated no less than thirty
29 For a list of all reviews including articles in Le Monde and Swedish and German newspa-
productions see pers. It has since toured in thirteen countries, most recently in New
http://www.exmachin Zealand in March 2006.
a.qc.ca/diffusions/
trilogy.html Before focusing on this production’s staging of contact, confrontation
and collision with the Other as represented, at least in part, by language, it
30 Quoted in Jason
Whiting, ‘The Dragon is important to underline The Dragons’ Trilogy importance in the history of
Comes Home’, The both Lepage and Quebec theatre. In an article in which she discusses the
Globe and Mail, ‘remake’ of the production, Marie Gignac, one of the original performers,
21 May 2003, R3.
suggests that La Trilogie was also the cornerstone of the company. She
31 J.A. Bemrose, ‘A states:
Sorcerer of the Stage’,
Maclean’s, 23 May
1998, p. 53. La Trilogie a longtemps été un spectacle référence pour nous. C’est là qu’on a
32 Jason Whiting, , The posé les bases de notre langage artistique. Toutes les thématiques que nous
Globe and Mail, R3. abordons, les univers, comme l’Orient, la quête d’identité, personnelle et col-
33 Quoted in Jean lective, le rapport à l’autre, la quête de l’autre, le frottement avec les autres
Lessard, ‘Les Dragons cultures, La Trilogie contenait tout ça…33
nouveaux’, Théâtre
Québec,
29 April 2003. Furthermore, it was as well a turning point in Quebec theatre in general.
http://www. In an article poignantly entitled ‘Je me souviens’, Voir critic Luc Boulanger
theatrequebec.com/ reflects on the magical première performance and on the production’s
site/_œil.
lasting impact; Lepage had discovered a new way to do and view theatre.
Boulanger observes:

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Un choc théâtral. Un moment de grâce. Un pur ravissement. Un envoûte- 34 Luc Boulanger, ‘La
ment. Les superlatifs manquent. Tous ceux qui, comme moi, en juin 1987, Trilogie des dragons, 16
ont vu dans le hangar humide et désaffecté du Vieux-Port de Montréal la ans plus tard: je me
souviens’, Voir, 15–21
première mondiale de l’intégrale de La Trilogie des dragons en gardent un sou- May 2003.
venir impérissable. … Le spectacle du Théâtre Repère est emblématique de
35 Jean St. Hilaire, ‘Acte
l’ouverture sur le monde de la dramaturgie québécoise. … En montant un
de transmission’, Le
spectacle trilingue racontant la vie de trois générations de personnages dans Soleil, 22 May 2003.
les Chinatowns de Québec, Toronto et Vancouver, Robert Lepage sortait des
36 Josée Chaboillez,
cuisines brunes et des tavernes enfumées pour voyager de par le monde.34 ‘Redécouvrir Lepage’,
Guide Culturel Radio-
Canada.
Marie-Hélène Falcon, the organizer of the Festival de Théâtre des
Amériques, identifies La Triologie as an ‘œuvre qui a changé la face du 37 Monique Giguère,
théâtre au Québec’.35 Its importance was such that its revival was seen as ‘Robert Lepage: la
face cachée d’un
an opportunity to consider the evolution of Quebec theatre and society dragon du théâtre’, Le
using La Trilogie as a reference point. Josée Chaboillez notes: Soleil, 14 December
2003, B3.
La Trilogie des dragons permet également de constater le chemin parcouru, 38 Chantal Hébert, La
non seulement artistiquement, mais socialement et collectivement. En effet, Face cachée du théâtre
de l’image, Québec: Les
jamais autant qu’aujourd’hui l’Asie et l’Orient tout entier, n’aura été si Presses de l’Université
accessible et si convoité par les Occidentaux. L’étranger, le Chinois du Laval, 2001, p. 59.
Québec des années 20 et même son fils, le Torontois Mr. Lee des années 50,
s’ils gardent leur spécificité et même leur mystère, n’ont jamais été aussi
proches de nous. En refaisant le voyage des dragons vert, rouge et blanc, c’est
aussi le trajet des 16 dernières années qui se dessine.36

With the exception of the White Dragon, the remake of the 1985 produc-
tion remained much the same though an entirely new cast, and notably
the presence of two non-Quebec actors, added a new dimension. Having
triumphed in Montreal, the production continued to draw rave reviews in
Limoges, Berlin, Zagreb and Madrid and returned to Quebec in December
2003 and Monique Giguère of Le Soleil sums up the tour as follows:

Le succès a un bail avec Robert Lepage. En 25 ans de carrière au théâtre,

une pluie d’honneurs s’est abattue sur l’auteur-acteur-metteur en scène-
dramaturge-cinéaste. Sacré prophète en son pays, Robert Lepage promène
un nom mythique sur les scènes du monde entier. Ses œuvres ne vieillissent
pas. Créée pour la première fois en 1985, La Trilogie des dragons poursuit
depuis 18 ans sa fabuleuse odyssée aux quatre coins du globe.37

While a brief summary cannot do justice to a six-hour production in

which, as in all Lepage productions, movement, technology and the other
tools of the Ex Machina arsenal are central, earning for Lepage the label of
a ‘faiseur d’images’,38 it is nonetheless useful to consider the storyline.
Jason Whiting, the Globe and Mail theatre critic, describes the production
as follows:

Divided into three acts running two hours apiece, The Dragons’ Trilogy follows
the lives of two French girls, close friends in Depression Era Quebec, and
charts what occurs when their lives are swept apart across three different
decades and cities. Rounded out by six other actors who play multiple roles,

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The Dragons’ Trilogy is a work of powerful symbolism and imagery centring on

39 Jason Whiting, The
Globe and Mail, R3. the themes of war, exile and cultural identity.39
40 While the other parts
remained essentially The first part (1910–35), and the titles are based on pieces in mah jongg,
the same, the ‘White ‘The Green Dragon’, symbolizing water and traditionally corresponding to
Dragon’ was spring and birth, takes place in Quebec City. Jeanne and Françoise, twelve-
considerably modified
in the 2003 version. year-old cousins and close friends, are fascinated and terrified by nearby
Of particular note is Chinatown and particularly by the laundryman, Mr. Wong. The arrival of
the cutting of the William Crawford, a British shoe salesman who grew up in Hong Kong,
scene where Pierre
finds himself on a changes their lives dramatically. Crawford teaches Mr. Wong to gamble
mountaintop. Other and, in exchange, is introduced to opium. Later, Jeanne, sixteen and preg-
scenes, such as the nant by her first love, is given to Wong as payment for a gambling debt
one discussed above
in which Crawford is incurred by her alcoholic father. She is then forcibly married to Wong’s
featured, were added. son, Lee.
The discussion is The ‘Red Dragon’ (1935–50), symbolizing earth and associated with
based on the
Montreal production summer and fire, finds Jeanne in Toronto where she works in Crawford’s
staged during the shoe store and lives with Lee and his two aunts. Her daughter, Stella, now
Festival de théâtre five, contracts meningitis. Jeanne is reunited with Françoise when the latter
des Amériques,
May 2003. is sent to Camp Borden in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. Later,
Françoise fulfils her dream of travelling to England. Having learned that she
41 Lepage quoted in
Alberto Manguel, has cancer, Jeanne entrusts Stella to the care of Sister Marie-de-la-Grâce and
‘Theatre of the the Hôpital Saint-Michel-Archange in Quebec City against Lee’s wishes.
Miraculous’, Saturday Jeanne subsequently commits suicide. Meanwhile, in Japan, Yukali, the
Night, January 1989,
p. 37. daughter of an American soldier and a geisha who was killed in Hiroshima,
symbolically buries her mother twenty years after the bombing.
In the ‘White Dragon’ (1960–90), the symbol of air and autumn,
Pierre, Jeanne’s son, now established in Vancouver, meets Yukali in his art
gallery. Stella dies as a result of questionable medical care. In the earlier
version, Crawford, returning to Hong Kong, perishes when his plane
plunges into the ocean. In the more recent productions, Pierre meets
Crawford in Vancouver where the latter is starring in a film on geriatric
junkies in Toronto.40 Crawford commits suicide by immolation as images
of his childhood in Hong Kong flash before his eyes. In addition to balanc-
ing the first and final acts, Crawford’s return allows for greater develop-
ment of this character: he no longer appears as the token Englishman.
Pierre returns momentarily to Quebec to console his mother, Françoise,
who was Stella’s godmother, and to announce his decision to travel to
China. The final scene finds Pierre and Françoise in the parking lot to
catch a glimpse of Halley’s Comet.
The production is staged in a sort of giant sandbox that is used initially
as a parking lot. The transformation of the parking lot into three China
towns, a ‘sort of toy model for the universe’41 relies heavily, as the following
programme description suggests, on the intermingling, interference and
intersection of cultures, personal and collective histories, journeys, preju-
dices, symbols and philosophies as well as languages. The programme
reads:

From a Quebec City Chinatown (1910) to the parking lot it has become
today, from the kitsch China clichés to the great Oriental philosophies, the
protagonists take a long journey, like a network of roads meeting and cutting

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themselves, meeting again, passing each other, coinciding or simply running

42 Ex Machina,
parallel. Going west (from Quebec to Toronto, then to Vancouver), the char- Archives.
acters head towards this Orient they will reach nowhere but in themselves,
43 Quoted in Mark Taper
an Orient made of their own fears and of their dreams … a lost paradise that Forum, Los Angeles
could probably mean the meeting of their own mortality.42 Festival and UCLA
(1990), Program: The
Dragons’ Trilogy,
Like many voyages, Jeanne’s, Françoise’s and Pierre’s journeys, both into September 1990, p. 8.
their past and themselves, involve language. French, English, Chinese and
44 Sherry Simon,
Japanese are spoken simultaneously, sequentially or in combination. In ‘Robert Lepage and
several scenes, notably the first one, the audience hears the same lines the Languages of
spoken in Chinese, as well as in either French or English. The play opens Spectacle’, in
J. Donohoe and Jane
with a disembodied voice saying, in three languages, ‘I have never been to Koustas (eds.), Theater
China’. Deliberately heavy accents also suggest the underlying presence of sans frontières: The
another language. Hence, the Chinese laundry owner’s line, ‘The store is Dramatic Universe
of Robert Lepage,
burn’, is understood by the English shoe salesman as ‘A star is born’ sug- Lansing, MI:
gesting confusion not only of languages but also, ironically, of cultural Michigan State
landmarks. Actress Marie Michaud explains, ‘For example, simple linguis- University Press,
2000, p. 215.
tic confusion between “the store is burned” understood as “a star is born”
points to one of the themes of the Trilogy: the desirability of an end to the
inevitable clash of commerce between nations, societies and a celestial
unity’.43 However, the comical aspect of this exchange and confusion, and
it does generate laughs, hints at something far less noble, namely the
Englishman’s xenophobia and imperialism. As there is neither an original
nor a target language version of the play nor, for the most part, at least in
early productions, any translation during the production, the audience,
experiencing several cultures and languages simultaneously, must remain
on the interface rather than on either side of the source/target linguistic or
cultural divide. Even in recent productions during which surtitles are
used, the public is still exposed to several languages simultaneously. (The
recent published version includes passages in French, English and
Mandarin.) In this way, Lepage bypasses or deforms the filter of translation
thus destabilizing traditional notions of identity and translation: his work,
wherever it is produced, is not Quebec theatre in translation but interna-
tional and transcultural theatre that works on the interface and depends
on the interference of languages and cultures. According to Sherry Simon,
Lepage’s productions ‘challenge the idea of translation as transmission, to
replace it with a concept of translational culture’.44 Indeed, it is frequently
the incomprehensibility of the spoken words, their sounds, their disorient-
ing effect on the audience and their determining role in a power relation-
ship that motivates the production. Furthermore, the inaccessibility of
language forces the spectator to rely on the other languages of theatre
which Lepage uses so ingeniously.
However, it is important to note that multi- or plurilingualism in
Lepage’s theatre is not intended to be an arbitrary combination of dis-
parate languages, a passing acknowledgement of Canada’s or Quebec’s
multilingual, multicultural status nor a simple political statement about
the status of French and francophones in a multi- or plurilingual nation. It
is to be rather, as Patrice Pavis argues for the case of Peter Brook, Ariane
Mnouchkine and Eugenio Barba, a careful and deliberate sifting of signs
and ideas comparable to the controlled passage of grains of sands in an

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45 Patrice Pavis, Le hourglass. Pavis qualifies this as intercultural theatre. Spectators are
Théâtre au croisement required to position themselves at the interface, in the between zone, not
des cultures, Paris: in an effort to become the Other but rather to appreciate the interaction
José Corti, 1990,
p. 217. between the familiar and the foreign or, indeed, in the case of Lepage,
between two or more foreign cultural signs, histories and languages. Pavis
46 Karen Fricker, The
Globalisation of Robert
states, ‘Pour comprendre la culture étrangère source, le spectateur ne doit
Lepage: Québécois pas se transplanter en elle, mais se situer par rapport à elle, assumer la dis-
Cultural Politics and tance temporelle, spatiale, comportementale entre les deux’.45
Contemporary Theatre
Practice, Ph.D. Thesis,
However, both the model and the multicultural theatre described by
Trinity College, Pavis are open to question. The legitimacy of Lepage’s assuming of the
University of Dublin , Other’s voice in an effort to represent, and indeed perhaps to appeal to, a
2005, p. iv.
global audience is debatable. As Fricker notes:
47 Rustom Barucha,
Theatre and the World:
The global circulation of Lepage’s productions throws the ambiguity of these
Performance and the
Politics of Culture, representations of otherness into particular focus. Because the difficulty in
London and locating a stable subject position is central to contemporary understandings
New York: Routledge,
1993, p. 14.
of individuality, his stories of characters searching for self-knowledge have
considerable appeal among privileged Western audiences. But differing
48 Jennifer Harvie,
responses to his representations of ethnic otherness indicates the risk of
‘Transnationalism,
Orientalism, and assuming a unified discursive community where no one exists. This disparity
Cultural Tourism: La of response brings home the dialectical relationship between the global and
Trilogie des dragons
the local and underlines the crucial role that context plays in the reception
and The Seven Streams
of the River Ota’, in of cultural productions.46
J. Donohoe and Jane
Koustas (eds.), Theater
sans frontières: Essays
Similarly, just as Rustom Bharucha attacks Peter Brook’s and others’
on the Dramatic appropriation of Eastern theatre describing it as a ‘continuation of colo-
Universe of Robert nialism, a further exploitation of others’,47 Jennifer Harvie, in an article
Lepage Lansing, MI:
Michigan State
significantly entitled ‘Transnationalism, Orientalism and Cultural Tourism:
University Press, La Trilogie des Dragons and The Seven Streams of the River Ota’, denounces
p. 123. Lepage’s use of the East as ‘a vehicle for Western fantasies, denying the
49 id., p. 111. East’s own autonomy and self-determination’.48 She accuses Lepage of
adopting a ‘tourist gaze’ in a production that ‘engage[s] Orientalist
50 Ray Conlogue,
‘Dragons’ Trilogy from East/West binary constructions that are probably disruptive’.49 Lepage
Quebec, Exciting, may indeed be keenly aware of the ‘kitsch China clichés’ he is staging and
Innovative Theatre’, rather than promoting them, would seem to seek to expose, exploit and
The Globe and Mail,
3 June 1986, D9. even explode them. As Ray Conlogue observes:

Cultural values range from sentimentalized kitsch to profound philosophical

differences, an idea seen in a delicate and extraordinary scene where old
Wong remembers China. Blinds are drawn in the parking lot hut and
shadow puppets of a sailing junk and a house are seen by candlelight. The
images are kitsch – a Chinese junk, a house like a pagoda – but they are real
to Wong, and they are fading. In the end, he burns the paper junk and the
paper pagoda.50

However, cultural stereotyping, particularly when Quebec, non-Asian

actors are asked to portray Chinese and Japanese characters, remains
problematic. Indeed, the 2003 version addresses, though perhaps does not
entirely resolve, this problem by introducing non-Quebec actors of
‘authentic’ origin: Crawford is played by Tony Guilfoyle, a Brit, and Yukali

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by Emily Shelton of Japanese origin. Discussing the evolution of his own 51 Quoted in Jim Burke,
role, British actor Tony Guilfoyle notes: ‘Making a
Connection’, Metro
(North-West),
In the 1985 version, this guy was a romanticised ideal of an Englishman 8 November 2005.
abroad. That’s fair enough if he’s an individual, but if he is a manifestation of
52 Karen Fricker, ‘La
colonialism, then you want to portray that. And our perceptions of colonial Trilogie des Dragons’,
powers have changed. So now my character comes into it quite young and Variety, 23–29 June,
full of energy, falls in with opium dealers and, rather like a great empire, slips p. 23.
into decline.51 53 Diane Pavlovic and
Lorraine Camerlain,
‘Le Québec des années
The extent to which cultural stereotyping and problematic (mis)represen- 1980: éclectisme et
tation of the Other are indeed overcome by changes to the cast and text exotisme’, Canada on
remains, as Karen Fricker contends, debatable. Indeed, she argues that Stage, 1991.
this merely highlights the issue: 54 Karen Fricker, paper
presented at ‘Quebec’
Conference, Dublin,
The point of contention here has always been to what extent the naiveté and February 2006.
objectification that central characters Jeanne and Françoise initially exhibit
toward both the Chinese and English emigrants to their community is actu-
ally endorsed by the production itself. The view of outside cultures presented
is initially built from a limited group of images and stereotypical behaviours:
mah jongg, tai chi; the stooped opium-smoking, gambling China man; the
efficient but prissy Brit; the exquisite geisha. There is definite progress indi-
cated, however, toward a more rounded and complex vision of the non-
Quebécois characters, underlined here by what appears to be conscious (and
sometimes overbearing) overacting of the national clichés early on. In this
context, the casting of one English and two [sic] Asian actors to play the for-
eign roles (the original cast were all white Quebeckers) feels like a misstep: It
makes literal what the production seems otherwise at great pains to point
out are externalized, distant impressions of otherness.52

This altered state of Otherness in the remake of the production merits

study. As numerous critics, scholars and practitioners have noted, the ini-
tial production was a pivotal moment in Quebec theatre. Rather than
focusing on nationalist issues, Ex Machina did indeed take Quebec theatre
out of dark kitchens and smoky taverns. Lepage was not, however, the
only playwright to do so. Diane Pavlovic notes:

Dans les années 1970, le projet théâtral coïncidait avec un projet de société:
les artistes semblaient investis d’une mission et servaient volontiers la cause
du nationalisme, de l’indépendance. … Avec la fin des grandes causes, la
fonction proprement politique du théâtre a connu un recul certain. …
N’étant plus réunis dans un même projet, les démarches artistiques se sont
éparpillées et proposent chacun de son côté, des métaphores plus générales
sur la condition humaine.53

Furthermore, as Fricker noted,54 the remake of the production took place in

a radically transformed Quebec. The Quebec language laws, the Canadian
Multiculturalism Act of 1988 and the adoption of the Refugee Protection
and Immigration Act in 2002 changed and challenged the place of immi-
grants in Quebec and Canadian society. In addition, the political voice of

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55 id.
the néo-québécois population, as observed disparagingly by Jacques
Parizeau when he blamed the defeat of the 1995 referendum partially on
56 This is a reference to
Marco Micone, Gens
the ethnic vote, as well as this group’s literary voice, as noted by numerous
du silence, Montreal: scholars discussed above, had radically transformed the cultural and politi-
Québec/Amérique, cal scene. Indeed, as Fricker argues,55 critical response to the remake of The
1982.
Dragons’ Trilogy emphasized its value as a monument, a memory in Quebec
57 Jane Moss, theatre as suggested, for example, by titles such as ‘Je me souviens’
‘Immigrant Theater:
Traumatic Departures
(Boulanger) or the ‘Dragon’s Come Home’ (Whiting) rather than its con-
and Unsettling temporary relevance. Exoticism, the tourist gaze or the well-intentioned
Arrivals’, in Susan efforts of the ‘insiders’, ‘dedans’, to portray the ‘étrangers’ appeared dated
Ireland and Patrice
Proulx (eds.),
in 2003 Quebec in which the ‘étrangers’ had already found their own place
Textualizing the and role ‘dedans’.
Immigrant Experience Furthermore, ‘néo-québécois’, immigrant writers or ‘écrivains migrants’
in Contemporary
Quebec, Westport, CT:
had established their voice on the Quebec stage. Marco Micone, Wadja
Praeger, 2004, p. 77. Mouawad, Pan Bouyoucas, Abla Farhoud, Alberto Kurapel and others
58 Abla Farhoud, Les
earned renown and audiences in their arguably more authentic voicing and
Filles du 5–10 –15c, staging of the minority presence and frequently traumatic experience. As
Carnières, Belgium: Jane Moss notes:
Lansman, 1993, p. 3.
Taking their lead from Micone,56 immigrant playwrights have dramatized the
anguish of exile, the pain of prejudice, and the humiliation of being poor and
foreign. … For some, the stage has provided an arena for the reenactment of
traumatic memories of political violence and a place in which to bear witness
to the victims left behind. For most, theatre has served as a public forum in
which to portray alterity and métissage. Immigrant theatre thus reflects the
social and cultural transformations that have accompanied demographic
changes in the province, claiming a space for itself and thereby redefining
québécois theatre as an important post-national site of representation.57

Farhoud’s Les Filles du 5-10-15, first staged in 1986, begins with the
following haunting passage:

Cher Papa, chère Maman … Non je ne peux pas dire ça … ça sonne faux en
français. Je recommence, …Ya bayé, ya immé … ana Kaokab, tout ce que je
veux vous dire Amira va vous le traduire. C’est trop difficile pour moi de vous
parler en arabe.58

The language mix here is not, however, an insider’s attempt to embrace

the Other, as is arguably the case for Lepage whose representation of the
outsider is indeed suspect: ‘I have never been to China.’ Rather, Kaokab’s
voicing of both her Quebec and Lebanese self, and of the importance of
language especially with relationship to her parents, is an authentic
expression not of the blending and harmonizing of cultures as Lepage
would have us believe possible, but rather of the tension and trauma
inherent in physical and cultural uprooting. The code switching here is
not a staged expression of alterity from a ‘québécois de souche’ perspective
but rather an authentic testimony of the difficulty of living between two
shores, cultures, societies and languages. Farhoud, like Alberto Kurapel
whose plays combine English and Spanish, invites the audience to experi-
ence the dark, or underside of multiculturalism. Moss notes:

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Plays by immigrants staged the difficult process of integration into Quebec 59 Moss, ‘Immigrant
society and opened up Quebec theatre to other languages, other collective Theater: Traumatic
memories and identities forcing francophone Quebec to acknowledge the Departures and
Unsettling Arrivals’,
xenophobic isolationist tendencies of Quebec nationalism.59 p. 25.
60 Scene 3, quoted in
Indeed, Farhoud’s Monique/Kaokab in Jeux de Patience states the price of Moss, ‘Immigrant
acculturation and assimilation: Theater: Traumatic
Departures and
Unsettling Arrivals’,
J’ai appris à disparaître, à me fonder, à oublier. Je gagne ma vie dans une p. 70.
langue empruntée, une langue où je ne peux pas crier. Les cris n’ont pas le
61 Taras Grescoe, Sacré
même son. Ni la plainte. J’ai emprunté une langue et j’ai prêté mon âme. J’ai Blues: An
vécu entre le déchirement de la mémoire et le déchirement de l’oubli.60 Unsentimental Journey
through Quebec,
Toronto: MacFarlane,
If in the 1980s The Dragons’ Trilogy was recognized as being somewhat Walter and Ross,
before its time, the remake was perhaps past it. It was no longer necessary, 2001, p. 132.
or even perhaps acceptable, for someone who had ‘never been to China’ to 62 Tom Cardy,
assume the minority voice. Néo-québécois or immigrant playwrights once ‘Evolution of the
‘étranger’, but subsequently ‘dedans’, had transformed Quebec theatre in Dragon’s Play’, The
Dominion Post,
the meantime. It is indeed possible that Lepage himself welcomes this 10 March 2006, B7.
openness. Commenting on the narrowness of Quebec politics, life and cul-
63 New Zealand
ture, he jokingly stated in a 2000 interview, ‘Quebec is a closed incestuous International Arts
society that I am proud to be a part of.’61 Festival, The Dragons’
There is no denying the ongoing power and presence of The Dragons’ Trilogy (programme),
March 2006.
Trilogy. Its capacity to continue to fill theatres speaks of its importance as
a major event in Quebec theatre. And Lepage and company are to be com-
mended for their xenophile efforts to interpret the minority, Other, voice.
Nonetheless, the root in both xenophile and xenophobia remains ‘xenos’,
the outsider or foreigner, thus maintaining the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dimen-
sion; the legitimacy of Lepage’s claim to represent and stage the minority
is somewhat questionable in a society in which minorities have found their
own voice both on stage and elsewhere.
In a 2006 interview in which he comments on the New Zealand pro-
duction, Lepage discusses the evolution of The Dragons’ Trilogy. He
observes:

After four years, we pretty much thought that The Dragons’ Trilogy was writ-
ten so then we put it to rest and went on and did tonnes of other stuff.
However, audiences that saw The Dragons’ Trilogy in those first years would
have a hard time recognising the play that will be staged in Wellington. Like
the way the West sees China, the play has changed.62

As the above description suggests, Lepage’s contention that the production

would be unrecognizable is decidedly debatable: the only major changes
occur in the third dragon and these focus essentially on only one character,
the British shoe salesman. More significant, however, is Lepage’s comment
on the Western gaze. The ‘imaginary China, made of myth and a mess of
miscellaneous rubbish: Tao, Yi King, mah jongg, tai chi, Chinese laundries
and Chinese food, Tintin and the Blue Lotus, ying, yang, “chin chin” and
Made in Hong Kong’63 remains. Arguably significantly absent, however, is
representation not of the ‘new’ Western gaze, which Lepage claims is

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64 Karen Fricker, Ph.D. indeed staged, but rather of the gaze of the Other, of the néo-québécois or
Thesis, Trinity immigrant and of the staging of an authentic experience of alterity.
College, University of
Dublin, 2005, p. 3. It is important to recall, however, that this production is, in spite of the
changes, a remake reflecting therefore more the original inspiration of the
65 Jane Moss,
‘Francophone 1980s than the current reality of 2000, and Lepage’s more recent work
Drama’, in Eva Marie suggests a different direction. Fricker notes, ‘Lepage becomes a stage on
Kroller and Carol Ann which Quebec projects its desire to be a realised, globalised, successful
Howell (eds.), The
Cambridge History of nation.’64 Like other Quebec dramaturges such as Carole Frechette, Larry
Canadian Literarture. Tremblay or Yvan Bienvenue, whose theatre, as Jane Moss contends,65
forthcoming. addresses issues of spiritual and emotional emptiness and the relationship
between language and identity in postdramatic theatre for the expression
of the postmodern condition which is staged frequently on an indeter-
minate, non-Quebec landscape, Lepage’s focus is no longer on the
Quebecker, of whatever origin, in Quebec. Indeed, in the most recent
instalment of the Lepage ensemble, The Andersen Project, the artist has
returned to a solo performance in which the Quebecker is decidedly the
minority voice overwhelmed by the dominant, intimidating and foreigniz-
ing presence of the Other, or several Others, represented by the French
opera director, Andersen himself and the ‘Eurovision’ in which the Quebec
artist is asked to play a role with which he has neither familiarity nor
affinity. It is indeed plausible, therefore, that Lepage’s new stage is indeed
the one on which the periphery has moved towards the centre, on which
the roles of outsider and insider are blurred if not reversed and on which
another Other, no longer the minority immigrant voice in Quebec but
rather Quebec on the global stage, is now projected.

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Suggested citation
Koustas, J. (2006), ‘Staging the/an Other: The Dragons’ Trilogy Take II’, International
Journal of Francophone Studies, 9: 3, pp. 395–414, doi: 10.1386/ijfs.9.3.395/1

Contributor details
Jane Koustas served as the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at University
College Dublin, 2005–06. She is a professor in the Department of Modern Languages
and Literatures at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, where she also directed
Canadian Studies. Her research interests include English-Canadian literature in trans-
lation, translation theory and practice, translation history in Canada, Quebec theatre
and theatre translation. She is the co-editor of two books, Robert Lepage: Théàtre sans
frontières: Essays on the Dramatic Universe of Robert Lepage with Joe Donohoe and
Vision/Division: l’oeuvre de Nancy Huston with Marta Dvorak. She has published numer-
ous articles in journals such as The University of Toronto Quarterly, Quebec Studies,
Theatre Research in Canada, Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction and Annuaire théâtral.
Professor Koustas has served on the jury of the Governor General’s Literary Awards,
the Quebec Writers’ Federation Translation Award and the International Impac
Dublin Literary Award.

Contact details
Department of Modern Languages, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario L2S
3A1, Canada.
E-mail: Jkoustas@brocku.ca

414 Jane Koustas