Voicing Individuality: Creating a Hybrid Identity in First Nations Theatre
The four plays reviewed here concern First Nations characters who wrestle with conflicting identities. All of the plays succeed in challenging what Robert Appleford calls the “limiting definitions of the authentically Native” (71) by shifting Native discourse and creating a unique hybrid identity. D...
| Published in: | Canadian Theatre Review |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
2007
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ctr.129.015 https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ctr.129.015 |
| Summary: | The four plays reviewed here concern First Nations characters who wrestle with conflicting identities. All of the plays succeed in challenging what Robert Appleford calls the “limiting definitions of the authentically Native” (71) by shifting Native discourse and creating a unique hybrid identity. Darrell Dennis’s two plays focus on young urban Aboriginals who struggle to have their own distinctive Native voice in an environment that expects them to behave in a stereotypical, traditional “Indian” way. The characters struggle to balance the tension between their urban identity and their Native heritage. The plays by Penny Gummerson and Constance Lindsay Skinner concern characters who attempt to find a synthesis of their interracialness once they discover they arc part Native. |
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