Two new plays make awesome theatre

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Two new plays opened within two days of each other in Toronto this last January, and epitomized the healthy state of Native theatre in Canada.

The first play, The Trickster of Third Avenue East, is an auspicious debut for first-time playwright Darrell Dennis, while the musical Rose is the long-awaited third instalment to Tomson Highway's Wasaychigan Hill saga that started with Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move To Kapuskasing.

The Trickster of Third Avenue East is the debut play from Shushwap actor Darrell Dennis. If you want to put a face to the name, he played Frank Fencepost on the TV series The Rez and was the dancing Native guy in the Out of the Blue ad that parodied the Village People's "YMCA."

Like I said, this is his first play, and it's an awesome one.

Trickster is a tight, fast moving, three-hander that revolves around Roger, a chronically unemployed, alcoholic writer; Mary, his waitress/actress girlfriend; and the Trickster, who strolls into their lives and proceeds to screw around with them. The play is funny, tragic and, when the Trickster really wants to show his stuff, surreal.

Ryan Black as Roger and Michelle St. John as Mary are gripping as a young couple clinging desperately to a failing relationship. Things are really tough for these two. Roger can't even get a job interview any more, his writing isn't selling, he's drinking too much and he's hawking anything that isn't bolted down just to put food on the table. Mary's acting career is over before it gets started, and, to top it all off, she's pregnant. But wait, it gets more interesting when Billy Merasty, as the Trickster, strolls into their lives.

The Trickster is full of promises, both real and fantastic, and the resulting chaos forces Roger and Mary to confront the ghosts of their pasts.

Dennis, however, doesn't go for the easy ending. Roger and Mary will not live happily ever after just because they've had cathartic moments, but you do know that their lives are now their own and they realize they can survive.

This is a very, very strong debut for Dennis and we can look forward to more good material from him in the future. It is fitting that we see the work of an emerging Native playwright just as a pioneer in contemporary Native theatre, Tomson Highway, is premiering his new play.

Even though he may disagree with this statement, contemporary Native theatre in Canada wouldn't be as strong as it is without Highway. He founded Native Earth Performing Arts, and then wrote two hugely influential plays, Rez Sisters and Dry Lips, which made all of Canada take notice of Native theatre. Highway dreamed of a cycle of seven plays on and about the people of the fictional reserve of Wasaychigan Hill. It was a grand dream, but few people doubted him after the success of the first two plays left everyone impatiently waiting for the third.

They waited and waited. Highway had a new play, Rose, completed, but no one wanted to produce it, which was more because of the sad financial nature of Canadian theatre than because of problems with the play. Early readings proved that the play and the music were both very good. But it had 19 characters!

Most Canadian playwrights rarely write any script that needs more than four actors if they want to get produced in this country, and here Highway had written a grand opus that would test the financial courage of any Canadian theatre.

It would take the University College Drama Program of the University of Toronto to take Rose off the page and put it on the stage ten years after the premiere of Dry Lips. It was a long wait, but worth it. In this third instalment of the Wasaychigan Hill saga, Highway seamlessly blends satirical comedy with low-down brutal tragedy, and blends bopping, energetic songs with intense satire in an emotionally satisfying roller coaster. It is theatrical magic from beginning to end. The emotions swing from the extreme: an unborn baby screaming to be born while her mother is stomped repetedly on the stomach, to the surreal: dancing avocados and male swimsuit models waving huge phalluses. All of this, believe it or not, works so wonderfully that you don't realize the play has a running time of more than three-and-a-half hours.

Rose centres around two struggles: Emily Dictionary's struggle to lay the ghosts of her lesbian lover and her unborn daughter to rest; and a battle between the men and the women of Wasaychigan Hill over building a casino in the community hall. Some characters from the previous two plays are back: Big Joey, Zachary Jeremiah Keechigeesik, Pierre St. Pierre, Gazelle Nataways, Creature Nataways, Hera Keechigeesik, Philomena Moosetail, Annie Cook, Emily Dictionary, and Veronique St. Pierre.

The young cast, all but one non-Native, rise to the challenges of this script. Thirteen-year-old Alana Brascoupe, who plays the ghost of Rosetta Dictionary, Emily's unborn daughter, is the only Native cast member. Highway anticipates that this might be an issue, and is quoted in the program as saying "When I look at people, I see either kind people or unkind people. The color of their skin doesn't matter."

Normally I would agree, but not this time. Ironically, the fact that a mostly white cast is portraying Native people so well and so honestly intensifies the power of this play. It goes against my belief in casting according to race: that is, Native characters should be played by Native actors, but I can't deny what I experienced.

The Trickster of Third Avenue East runs from Jan. 19 to Feb. 12 at the Poor Alex Theatre, and Rose runs from Jan. 21 to Feb. 5 at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse.