LAC LA BICHE - Shedding light on a national and international struggle between keeping Indigenous ways of life alive and adapting to European ways is a story that will be told this weekend by the Lac La Biche Players theatre group.
Cottagers and Indians is a two-person, one-hour play based on a true story that is ongoing in Ontario's Kawartha Lakes region where the Anhisnaabe from Curve Lake First Nation aim to have wild rice - a traditional food source - flourish again across the lake system as it did for generations. But, they come up with some local opposition.
Written by Indigenous playwright and author Drew Hayden Taylor, a member of Curve Lake First Nation, the interpretation by the local theatre club will be playing during the August long-weekend at the McGrane Theatre for four nights from July 28-31.
Local play
The wild rice known as “Manoomin” which translates into the “good seed” has caused tensions for the ‘Cottagers’ or non-Indigenous people who have had their leisure activities and lake-side properties taken over by the hundreds of acres of the rice growing wild in the lakes. The City of Kawartha Lakes is a rural municipality of more than 79,000 people. About two per cent of the population of the region is identified as First Nation, Métis or Inuit, according to Statistics Canada.
The struggle between the Indigenous residents trying to keep their culture alive, especially through food security, and the cottage owners around the lakes is a theme that people can relate to everywhere, says Chantel Quintal, the Lac La Biche Players’ director, and a generational Métis resident in the area.
“It’s a play that’s pretty significant all across Canada. It’s a play about reconciliation and a lot of the deep misunderstandings between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people,” she said. The play is a less pressurized version of the current events taking place and aims to create an understanding between the two parties through a dramatic, and sometimes comedic lens, that brings the two main characters to a mutual understanding after tensions rise, she added.
“A lot of honesty, a lot of conversations you don’t hear that happens behind closed doors," said Quintal, explaining that any humour in the writing is not intended to take away from the real issues that need to be addressed. “It’s so much more a drama than it is a comedy. It’s a drama that uses humour.”
First Indigenous play
Quintal, who is not new to directing and putting together a play for the local theatre company, says the Cottagers and Indians will be a milestone as it is the first Indigenous play the group has ever put on, making the story that much more important.
“I’ve done a few with the Lac La Biche Players but this is my first Indigenous story,” she said, excited at the prospect.
With a dedicated theatre team putting on the two-person, cathartic play, she says it took an entire team to digest, interpret, and put the story together for all the viewers who will attend the shows. Quintal says although the stage will only feature the two main characters, the Players team is in the foundation and delivery of the production.
“It’s a two-person play… but we all worked through the play together. We discovered the play together. We blocked it together, and we go through all the emotions together as a team… It’s really an emotional piece,” said Quintal.
Local importance
For Quintal, it has been about more than introducing a great play to the area. She says growing up in a lake community where Indigenous people have lived for generations, finding a play that could connect with the challenges of not having a suitable lake to live off of or use, is a story she wanted to highlight.
“I chose this play because I’ve been trying to find a way to express how I feel about Lac La Biche Lake and the health of the Lake. I found a play that was closest to what I was feeling,” she says from watching the Lac La Biche lake take a decline throughout her almost 40-year lifetime experiencing the changes.
“In my lifetime, I have seen the decline of the lake steadily getting more and more unhealthy… these are some of the things the character Arthur says in the play — the Indigenous man. He says a lot of similar things like: ‘The lake doesn't look the way it used to look like, my father wouldn’t recognize it.’ There are a lot of themes in the play that really ring true for a lot of Indigenous people I think.”
Moving forward, Quintal hopes to see more Indigenous-themed plays come to fruition in the community for all to enjoy, feel, learn from and cast local Indigenous talent, she said.
“Hopefully this is the first of many Indigenous plays in the community. I hope to have another one next year. It’s exciting for me as an Indigenous person to be able to advertise for Indigenous roles in the theatre, on a main stage,” she said.
The Lac La Biche Players aim to host at least three plays every year moving forward, said Quintal. After Cottagers and Indians wraps up, the theatre group will begin casting calls for a comedy - a British-themed farce called The Play That Goes Wrong - ready for the stage this October.
To buy tickets or for more information, visit the Lac La Biche Players’ Facebook Page
