Pawakan Macbeth hits the Dekker Centre Feb. 12. (supplied photo/Kali Weber)

By Keaton Brown

reimagining a classic

Pawakan Macbeth making only Saskatchewan stop at Dekker Centre in February

Jan 27, 2020 | 5:00 PM

An Indigenous re-imagining of a Shakespearean classic is on its way to the Dekker Centre next month.

Pawakan Macbeth was written by Indigenous playwright Reneltta Arluk, who uses traditional storytelling and contemporary theatre magic to translocate Macbeth into Cree Territory in 1870s Alberta.

The play is set before the numbered Treaties were signed, when Plains Cree allied with Stoney Nakoda, and at war with Blackfoot over territory, food, supplies, and trade. The Canadian government was making its way West with Sir John A. MacDonald as its leader.

The harsh environments brought immense fear, starvation, and uncertainty together to awaken the darkest of Cree spirits, the Wihtiko, a being with an insatiable greed.

The play explores Cree language, history, stories and cosmology. It asks what does it mean to be human, and what makes a human vulnerable to the Wihtiko.

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Arluk was inspired by working with the youth of Frog Lake First Nation, and shared stories from elders in the Treaty 6 region to create a journey through love, greed, honour and betrayal, with coyote howlers teaching us resurgence requires balance.

Kali Weber, general manager of the Dekker Centre, said the performance will be the only Saskatchewan showing of the play.

“We’ve been working on it since [opening the Dekker Centre]. So to be the only place with this sort of groundbreaking new show in our province is very exciting,” she said.

Weber said it has always been a priority of the Dekker Centre to present Indigenous works.

“I think it is very important to present Indigenous work created by Indigenous artists. The cast and crew is made up entirely of Indigenous people, which is really quite exciting,” she said.

The Dekker Centre will also be hosting local area schools for a matinee performance of Pawakan Macbeth. Weber said they were excited to have an opportunity to reach a younger audience.

“I hope for them that they get to see a play that they may have read and studied presented in a new way. To have a piece of theatre that is potentially new and groundbreaking that takes an old classic play written by Shakespeare and presents it from an Indigenous perspective is really quite interesting,” she said.

Pawakan Macbeth will take the Dekker Centre stage on Wednesday, February 12 at 7:30 p.m.

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Keaton.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow