PLAYING GAMES/THE GAME IN TOMSON HIGHWAY’S REZ CYCLE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12795/REN.2023.i27.10Keywords:
Tomson Highway, Canadian Theatre, decolonization, storytelling, sisterhood, the trickster characterAbstract
ABSTRACT: Award-winning Cree author Tomson Highway has created memorable characters for the stage and has continued to fascinate both theatre audiences and critics for decades. Set on the Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve, Manitoulin Island, Ontario (Canada), his Rez Cycle—The Rez Sisters (1986), Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (1989) and Rose (1999)—revolves around playing games, be it bingo or hockey, as a way of coping with the challenges of reserve life. Relying on decolonizing perspectives, this article demonstrates how practices such as storytelling and using humor promote solidarity on stage. Also, Highway’s characters are proven to be winners who have mastered the art of playing the game, that is, of following the rules of life and surviving inimical circumstances.
Downloads
Metrics
References
DARBY, Jaye T., Courtney Elkin Mohler, and Christy Stanlake. Critical Companion to Native American and First Nations Theatre and Performance: Indigenous Spaces. Methuen, 2020.
HAFEN, P. Jane. “Living to Tell Stories.” Stories through Theories/Theories through Stories: North American Indian Writing, Storytelling, and Critique. Edited by Gordon D. Henry Jr., Nieves Pascual Soler, and Silvia Martínez-Falquina, Michigan State University Press, 2009, pp. 27-41.
HAUGO, Ann. “Native American Drama: A Historical Survey.” Indigenous North American Drama: A Multivocal History. Edited by Birgit Däwes, State University of New York Press, 2013, pp. 39-62.
HIGHWAY, Tomson. The Rez Sisters. Fifth House, 1988.
HIGHWAY, Tomson. Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing. 1989. Fifth House, 2010.
HIGHWAY, Tomson. Rose. Talonbooks, 2003.
LANGSTON, Jessica (with Mike Chaulk). “Revolution Night in Canada: Hockey and Theatre in Tomson Highway’s Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.” Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches théâtrales au Canada vol. 35 no. 2, 2014, pp. 169-84.
MAUFORT, Marc. “Staging the Ambiguities of Race: Polymorphous Indigenous Dramaturgies in Canada.” The Palgrave Handbook of Theatre and Race. Edited by Tiziana Morosetti and Osita Okagbue, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, pp. 81-99.
RABILLARD, Sheila. “Absorption, Elimination, and the Hybrid: Some Impure Questions of Gender and Culture in the Trickster Drama of Tomson Highway.” Aboriginal Drama and Theatre: Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English, vol. 1, edited by Rob Appleford, Playwrights Canada Press, 2005, pp. 4-31.
TAYLOR, Drew Hayden. “Alive and Well: Native Theatre in Canada.” Aboriginal Drama and Theatre: Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English, vol. 1, edited by Rob Appleford, Playwrights Canada Press, 2005, pp. 61-68.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Accepted 2023-12-06
Published 2023-12-20
- Abstract 137
- pdf 114
