No pledges made to change Kanata

MONTREAL• A meeting between Quebec director Robert Le page and a group of activists who are concerned with a lack of Indigenous representation in his upcoming stage show ended without a concrete promise to change the cast, according to several people who attended.

Lepage and Paris theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine met for nearly six hours with more than 30 members of the Indigenous community who had signed an open letter last week denouncing the production Kanata, which will be performed in Paris by a French group in December.

According to a description on the theatre’s website, Kanata, will explore Canada’s history “through the lens of the relationship between white and Aboriginal Peoples,” but won’t feature any Indigenous actors.

Nakuset, the executive director of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, said the meeting ended without a commitment from Lepage to revisit the casting.

“It didn’t go well, it didn’t go the way we wanted it to go, and it just didn’t seem we were really being listened to,” said Nakuset.

The controversy comes shortly after a run of Lepage’s play “SLAV” was cancelled in Montreal amid accusations of racial insensitivity because it featured a mostly-white cast singing slave songs.

Nakuset said it appears a similar approach is being taken with Kanata. “They feel any actor can portray any race, they don’t have to be from that race,” she said.

Nakuset said she left the meeting early, and went home and cried.

But Andre Dudemaine, who directs the Montreal First People’s Festival, saw the gathering more positively.

“We were talking to each other from opposite riverbanks, but by the end it seemed the river had narrowed a little and we were hearing each other a bit better,” he said.