Rez Christmas Series parodies classic holiday family film

Saskatoon production also focuses on issues such as holiday loneliness

The beloved Christmas film Home Alone is being turned on its head for a local theatre production in Saskatoon.

The upcoming show Alone @ Home is being put on at the Gordon Tootoosis Nīkānīwin Theatre as part of their Rez Christmas Series that returns every year. The show is a parody spin on the holiday classic film Home Alone, where a kindly grandmother (or Kohkom) is left at home and has to confront two robbers trying to break in.

Cory Dallas Standing, who plays one of the Kohkoms that appears in the show, said this show is a comedy — but said they also address more serious themes like abandonment and loneliness during the holidays.

“We know some elders who didn’t have kids, or whose kids moved away and didn’t come home,” Standing said. “We address that, being home alone at Christmas time.”

Alone @ Home opens in Saskatoon at the Broadway Theatre on Dec. 4 and runs to Dec. 8, but the show is also going to be doing some travelling. Standing said one of the first shows will be taking place up north in La Ronge on Saturday before coming back to the city.

They will also be travelling to more show venues throughout the province after their last show in Saskatoon, performing until Dec. 14.

“It’s really fun performing at the Broadway because it’s such a large audience, but I really like ... seeing the different communities,” he said.

Standing said travelling to some of the First Nations in Saskatchewan to perform was one of the highlights of being part of the show in the years he’s performed.

As someone who’s loved theatre since he was a child, Standing said he remembers what it meant for him to watch Indigenous performers in the Rez Christmas series when he was younger. It’s the same kind of feeling he hopes to pass along to other young people who come out to see the show.

“To me, it was like watching a sitcom, but they finally had the humour I grew up with, being on the reserve when I was a kid,” he said. “I never had that representation ... it was finally something for me.”

The Rez Christmas Series was created by playwright Curtis Peeteetuce, and has for years featured the recurring characters of three Kohkoms played by a number of different actors.