Noticing the lack of positive energy being represented on stage or in literature, Drew Hayden Taylor, rather than complain or whine, decided to deal with contemporary Native issues in a more positive way. Taylor’s God and the Indian, showing at the Firehall Arts Centre (May 20–30), is a story about Johnny, a Cree woman in her late forties, and her chance encounter with an Anglican priest who abused her many years ago in a residential school.
Taylor wrote God and the Indian as a response to Yvette Nolan’s – then artistic director of Native Earth performing Arts – challenge to write something “serious as possible.”
A little annoyed, Taylor says he went home and wrote the most depressing thing he could think of: the residential school issue.
“It was a darker topic than others I’ve worked on,” says Taylor.
Positive energy
God and The Indian, a play of survival and atonement. | Photo courtesy of Firehall Arts Centre
The vast majority of stories coming out of the Native community when Taylor first started out in Native literature were “oppressed, depressed and suppressed.”
Taylor, who hails from the Curve Lake First Nations in Ontario, is an award winning author of numerous plays, novels and publications.
Taylor’s latest creation is such a serious topic, yet still has elements of humour to keep the audience engaged.
“It’s humour that has allowed us (Aboriginals) to survive 500 years of colonization,” says Taylor.
Taylor says he has been lucky to travel to over 130 Native communities across Canada and the US where he was greeted “with a laugh, a smile and joke.”
“You can bang on the front door and people will ignore you, or you can go in the back door with a smile and be welcomed,” says Taylor.
A conversation: Actor and audience
Lisa C. Ravensbergen plays Johnny and says the character, at first read, can easily be played ‘two dimensionally,’ but that wasn’t interesting or realistic for the actor.
“She’s (Johnny) a survivor, as well as whip-smart and very trickster-like,” says Ravensbergen.
Getting the role of Johnny was really about the right timing and circumstance.
“My curiosities led me through the script looking for clues – past and present – that would help flesh out a woman who is rooted in her heart and in her spirit, and in a past and a future full of hope,” says Ravensbergen.
Originally from Manitoba and Ontario, Ravensbergen says it’s an honour to raise her son on unseated Coast Salish territory. What she loves about the theatre is the ‘middle ground.’ It’s when an actor brings what they know of a particular story and the audience brings whatever their knowledge is and it all comes together.
“In an hour and a half, we have a conversation where the audience is invited to be open to new truths or to reaffirm their own,” says Ravensbergen, who has been acting professionally since 2001.
Finding (dark) humour
Award-winning author Drew Hayden Taylor. | Photo courtesy of Firehall Arts Centre
Even though no one in his direct family ever attended residential schools, for his research, Taylor spoke with a lot of Aboriginal people and read a lot of literature. He even visited some residential schools that have been reclaimed by Native people or torn down.
“It’s impossible as a Native person in Canada not to be touched or aware of what happened,” says Taylor.
Taylor originally wrote God and the Indian as a play for two men but says there weren’t any older men available at that time to play Johnny. It was suggested a female character replace the male one.
“At first I was hesitant because I wrote what I wrote…but it opened up new and dynamic questions (with a female character),” says Taylor.
Taylor points out theatre is fun, collaborative work: where the writer provides the blueprint (an example: for a house) and the actor puts in the dry wall, the furniture – finishing the house.
“I’m excited to see what she’ll (Ravensbergen) bring to the character of Johnny,” says Taylor.
Taylor says Johnny is a woman who was victimized and doing her best to deal with it. From his research, Taylor learned many survivors are looking for acknowledgment of what happened to them.
God and the Indian is a play in which Taylor says he didn’t want to hide anything.
“I want the play to be like a courtroom drama. Go in and give the evidence, and the audience leaves the play having learnt something, and having been on an emotional journey and thinking who’s right and who’s wrong,” says Taylor.
For further information: www.firehallartscentre.ca
