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The Aboriginal Presence in Canadian Theatre and the Evolution of Being Canadian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Helen Peters
Helen Peters
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of English, Memorial University, St. John's, Newfoundland.
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Extract

Skylight Theatre's productions of Shakespeare's The Tempest in Earl Bales Park in Toronto (1987 and 1989) situated Prospero on the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British Columbia, set the action during the late eighteenth-century voyages of Captain James Cook—the period of the area's colonization—and cast Ariel and Caliban as Haida Indians, Canadian Aboriginal people.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1993 , pp. 197 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1993

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References

Notes

1. Kinross, Louise, ‘His Tempest tossed by loss of West Coast way of life’, Toronto Star, 20 06 1989.Google Scholar

2. Skylight Theatre publicist John Karastamatis, quoted by Louis Kinross, ibid.

3. Prospero was played by Victor Young in 1987 and by Reineke, Gary in 1989.Google Scholar

4. See Off, Carol, ‘Heritage or Cultural Evolution: Federal Policy on Multiculturalism and the Arts’, Canadian Theatre Review, 56 (fall, 1988), p. 8Google Scholar, who quotes the relevant clauses: to a) promote the understanding that multiculturalism reflects the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society and acknowledges the freedom of all members of Canadian society to preserve and share cultural heritage; … f) encourage and assist the social, cultural, economic and political institutions of Canada to be both respectful and inclusive of Canada's multicultural character; … h) foster the recognition and appreciation of the diverse cultures of Canadian society and promote the reflection and the evolving expression of those cultures …

5. The Canadian Race Relations Foundation Bill was created to serve as a national resource for community groups, researchers and the general public to further understanding of racism and racial discrimination in Canadian society and to develop effective race relation policies and programs.

6. ‘News from Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada’, Intercultures Newfoundland: The Ethno-cultural Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, 05 1991.Google Scholar

7. Off, p. 5.

8. ‘Theatre and Ethnicity’, Canadian Theatre Review, 56 (fall, 1988), p. 3.Google Scholar

9. ‘Indian Theatre in the United States: 1991 An Assessment’, Canadian Theatre Review, 68 (fall, 1991), pp. 12–14.Google Scholar

10. ‘Appropriation and the Plastic Shaman: Winnetou's Snake Oil Show from Wigwam City’, Canadian Theatre Review, 68 (fall, 1991), p. 54.Google Scholar

11. ‘Allow Me to Introduce Myself: The Performance Art of James Luna’, Canadian Theatre Review, 68 (fall, 1991), p. 46.Google Scholar

12. Information given here comes from Canadian Theatre Review, 68 (fall, 1991 p. 91Google Scholar, ANDPVA and from various phone calls across Canada. In addition ot ANDPVA's Native Theatre School, other Canadian native theatre schools and companies include Cen'klip Native Theatre, Vernon, BC; Spirit Song, Vancouver, BC; Chadi K'asi Dance Theatre, Calgary, Alberta; Takwakin Theatre Edmonton, Alberta; Saskatchewan Native Theatre, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Awasikan Theatre, Winnipeg, Manitoba; De-Ba-fe-Mu-Jig Theatre, Wikwemikong, Ontario; Native Earth Performing Arts Inc., Toronto; A-Maize Theatre (children's theatre) Toronto; Ondinnok Inc, Montreal, Quebec; Native Theatre School, near Sackville, New Brunswick (now closed); Innuinuit Theatre Troupe, Nain and Davis Inlet, Newfoundland and Labrador.

13. Currently published Canadian plays include: Highway, Tomson's The Rez SistersGoogle Scholar workshopped by De-ba-je-mu-jig Theatre Company, West Bay, Manituolin Island, Ontario in February 1986 and first produced as a full production by the Act IV Theatre Company and Native Earth Performing Arts Inc. at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, November 1986; his Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing work-shopped at Playwrights' Workshop, Montreal in 1988 and produced by Theatre Passe Muraille and Native Earth Performing Arts at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, April 1989; Mojica, Monique's Princess Pocahontas and the Blue SpotsGoogle Scholar workshopped by Nightwood Theatre in a co-production with Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto in May 1989 and produced as a full production in the Backspace of Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, February-March 1990; McLeod, John's Diary of a Crazy BoyGoogle Scholar premiered by Native Earth Performing Arts at the Native Canadian Centre in Toronto in February-March 1990; Moses, Daniel David's Almighty Voice and His WifeGoogle Scholar read in a workshop at Banff Playwrights' Colony in Banff, Alberta, May 1990 and performed as a full production by the Great Canadian Theatre Company at the Great Canadian Theatre Company Theatre in Ottawa, September-October 1991.

14. ‘Another Glimpse: Excerpts from a Conversation with Tomson Highway’, Canadian Theatre Review, 68 (fall, 1991), p. 11.Google Scholar

15. ‘Angry Enough To Spit But With Dry Lips It Hurts More Than You Know’, Canadian Theatre Review, 68 (fall, 1991), p. 88–9.Google Scholar

16. See Goffin, Jeffrey, ‘Four Strong Winds: Native Theatre in Hobbema, Alberta’, Theatrum, 06/07/08 1990, pp. 23–5.Google Scholar This troupe has folded since the article was published.

17. Information of Innuinuit was given me in conversation by Lewis Byrne, co-director of the company. Not well known outside Newfoundland and Labrador, the company was formed in 1988 when the Inuit theatre group of Nain came together with the Innu group from Davis Inlet. Innuinuit has written and performed Manitou and the People, performed in Nain and Davis Inlet, 1988 and toured Newfoundland including Conne River and the LSPU Hall in St. John's, 1989; The Shaman, performed in Nain and Davis Inlet, 1989; My Blue Heaven, performed at the Canadian Forces Base in Goose Bay, 1990; Boneman-Kaiashits, performed in Nain and Davis Inlet, 1992 and due to tour to the LSPU Hall in St. John's in November 1992. Innuinuit is currently working on Happy Valentine's Day, a play on the deaths of six children in a house fire that occurred in Davis Inlet 14 February 1992. The play is due for production in 1993.

18. Art is Never a Given, p. 72.Google Scholar

19. ‘A Revolution in Aboriginal Theatre: Our Own Stories’, Canadian Theatre Review, 66 (spring, 1991), p. 8.Google Scholar

20. Quotations are from the Arden edition, ed. Frank Kermode, London: Methuen, 1954 (rpt 1976).

21. ‘A play of feeling and imagination not to be missed’, Toronto Star, 20 06 1989.Google Scholar

22. For potlach see Kan, Sergei, Symbolic Immortality: The Tlingit Potlatch of the Nineteenth Century, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, pp. 208–12.Google Scholar

24. See Dyck, Noel, What is the Indian ‘Problem’: Tutelage and Resistance in Canadian Indian Administration, St. John's: ISER Books, 1991, p. 83.Google Scholar

24. See Baker, Marie Annharte, ‘An Old Indian Trick is to Laugh’, Canadian Theatre Review, 68 (fall, 1991), p. 48.Google Scholar She continues the list of names for the trickster, ‘Manabozo, Nanabush, Wee-sak-a-chak, Iktomi, Cahkapes, Wichi-kapache, Te-hor-on-hi-a-wa-kon, Hmook-ums, Sinti, Hare, etc.’

25. Quoted by Wagner, Vit, ‘Was Shakespeare inspired by Pocahontas?’, Toronto Star, 06 16, 1989.Google Scholar

26. The Prospero–Caliban relationship is important to post-colonial fiction. Harris, Michael, Outsiders & Insiders: Perspectives of Third World Culture in the British and Post Colonial Fiction (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), p. 159Google Scholar, discusses George Lamming's view of Caliban as a representative of colonized or formerly colonized people in The Pleasures of Exile, Water With Berries and other writings.

27. ‘From the Centre of the Circle the Story Emerges’, Canadian Theatre Review, 68 (fall, 1991), p. 28.Google Scholar

28. ‘Theatrical Diversity on Turtle Island: A tool towards the healing’, Canadian Theatre Review, 68 (fall, 1991), p. 3.Google Scholar

29. Harris, , p. 183.Google Scholar

30. ‘Voice, Community, Culture, Responsibility and visible minority playwrights: Visible means of support’, Theatrum, winter 1990/1991, p. 13.Google Scholar