The only way to truly walk in another person’s shoes is through art.
Lisa Nasson’s Mischief, premiering in the Neptune studio theatre to Oct. 12, draws us into the heart and soul of a contemporary Mi’kmaw woman who has lost her passion and her path.
Set during the protest in Halifax over the statue of city founder Edward Cornwallis, this powerful, emotional and comic play is a wonderful mix of contemporary politics, Mi’kmaw culture and a ghostly visitor.
Brooke is an angry, sarcastic young woman working at her uncle’s convenience store in a First Nations community near Sheet Harbour.
She bristles against her easygoing, comic uncle Chris and sides with Tammy, a highly emotional woman active in the Cornwallis statue protest. When a mysterious Mi’kmaw elder from the 1700s appears as a ghost in the store’s back room, she is forced to confront her rage and grief and to discover her own powerful self.
Brooke’s journey – in a co-production featuring a remarkable set and amazing use of video projections and sound – goes from comic and pointed to gripping and heartbreaking. The two hour play with a 15 minute intermission has a powerful, uplifting ending and got an immediate standing at a recent matinee.
Yolanda Bonnell is magnificent as the ancient spirit Emily, playing her with a booming voice and commanding, warm presence. Emily is comic, warm and in physical pain, the source of which is a mystery until the play’s end.
As a troubled, mainly reactive young woman, Brooke (Lisa Nasson) is the least colourful character; she is the one seeking identity while the people around her are fully themselves and larger than life. Chris and Tammy, as written and perfomed, have highly defined and entertaining personalities. The energy coming off of Jeremy Proulx as Uncle Chris is amazing. Trina Moyan is also highly vivid and engaging as the ultra emotional and fiesty Tammy.
Nasson gives Brooke a lot of pent-up energy and deep feeling while Devon MacKinnon is very accomplished as two very different characters, the racist Fisherman Fred and Good Guy.
All the cast members are new to Neptune except for Nasson, a Mi’kmaw theatre artist from Millbrook First Nation who has performed widely at Neptune and won a Merritt Award as a member of the ensemble in Dear Rita.
This production is a collaboration among Neptune Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts, Toronto, and Tarragon Theatre, Toronto. It has a tremendous creative team firing on all cylinders: director Mike Payette of Tarragon Theatre; associate director Joelle Peters of Native Earth Performing Arts; set, costume and video designer Andy Moro, whose use of ocean and bone imagery is so compelling; lighting designer Leigh Ann Vardy; sound designer Maddie Bautista; stage manager Ferne Hudson with apprentice stage manager Laurie Fleet; regalia consultant and builder Tayla Paul and smudge man Mitchell Saddleback.
It’s always exciting to see theatre set in and about Nova Scotia and it’s courageous of Nasson to dive right into the divisive debate over the statue.
The Mi’kmaq peacefully protested against the statue, removed by city council in 2018, because of Cornwallis’s scalping proclamation that offered a cash bounty to anyone who killed a Mi’kmaw person.
Nasson gives her audience a chance to not think but to feel and internally experience the Mi’kmaw perspective and pain and that’s a tremendous gift. She also celebrates the power of Mi’kmaw women, a resilient community and a culture quick to use humour.
Tickets are available at the Neptune Theatre Box Office at neptunetheatre.com or by calling (902) 429-7070.
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NS reviews 
I agree. My friend and I saw this production, which is very well done.
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