Firehall Arts Centre premiere’s new play by Vancouver-based Indigenous writer Frances Koncan
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Women of the Fur Trade
When: Feb. 8-23, Wednesday to Saturday., 7:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 3 p.m.; PWYC, Wednesday, 1 p.m.; Matinee, Feb. 13, 20, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Firehall Arts Centre, 280 E. Cordova St.
Women of the Fur Trade is the latest work to come from UBC Creative Writing department assistant professor Frances Koncan.
The Salteaux-Slovene/Anishinaabe playwright and theatre artist from Ontario’s Couchiching First Nation, won the 2015 Tom Hendry award for best new comedy for her play The Dance-off of Conscious Uncoupling in 2015. This time, Koncan dives into the Métis Red River Resistance of 1869-1870.
Women and the Fur Trade won the Toronto Fringe Festival best new play award in 2018 and has its B.C. premiere at the Firehall Arts Centre.
Rather than dedicate the piece to the faceoff between Métis leader Louis Riel and the colonial powers, Koncan lets history play out through the lens of a trio of women discussing the rapidly changing world as they have tea in a room of an unnamed Red River fort.
“I grew up in Couchiching First Nation and Winnipeg and both places have a large Métis population,” said Koncan. “So the story of Riel and his affect on the founding of the province of Manitoba was something we all learned in school. But the way it was taught when I grew up in the 1990s is very different from the way it’s taught today. That got me thinking that it could make an interesting premise for a play.”
Koncan traces the traditional narrative of Riel’s fight for recognition and inclusion of Métis and Indigenous peoples with her own creation. Métis Marie-Angelique, Ojibwe trapper Eugenia, and European settler Cecelia provide a window into a woman’s world in the 1800-something something era.
Their observations provide an era-shifting look at social structures past and present.
“They are, literally, trapped in a fort they can’t escape from which is symbolic of not being able to fight or partake in the history unfolding around them,” said Koncan. “So they use second-hand stories, letters and so forth to tell the story with lots of direct and accurate quotation from Riel’s speeches and poetry, as well as putting some ridiculous things into his mouth. The language jumps around from past to present as well.”
The history of the great Canadian continental expansion is often told to suit dominant colonial narratives. This omits much, if not all, of the two sides of the story. Spinning another of the many grim Prairie tales that have graced pages, stages and screens in the past wasn’t of interest to the writer.
Koncan sees bringing inconvenient truths to light with comedy as more effective.
“I think comedy is the best way to access a real truth about a difficult situation, and I really wanted to infuse the play with that,” she said. “It touches on things that are very sensitive, but through humour. That gives it a little bit of comfort when you are dealing with difficult subject matter.”
The cross-country journey of the work has enabled Koncan to occasionally rework segments as new ideas or words came to light to her. She now finds the play to be in its best form.
“These texts can be reinterpreted over and over again depending on what is happening in the world at that time, but I am hands-off with it now,” she said. “I had done some other plays before this, but it’s the one that I feel really took off and established me. I’m really excited to see what goes on in the West Coast scene producing it.”
Firehall Arts Centre artistic director Donna Spencer will direct Women of the Fur Trade with assistant director Cheri Maracle. The cast includes Danica Charlie, Kaitlyn Yott, Kate Besworth, Wayne Lavallee and Evan Rein. The production continues the Firehall’s long history of presenting new Indigenous works.
“When I read the play, I really appreciated the subject matter, but I also loved the fact that it’s very funny,” said Spencer. “She looks at the perspective of the women watching it all play out while being powerless, as well as different views of Riel, as both hero and someone who was elected but chose to not participate in the government of the day. The different insights from the Métis communities puts the position of Indigenous people supporting the fur traders into a new light as well.”
Spencer also loves the way Koncan uses contemporary language and examples of “wise-men quotes through time” as well as fantastical geographic settings on the “Red-ish River” to bring a sense of magical realism to the storyline.
“Koncan has set it up so there are puppet characters who the women are having direct conversations with as well as themselves and it works,” she said. “It’s very funny. It’s also very dark, as Riel was hanged for reasons that are so complicated and questionable and need to be studied.”
Noting that there are all sorts of ways to deliver information that can keep people engaged, Spencer says voices such as Koncan’s are essential to expanding the content and voices to make great Canadian theatre.