Quebec theatre director Robert Lepage has responded to the group of Indigenous actors, writers, activists and artists from across the province, who raised concerns about his upcoming play, Kanata, in an open letter this week.
The letter’s signatories pointed out that while the play aims to tell “the story of Canada through the prism of relations between whites and Indigenous people,” no Indigenous actors or writers are involved.
“It kind of feels like a repeated story,” said Kim O’Bomsawin, an Abenaki film director who signed the letter, in an interview on CBC’s Daybreak Monday morning.
Lepage now says he and Ariane Mnouchkine, host of the Théâtre du Soleil in Paris, where Kanata will be presented in December, want to meet with the letter’s signatories on Thursday.
The news release sent by Lepage’s production company, Ex Machina, says he and Mnouchkine “closely read the letter,” which was published in Le Devoir Saturday.
Last week, Lepage’s play with singer Betty Bonifassi, SLĀV, was cancelled following outcries about its appropriation of African American slave songs and predominantly white cast.
He called the Montreal Jazz Festival’s decision to cancel the performances a blow to artistic freedom.
’We are super happy’
“We are super happy that they decided to open the dialogue,” O’Bomsawin said of Lepage and Mnouchkine. “I guess they’ve learned from the past controversy. And if they want to make things right, we’re here, we want to talk and that’s why we wrote this letter.”
In a statement released Friday on Lepage’s Facebook page, the director said that if it were up to him, the show would still be running. (Christian Côté/Radio-Canada)
O’Bomsawin said the concerns had nothing to do with Lepage’s artistic talent and that she feels the intentions behind the desire to tell stories of oppression are good.
“We’re always happy to have non-Natives being interested in what’s happening with us because we’ve been silenced for so long. So I guess we’re just fed up to hear people telling our story without even talking to us. “
She said Indigenous people were said to have been consulted on the play, but it’s unclear who.
“When you’re speaking about such important issues, such traumatizing issues, I think we need to be more than consulted.”
Meeting with SLĀV opponents
In the news release, Ex Machina says Lepage is now also willing to meet with the SLĀV Résistance collective, which published a petition against that show before it was cancelled.
The collective said it had not yet been contacted directly by Lepage, but is open to “having an exchange with honesty and respect.”