An exploration of one's ancestors. The play peels away the layers of a family’s oral history, moving from joyous childhood memories, to unspoken truths and the harsh secrets held by every family.
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2013, Signal Theatre, Banff, Alberta
2018
Playwrights Canada Press
978-1-77091-914-3
included in: Indian Act - Residential School Plays, Edited by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard.
included in: Indian Act - Residential School Plays, Edited by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard.
Historical
In February 1969, hundreds of students occupied a computer centre at what is now Montréal’s Concordia University to protest the mismanagement of a racism complaint lodged by Caribbean students against their biology professor. When an agreement to end the occupation fell through, riot police were called in, resulting in widespread damage, a mysterious fire, and nearly a hundred arrests.
Stylized
In eighteen hundred and something something, somewhere upon the banks of a Reddish River in Treaty One Territory, three very different women with a preference for twenty-first century slang sit in a fort sharing their views on life, love, and the hot nerd Louis Riel. Marie-Angelique (a Métis Taurus) is determined to woo Louis (a Métis Libra)—who will be arriving soon—by sending him boldly flirtatious letters. Eugenia (an Ojibwe Sagittarius), brings news of rebellion back to the fort after trading, but isn’t impressed by Louis’s true mediocre nature. And Cecilia (a pregnant British Virgo) is anxiously waiting for her husband’s return from an expedition, but can’t resist pining over the heartthrob Thomas Scott (Irish Capricorn), who is actually the one secretly responding to Marie-Angelique’s letters. This will all go smoothly, right? This lively historical satire of survival and cultural inheritance shifts perspectives from the male gaze onto women’s power in the past and present through the lens of the rapidly changing world of the Canadian fur trade.
