Spirit Horse a meaningful ride into the west
Hayden Taylor transforms play about racism against Roma to Stoney Nation
Angelina and Jesse are caught between their Stoney Nation Nakoda heritage and urban environs. When their grandfather suddenly appears with a horse that materialized to him, a quest begins to find answers to how to find courage and spread love in a complicated family.
If the plot of Ojibway playwright Drew Hayden Taylor’s play Spirit Horse sounds vaguely — or very — familiar, there is a reason for it.
“This is probably the least DHT play of mine out there because I was actually hired to adapt the Greg Banks’ Irish play Tir Na N’Og about Irish Gypsy or Travellers, Roma,” said Hayden Taylor.
“The play was a hugely successful adaptation of the film Into the West, but it was felt that the racism against Irish Gypsies and the horse culture might not resonate as well with Canadian audiences.”
Racism against Indigenous peoples and the number of nations whose horse connection runs deep was a far more familiar idea to bring forth the moving storyline. Hayden Taylor chose to set the tale in the culture of the Stoney people of Alberta. He says that it was quite a difference from his usual output of “kitchen sink dramas” and original stories. Spirit Horse is a Roseneath Theatre production that the company has produced numerous times since its 2016 debut.
“It went from being Irish Gypsy to Indigenous Canadian, with more than a bit of heavy sanding and tweaking to make two very divergent cultures — Irish and Gypsy and Albertan and Stoney Nation — work in the context of the story,” he said.
“Although there are clearly many themes that crossed both groups; love of horses, fathers, storytelling and magic realism, to name a few.”
The self-described “blue-eyed Ojibway ” artist is in no way part of the Stoney Nation cultural group. So the playwright consulted at length with a Stoney Nation elder to be sure to get key elements in the story right.
Even with ocean and more than half a continent’s distance between the original source material and the retelling, the magical realism in both Tir Na N’Og and Into the West similarly appears in legends of the Canadian plains.
It was essential that the end result rang of authenticity.
“I consulted with an elder, Sykes Powderface, who told me a legend from his people about the magic lake in the mountains, which I was able to incorporate into my story of the two kids whose grandfather is a champion rodeo rider that brings them this horse to their apartment in the city,” he said. “Obviously, that won’t work and the authorities come and take the horse away, but the kids are attached to it and break the horse out and adventure ensues on the way to that magic lake.”
The key to the storyline is the quest. But in every adaptation, it comes down to distilling the essence of the original without too much matching content. Other- wise, you may as well produce the source play. Hayden Taylor said a lot of thinking went into establishing the family dynamics and relationships to reflect Indigenous lives rather than those of the Irish story.
“For instance, the father in the original is heartbroken about the loss of his wife and is a drunk,” he said. “The father in mine is also heartbroken, but is sick.”
As an artist known for hard hitting non-fiction such as Funny, You Don’t Look Like One (1998), with its three subsequent volumes, or fiction such as the Governor General’s Award in Fiction-nominated Motorcycles and Sweetgrass (2010), Hayden Taylor might appear more at home hitting his readers with something meatier than children’s theatre.
Not so, he says. His first produced play, 1989’s Toronto at Dreamer’s Rock, was geared toward young people as were Girl Who Loved Her Horses (1995), The Boy in the Treehouse (2000), Raven Stole the Sun (2004) and others.
He says that the creative process is roughly about the same writing for kids or adults. It’s teen theatre that’s hard.
“I happen to think that navigating life as a teen and high school was certainly a more stressful period for me than almost anything in my adult life, and that is true for so many,” he said. “A lot of people think you have to simplify the story to reach different aged audiences and you really don’t want to do that with teens. Basically, you just need to use some different techniques to tell the same thing, like cooking the same recipe slightly differently each time.”
Spirit Horse is a “little/big work.” The cast — Rain Richardson, Brendan Chandler and Lisa Nasson — play over 65 different characters in the tale. The stage is stripped-down and uses inventive design to recreate the adventure’s multiple locations. Onstage musician Emilyn Stam performs the original soundtrack as an added bit of imaginative setting.
“There’s a fair bit of magic and mysticism in the story, which is always an interesting part of writing and appears a lot in my work,” he said. “It opens up chances to do intriguing presentations too.”
Specifically, the play is about energy.
“It’s about horses and races and rodeos and extended chases,” he said. “And in this production, it becomes a very physical work with lots of energy and action. It’s really a lot of fun.”
Fun or no, age 8 and above is the recommended audience for Spirit Horse. It’s a Drew Hayden Taylor play, which means that challenging themes, intense moments and high-stakes scenes of action and adventure will all be presented as directly and honestly as can be.
For more information into the biography and creative output of Drew Hayden Taylor, his website drewhaydentaylor.com is a great place to begin. A busy fellow, he still finds time to get in a good laugh or two and the excerpts section of his site appears well oriented to the humour in his often serious writing and theatrical work.
There’s a fair bit of magic and mysticism in the story, which is always an interesting part of writing and appears a lot in my work.