After winning over audiences in Toronto and the Carrefour de théâtre de Québec last year, author and performer Cliff Cardinal will be at the Festival TransAmériques (FTA) starting June 1. He presents his intriguing show there, a variation around Shakespeare that addresses the fate of the First Nations.
William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, A Radical Retelling is shrouded in mystery. Above all, don’t expect a classic version of As You Like It, but rather a free and open interpretation of Elizabethan comedy. A play about love, friendship, power and betrayal, against a backdrop of reconciliation to heal the wounds of Indigenous peoples.
In the interview, Cardinal doesn’t want to reveal too many details about his “radical re-reading of the Bard’s play,” to quote one Ontario critic. When asked why he chose this work from the repertoire, he answers: to attract the public to the theater! “Especially the very wealthy viewers. They like Shakespeare a lot, but they don’t travel to see Cliff Cardinal…”
In order not to spoil the surprise, Cardinal also refuses to reveal the distribution. He will announce it each evening, just before the performance. He only confides that he sent invitations (without answers) to well-known personalities in Quebec, such as Jean Leloup, Jean Charest, Ken Dryden, Robert Lepage, Sophie Cadieux and “his little sister” Anne-Marie! “And I play a small part,” adds the comedian from the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
Shakespeare’s story seems secondary in this Crow’s Theater production. The actor and director addresses issues related to colonization, the occupation of territory and racism. Among the artists who inspired him, Cardinal cites George Carlin and Richard Prior. Storytellers who tap into personal anecdotes and break the fourth wall to captivate audiences.
As You Like It takes place in a forest, a space of freedom where anything goes. It’s about exile, identity, feuding brothers, jealousy, betrayal… “I use the piece to look at the relationship between white people and First Nations, but also with new immigrants,” says he without further details.
Does it deliver a political and militant message?
Indeed, Cardinal finds the companies’ messages on “recognition of unceded Indigenous territories” sounding “fake and phony”. “But if it can get more Indigenous artists into cultural institutions in Canada, why not? »
We have to believe that things are moving in this direction. William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, A Radical Retelling is on the list of finalists for the Trillium Book Award in 2023, the most prestigious literary award given to Francophone and Anglophone authors in Ontario.
“Yeah, I saw that, but I won’t win. Anyway, I will not go to the awards ceremony, I already have something that evening.
– What day is it ?
– I don’t know. »
Decidedly, Cliff Cardinal stands out in the Canadian theatrical landscape.
The 2023 edition of the FTA offers a few shows that highlight the stories and perspectives of Indigenous peoples from here and elsewhere. “These stories are essential to the making of the present, and the future cannot do without the living knowledge of the land that these peoples have preserved,” reads the FTA website. From May 24 to June 8, we can see among others Vástádus eana – The answer is the territory, by choreographer and director Elle Sofe Sara; Soliloquio, an ode to the multiple identities of Argentines, by Tiziano Cruz; and Qaumma, by Vinnie Karetak and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, two Innu artists from Iqaluit.