Director says he’ll meet play critics

MONTREAL — Quebec director Robert Lepage says he is willing to meet with people who are opposed to one of his upcoming shows because it does not include Indigenous performers.

About 30 people signed an open letter in Le Devoir on Saturday to denounce Lepage for the absence of Indigenous actors in the show called Kanata.

The show, which claims to explore Canada’s history “through the lens of the relationship between white and Aboriginal Peoples,” will be performed in Paris in December by a French acting group.

The criticism comes shortly after a run of Lepage’s play SLAV was cancelled in Montreal amid accusations of racial insensitivity because it featured few black actors.

Nakuset, the executive director of the Montreal Native Women’s Shelter, who signed the letter, says she is surprised Lepage would not include Indigenous actors in Kanata.

“We have strong, strong, strong Indigenous actors and directors … there are tons of people who can do it,” she said in an interview Monday.

“When it’s someone who is Indigenous sharing their story, it is so much stronger and more powerful.”

Nakuset also said Lepage is doing a disservice to the Indigenous community as well as the people who are going to buy his tickets.

“People who don’t know us, romanticize us, so they’re going to this show and they’re going to see people with braided wigs and they’re going to ask for their money back,” she said.

Lepage also said he consulted someone in the Indigenous community about Kanata, but that claim came as a surprise to Nakuset.

“We’re all like: who? where?,” she said. “Montreal is a very small community and we’re all trying to figure out who he consulted with.”

She also added that Kanata was already in production even before the outcry over SLAV.

Nakuset plans to attend the meeting which Lepage has proposed for Thursday when Paris theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine will be in Montreal.

Lepage is also offering to meet with representatives of a group opposed to SLAV before the next time it is presented in Quebec, early next year. But a spokesman for the group said Monday it had not yet had any formal contact from Lepage.