Metis leader’s story has multicultural roots
Descendants of all four nations involved in writing expansive play about Dumont
In many ways, Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show has come home.
The National Arts Centre coproduction, which opened in Ottawa in October, has journeyed West where it’s now on stage at Persephone Theatre, practically within view of the iconic Dumont statue in Friendship Park. Less than an hour north are the battlefields of the 1885 Northwest Resistance.
The spark of the idea came from two Eastern francophones with storied careers in writing and the stage, Jean Marc Dalpé and Alexis Martin. They wanted to tell the story of the Metis but they knew they couldn’t do it alone.
“It can’t be two guys from the East telling the story,” says Dalpé. “From the very beginning, it had to be the descendants of all four peoples that were involved in this history — First Nations, Metis, French and English. Let’s get them around the table as writers.”
The first meeting was in Saskatoon with partners Gordon Tootoosis Nikaniwin Theatre and La Troupe du Jour. Ultimately, 10 writers contributed — Dalpé, David Granger, Laura Lussier, Alexis Martin, Andrea Menard, Yvette Nolan, Gilles Poulin-Denis, Paula-Jean Prudat, Mansel Robinson and Kenneth T. Williams, all with cultural ties to various aspects of the history.
“We live in the country that presents itself as this bilingual, multicultural, open society. But the reality is that we often live in silos and we don’t have very many places where we play together,” says Dalpé.
A cast of 10 multilingual actors performs the piece.
“It was an unruly thing — and in these times where the Indigenous and the non-Indigenous people are often at loggerheads about many things,” says Dalpé.
He couldn’t be happier with the result.
“For everyone who joined this, there was a great, great desire to work together. The real family is the artistic family, the theatre family. We can get along really well together. As they say, it’s a play, so we play together.”
After the resistance and with the capture of Louis Riel, Dumont crossed the border into Montana and joined the largest live show around, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. It was a mix of music, stunts and dramatic recreations — pure showbiz, boasting as many as 1,200 performers.
This show is structured in a similarly eclectic way, with an emphasis on comedic absurdity and satire. The “play-by-play” of battle, for instance, is narrated by Don Cherry.
“It’s completely wacky. The take was, let’s go with the wacky, let’s go with the wild. There’s never a fourth wall. It’s all addressed directly to the audience. It’s in the spirit of circus, vaudeville, comic numbers. Some of it is very, very over-the-top,” says Dalpe.
“Which doesn’t mean there aren’t very emotional, hard moments. Everything stops and we go ‘wait a minute, 10 people died that day. Let’s take that time.’ ”
After a recent run in Winnipeg, Dalpé said he’s noticed a difference in audience response.
“We’re finding out what works. Some things worked wonderfully in Winnipeg, some of it much better than in Montreal and Ottawa. Of course, the people know the story.
“You’re going to have to juggle. You have audiences that know nothing about it, you have audiences who know a great deal about it. That’s part of the great adventure, to see how people react. This whole project has been very much about meeting each other.”
It’s completely wacky. The take was, let’s go with the wacky, let’s go with the wild. There’s never a fourth wall.