The Dragon's Trilogy, Barbican, London
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Your support makes all the difference.That said, The Dragon's Trilogy is an early work, from 1985, and now briefly restaged by him for the Barbican's Young Genius season. There's a beautiful core simplicity about the set's long strip of grey gravel, with a small, mysteriously glowing kiosk at one end. Simultaneously, his intimate yet epic story interweaves the lives of three generations of Québecois, English and Oriental characters - embracing love, business, art and opium - across continents and the 20th century. On the downside, though, Lepage's brilliant inventiveness is only glimpsed in flashes here, including a poker game played out in tense, slapping drumbeats and, a pilot-turned-stalker terrifyingly crashing into the kiosk where his victim cowers. Elsewhere, Lepage hadn't hit his stride, with some sentimental and self-indulgent sections, naff choreography and crass symbolism - not least a huge phallic and vaginal rope dance. For those who have seen his more mature work, this is time travel in the wrong direction.
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