Panel: (Re)Performing Stories and Histories

Traumatizing Drama - Dramatizing Trauma: The Residential School Legacy in Kevin Loring's Where the Blood Mixes and Drew Hayden Taylor's God and the Indian

There’s no time like the present, so idle no more! Simultaneously the name and cri de coeur of an Indigenous social justice movement, Idle No More was founded in protest of the Canadian government’s blatant disregard for Indigenous treaty rights as well as sovereignty and environmental issues. Organized and fueled by social media, their peaceful protests take the form of rallies and flashmob round dances. What this movement accomplishes via social media, the artist – the playwright in specific – achieves via the theatrical medium. In both cases, the result is the same: politically charged artistic expression. Thus, theater, historically considered “the most dangerous of all arts” (Wickham 11), serves as a platform for Indigenous playwrights such as Kevin Loring and Drew Hayden Taylor to tackle the highly sensitive and contemporary issue of the Indian Residential School legacy.Theatrical productions provide an ideal medium for dramatizing trauma by giving a voice to the silenced through the re-enactment of stories, which, according to Monique Mojica and Ric Knowles, are never “just stories” but also “essential ways of communicating memory, history, belief, and tradition” in First Nations cultures. Additionally, these stories require what Ojibway critic Christine Lenze has called ‘response-ability’ to material that is not understood to be ‘just’ fictional”
(v). Since part of the collective memory and history includes the experiences of residential school survivors, my proposal will focus on the healing potential of dramatic representations of trauma as well as on “response-ability” through the creation of a “critical Indigenous counter-narrative” (Alfred x). Part of this memory includes the traumatic experiences of residential school survivors. Therefore, my proposal will focus on two post-apology dramatic representations surrounding the aftermath of the residential school system: Kevin Loring’s Where the Blood Mixes (2009) and Drew Hayden Taylor’s unpublished God and the Indian (premiere in April 2013 at the Firehall Art Centre in Vancouver). Both playwrights offset the tragic overtones of their dramas with a healthy dose of humor as they send their protagonists on a journey from the present back into the past in search of the truth. Whereas Loring’s Floyd travels through his own personal purgatory to seek redemption and reconciliation with his long-lost daughter, Taylor’s Johnny Indian begins a slow descent into hell as he plans to take revenge on his former tormentor. The question remains whether Floyd and Johnny – both plagued by alcoholism, dysfunctional relationships, and haunting memories – will remain eternal victims or break the vicious circle and emerge as victors.