Trickster's mean side comes out in new play

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Trickster has been with us forever and has always fascinated us, perhaps because of his contradictory nature. He alternately disgusts, amuses, disrupts, chastises, and humiliates. Yet he is a creative force transforming our world, sometimes in bizarre and outrageous ways with his energy and cunning.

Trickster is also a survivor who uses his wits and instincts to adapt to the changing times. And now the vulgar but sacred Trickster is a game show host.

B.C. gets a chance to see this master showman do his stuff next month when the Kwimicxeni-Rainbow Theatre Players presents their original 70-minute play, Trickster's Wheel at the Firehall Arts Centre, 280 East Cordova Street in Vancouver, on Saturday, Oct. 6.

In this appearance, Trickster takes on many guises-big game hunter, cop, cowboy-and finally he reaches into his big bag of tricks to become game show host of The Wheel of Culture, a mock T.V. game show where contestants try to win back cultural objects that Trickster has taken from them previously in the play.

The contestants are multi-ethnic: First Nations, Oriental, Punjabi and African. In order to win they must answer a series of questions regarding their own cultures.

Naturally, the game is rigged. As the players fail to give proper answers to trick questions they end up losing their cultural objects into a melting pot. The memorable trick ending shows Trickster as a very mean character this time around, indeed.

According to Marlena Dolan, co-author of the play, "Trickster is quite mean, as racism is mean, and people can be so ignorant in a racist way without realizing it."

The play uses clowning, dance, storytelling, mime and music to examine ways in which society and history has created the cultural stereotypes that live with us today.

"These stereotypes prevent us from seeing other cultures as they really are," Dolan. "Stereotypes rob us of the opportunity to experience other cultures' rich diversity."

This theatrical examination of racism is presented in an engaging and humorous way by a cast who are primarily youth from Okanagan First Nations, a group known as Kwimicxeni-Rainbow Theatre Players. According to Dolan, who is also artistic director for Rainbow Productions Society, the Penticton umbrella organization sponsors the Native theatre group, there is a core of performing members of around 20 youth who mount one full production per year.

"The core group is going into its fourth year," Dolan said, "and they've established quite a resume of performances. The group is forever learning new technique and dance styles and putting together new performance pieces. The sophistication and polish of the Native group has earned them acclaim through their award-winning [Theatre B.C.] 2000 production, The Transformation of Elvis Goodrunner."

Rainbow Productions Society, the sponsor, is a non-profit society with a board whose members are of the Penticton community. The society and the Native theatre group work together through the arts to educate about important issues while also entertaining a general audience.

Something else of interest: the other co-author, Anna Marie Sewell, theatre artist and poet living in Edmonton and who is in turn artistic director of Alberta's Big Sky Theatre, won the 1999 Prince and Princess Edward Prize in Aboriginal Literature after being nominated by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Firehall Arts Centre is just around the corner from Main and Hastings. Tickets may be obtained by calling (604) 689- 0926.