Timothy L. Hill and Dakota Ray Hebert in Salt Baby, which is being staged at the Belfry Theatre.
Comedy based in First Nations reaches a variety of cultures
What: Salt Baby Where: Belfry Theatre, 1291 Gladstone Ave. When: Thursday through May 13
Tickets: $19-$52 at tickets.belfry.bc.ca or 250-385-6815
Toronto-based Falen Johnson has been long been labelled a dramaturg, a theatre term used to describe an artist who handles multiple tasks at once.
The actor and playwright is now adding another title to her ever-expanding resumé. Johnson is directing Salt Baby — her semiautobiographical 2009 play about Indigenous identity — through May 13 at the Belfry Theatre, one of an increasing number of directorial assignments she has taken on this year.
Johnson, who is of Mohawk and Tuscarora descent, made her debut as a director in Toronto last year with Ipperwash, which she also wrote.
Salt Baby, which opens tonight at the Gladstone Avenue theatre, marks her second turn in the director’s chair, but it won’t be her last.
“I have another gig directing one of my own shows coming up later this summer,” Johnson said. “It seems to be the theme of 2018, me directing my own work. I think I’ll probably be sick of myself by the end of this.”
She’s relishing the opportunity, but with a slight sense of remorse. Yvette Nolan, who has directed Salt Baby up to this point, has gone back to school and wasn’t able to take on the Belfry run. Nolan’s exit marked Johnson’s entrance — to a certain degree, out of necessity.
“There aren’t very many female Indigenous directors of theatre in this country,” she said. “We’re sort of at a deficit. Michael [Shamata, artistic director for the Belfry] and Yvette decided it was time for me to take the reins and step up and learn the skill, and start to do that work, so that there can be more of us. You can probably count all of [the female Indigenous directors] the across the country on less than two hands.”
It was a role she accepted with pride, given how close she was to the subject matter.
“The people in Salt Baby aren’t damaged in the ways you might normally see Indigenous people being damaged on film or TV. It’s more about identity and what that means. It feels important to have an Indigenous woman on stage drinking a beer without making a statement about her being an alcoholic.”
The play takes its cue from Johnson’s own experiences growing up on the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, the largest First Nations reserve in Canada.
She also spent time in Brantford, Ont., which is predominantly white. The identity crisis at the heart of Salt Baby is a direct result of this rudderless period in Johnson’s life, which became a source of unintentional laughs.
“I didn’t set out to write a comedy. I set out to start writing, and then it turned out to be a comedy.”
The title character is played by Dakota Ray Hebert, whose slightly Caucasian features provide the play with a deep pool of questions that not even a DNA test can answer.
She is joined on Salt Baby’s journey of self-discovery by Colin Dingwall and Timothy L. Hill (who play her family members) and Nathan Howe (who plays Alligator, her boyfriend).
The quartet of actors excel in the arena of comedy, Johnson said, which was integral to the success of the play. She used humour as a way to have white audiences understand what life in Canada is like for those with a different colour of skin.
“At its core, it’s an identity story. We all go through that in our mid-20s, trying to figure out who we are in the world and what our place is. But it’s an absurdist comedy, because what seems absurd sometimes in the play is the reality for contemporary Indigenous people trying to exist in this country.”
During its decade-long run, Salt Baby has been staged in variety of locales, from Regina to the Yukon. The reception to it has been dramatic and emotional, Johnson said.
“It seems to resonate in whichever community we’re in. It’s not just a First Nations story. It’s very much a story that people from across many cultures can relate to. When I wrote it nine years ago, I wasn’t sure how long it would be relevant. I thought the idea of blood-quantum laws and Indigenous identity would start to sort itself out a little more, but it’s only become more complicated. It’s good for the show, but I don’t know what it says about the world.”