Native theatre: More than just 'Poor me' stories

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When Cree playwright Tompson Highway began shopping his play the Rez Sisters around to theatre companies in Toronto almost 20 years ago, the response was always the same: Who would be interested in a story about seven women on their way to play the world's biggest game of bingo? Frustrated, Highway decided to produce the play himself.

The story, as Ojibway playwright Drew Hayden Taylor tells it, is that when the play premiered at the Native Canadian Centre in 1986, attendance was sparse, save for a few theatre critics. After the reviews came out, word spread and after weeks of giving away free tickets to get bums in the seats, the Rez Sisters captured the attention of theatre-goers who came out in droves to see what all the fuss was about.

Shortly thereafter, the production embarked on a national tour and became a huge success, going on to win prestigious industry awards, including the Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play of 1986-87. The Rez Sisters continues to grace the stages of theatres around the globe.

For many people, including Taylor, whose list of impressive works include the plays Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, Toronto at Dreamer's Rock and the Buz'Gem Blues, the Rez Sisters marked the beginning of the Aboriginal theatre movement.

Even though there had been what Taylor describes as "the occasional flare-up of Native performance in the theatrical community"-The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by non-Native playwright George Ryga in 1967 and October Stranger by the Association for Native Development at a theatre festival in Monaco in 1979-what made Highway's play unique was its fresh approach to storytelling.

"For one thing, there's no central character. It's an ensemble piece, coming from the concept of the Native community where the community's more important than the individual," Taylor told Windspeaker. "Each of the eight characters are equally important and have equally valid storylines...so it was that concept, and also concepts of different perceptions of conflict and just the full-fledged, interesting, larger-than-life characters that were very rich and very full."

He said Canada perceives Native people as being oppressed, depressed and suppressed. Highway's characters were "vibrant, they were sassy, they were clever and they were fun."

Despite Highway's success with Rez Sisters, it would take a while to tempt Native writers to look to the theatre as a venue for their artistic expression.

Taylor said that in 1988 when he was offered the job of playwright-in-residence at Toronto-based theatre company Native Earth Performing Arts by Highway, who was the artistic director at the time, there were only "two working Native playwrights in Ontario." Daniel David Moses had left the post. Taylor had only a few television writing credits to his name-including an episode of the Canadian classic the Beachcombers-but was given the job because Highway didn't want to return the grant funding the company got for the position.

"[Highway] was desperate, so he did what a lot of desperate people do. They go to the bottom of the barrel, and there I was passed out," joked Taylor. "I think, at first, I turned it down, and he explained the situation and the money and then I said 'Yes.' And I think I'm probably one of the few people you'll meet that went into theatre for the money."

Algonquin playwright Yvette Nolan is the current artistic director for the Native Earth Performing Arts. She is the author of acclaimed plays Annie Mae's Movement, Job's Wife and Video. For Nolan, seeing the Rez Sisters, and Highway's follow-up Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, helped to open her eyes to the infinite possibilities of Aboriginal theatre craft.

"It was inspiring, of course. It's such accomplished work. Like there's such complex, multi-layered and fantastical stories that it was like, 'OK, I can do anything,'" said Nolan.

Nolan began her writing career in 1990. After working for the Winnipg Fringe Festival, Nolan saw an opportunity for her to create her own work.

"It was bizarre. I had no role models in town. There were no other Aboriginal playwrights in Winnipeg .... All of the plays that I saw were really traditional... western European plays, so there's been a kind of journey that way, knowing the rules of that play writing, but also speaking to a different kind of reality."

As Taylor and Nolan started making names for themselves, Aboriginal theatre companies began springing up. Respected companies like the De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre in Manitoulin Island, Ont. was created in 1984. Saskatchewan Native Theatre was established in 1999. Professional development programs like the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto had opened their doors in the early 1970s, but really developed in the '90s. And the Aboriginal Arts Program at the Banff Centre in Alberta was launched in 1995. It was an exciting couple of decades for Aboriginal theatre.

But Taylor soon discovered that many Native plays he was seeing concerned themselves with the darker, historical side of Aboriginal existance.

The nature of drama is conflict, he said, so it made sense that most plays would deal with that aspect of the Native psyche.

"But it was my observations that most Native plays were preoccupied almost completely with the darker aspects to the point where it was offsetting to a lot of people. I remember on several occasions bumping into Native people coming out of a play who would tell me that they weren't going to see any more Native plays because they were tired of being depressed. And I just felt the need for the flip side... there are positive aspects to the Native theatre community, and that's being addressed now," said Taylor.

Still, there are expectations that need to be addressed. What makes a Native play Native?

Taylor said "there's no particular form of Native theatre" much like "there's no particularly Native way to boil an egg." But Nolan seems o think differently.

" I think a lot of what makes Aboriginal theatre is that Aboriginal people write it, Aboriginal people make it, Aboriginal people are telling the stories." Nolan has experienced what the reaction of an audience is like when they don't get what they expect.

"I did a performance in Holland two years ago and I did three pieces of my own and one of them was a monologue from Annie Mae's Movement and one was a short piece of mine called Video, which is about a bride in a wedding dress... Someone came up to me and they went, 'Well, that was really great, but that wasn't very Indian.' And it's like, well, it has to kind of be Indian, because I'm who I am. It's like I'm not allowed to talk about what a woman's life is like when she's getting married. 'That's what you think is not Indian? Is that it?' It wasn't very Indian," said Nolan.

When Native Earth presented the Art Show directed by Alanis King about the work of Odawa painter Daphne Odjig, the production was criticized by some for not delivering what was expected.

"[It] was really a play that animated the actual creative act of painting, of creating the work, so the actors played the paints ... and they became characters in Daphne's life and there was dance and it was hugely visual. And critics said 'Where was the Indian part of this? We never got to see the struggle of her losing this husband.' It was like their expectation precluded what they actually saw. They weren't interested in what they were seeing on the stage. They wanted to see how the Indian overcame her struggle. That's what they wanted to see. That's fine, that's valid, but that wasn't what the play was about."

Casting is another minefield for those producing Native plays. Highway has had to live with the harsh response to his casting choices for his most recent play Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout. He was criticized for casting two non-Native women to play Native characters. Critics felt they were "unconvincing" as Aoriginal women. Having seen many plays where the actors cast are of racial backgrounds different from the characters they are portraying, Highway felt there was a double standard for Native theatre.

During a speaking engagement at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival held in Edmonton this past June, Tompson Highway posed the question: "Why allow the Italians and the Danes and the Scots and the Australians, etc., etc. to cast shows any old way they want and you specify that this Native playwright, it's not just me, has to cast their shows only in a certain specific racial way?"

While Yvette Nolan believes in the idea of "color-blind casting," she said she is torn because she wants to keep Native actors working in Toronto.

"For me, it's a double-edged sword. Part of me wants color-blind casting, but I want all our Native actors, all the Native actors I use, I want them to be cast on all the stages of this town that I'm working in and I don't ever see them cast. Nobody casts them unless it says prostitutes, drunks, and then the Indians get cast...Tompson and I would love it to be color-blind casting everywhere, but I don't think we're at that point yet."

Drew Haydent Taylor said he finds himself "mellowing" on the rule of hiring Native people to play Native roles. While Taylor believes it's a good idea to hire Native actors because they may better understand the nuances of Aboriginal culture, he has been in situations where a Native actor has cancelled and a non-Native person was hired instead.

"In one production it was a Jewish woman. In another production it was a Chinese woman. They both did fabulous jobs and I have absolutely no criticism of the production. So, in that situation, given a choice between hiring somebody who does not have the training as an actress, or has very limited training as an actress, but is Native, over somebody who is an absolutely brilliant actor or actress, but is non-Native, I wouldn't go with a person with a status card.