‘Play’ing to stereotypes in Dead Writer performance

Audience appreciates Native humour in Drew Hayden Taylor’s work

February 4, 2010: Volume 37 #3, Page A18

Six stereotypical First Nation characters garnered a standing ovation Jan. 29 at Magnus Theatre.

“It was great,” said Elliot Doxtater-Wynn after the world premiere of Drew Hayden Taylor’s Dead White Writer on the Floor.

“Great characters. When you have two ensemble casts it really adds to the texture of the story.”

Dead White Writer on the Floor playwright Drew Hayden Taylor checks out the set prior to the Jan. 29 world premier at Magnus Theatre in Thunder Bay.
-Rick Garrick - Wawatay News

Taylor’s play featured the six stereotypical characters, Tonto, Injun Joe, Billy Jack, Old Lodgeskins, Pocahontas and Kills Many Enemies, playing their traditional roles throughout the first act and roles portraying their own chosen destiny throughout the second act.

“It was just fabulous,” said Stella Rose Osawamick-Hogan. “The cast was just great – every one of them. I just laughed through the whole (play).”

The six characters discovered the dead white writer on the floor in the first act and set out on a journey to shed their literary personas and follow their dreams of taking their place in the real world.

“I’m thinking about my own life and my own experience as a Native person,” said Seine River’s Ira Johnson, explaining how he played Old Lodgeskins in the play. “It’s mixed with the character, my own personality, so it’s very natural for me.”

Johnson said he was thankful Magnus Theatre gave him the opportunity to perform in the play.

“It was my first time doing a live theatre show - it was a great experience,” Johnson said. “It’s really broadening my scope, as a stage performer as well as a musician and an entertainer.”

Corinne Fox said she loved Taylor’s play.

“I was probably laughing the hardest,” Fox said, adding she appreciates the efforts of Magnus Theatre to present a First Nation play each year. “A lot of people who don’t get inside Native humour and the issues probably wouldn’t appreciate it as much.”

Taylor said Native people have always have had to deal with stereotypes perpetuated by the media.

“At the end of the first act, they (the six characters) all decide they are tired of being stereotypes,” Taylor said. “They want to determine their own destiny, their own direction and their own reality, so they decide to rewrite their own stories and become what they want to become.”

Taylor said the play is an exploration of stereotypes and choosing your own destiny and following your own path.

“I like to use a lot of humour in my work,” Taylor said. “One, because it is funny, and two, because I think humour is very integral to the Native culture.”

Taylor said he wants people to have a good time and come and laugh at the stereotypical characters.

“By embracing these stereotypes, I think I am depowering them,” Taylor said.

Taylor also wants people to sit there and ponder the second act.

“I think it poses some interesting questions I don’t give an answer to,” Taylor said.

Renellta Arluk, an actor from the Northwest Territories who played Pocahontas found the play to be “really fun and interesting.”

“It’s very political,” Arluk said. “Old Lodgeskins talks about a powerful story and that the story teller may die but the story remains.”

Arluk said the real story and essence of Pocahontas was lost because of how Pocahontas was portrayed in the Walt Disney story.

“All we know about her is that she saved John Smith,” Arluk said. “We don’t know what happened to her after that. We don’t find out that she actually married another man.

“We don’t find out what happened to her – it was very fairy tale.”