“Mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes…eh?”
An intriguing and uniquely Canadian interpretation of William Shakespeare’s King Lear is now being showcased in Ottawa. The play has been adapted many different ways, but never by an all-aboriginal cast.
August Shellenberg has been dreaming of this production for decades. He’s had a goal – for a native to play the main character. “The first play I ever saw in my life was King Lear at Stratford 1964… And I said then, ‘When I’m old enough, I’m going to play King Lear,” he told Global National‘s Mike Le Couteur.
Nearly 50 years later, Shellenberg’s dream is finally a reality.
The language in his production is familiar, but the setting and costumes are different.
“Some costuming is European and some of it is Algonquin – which is what we’re trying to portray – and we have the Four Nations Exchange (an aboriginal community group) as the followers – who’ve brought a great deal to the show.”
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The original Lear is set in 16th century England, but this interpretation takes place at the time of first European contact with North America, on the Algonquin territory – now known as Ottawa.
Director Peter Hinton says, “Shakespeare was writing for a Jacobean audience – a play about the formation, division, and unity of his own country, and so it’s interesting to me in a 21st century to look at this play in our own Canadian first contact history.”
“The play asks questions: Who owns land? Who divides land? How do you measure the land with love, with authority, with governance, with justice?”
They are questions natives and non-natives continue to wrestle with today, and that’s why many of the aboriginal actors feel this performance is so personal.
“There was a lot of reliving – not only what our ancestors went through, but what’s happening now. That struggle for land and water and resources,” says Monique Mojica, who plays Goneril.
“There’s more pressure because it’s one of the first national productions… We’re colliding cultures and stories and histories – and that’s quite a different thing to grapple with.”
The actors hope audiences see that aboriginals can do the classics – just like anyone else. “We can do Tennessee Williams, we can do Shaw, we can do Shakespeare, we’re not relegated to playing native roles all the time,” Schellenberg points out.
“Shakespere’s plays are about relationships between people and that can be done in any language, by any actor,” adds Jani Lauzon, who portrays The Fool.
But beyond that, they want people to take home a very important social message. “We’ve got to start changing our world view about how to take care of this land and we have to do it together – otherwise we may not be here anymore,” Lauzon says.
“It’s one of the things that makes it immediate. The language is about land division – and it’s not like that subject has gone away,” she says laughing.
The performance has been running all month at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and will wrap up at the end of the week.
With files from Global National’s Mike Le Couteur
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