Originally started at Theatre Northwest, Isitwendam (An Understanding) comes back to Prince George fresh off its world premiere in Toronto.
The play follows the story of Brendan White, a half Ojibway, half-white, young man who is hired by Aboriginal Affairs to discredit a residential school survivor’s claim, which turns his whole world upside down. It’s an uplifting, powerful and often humorous one-person performance.
“This production is a collaboration of about a decade’s worth of work between myself and Jack Grinhaus,” explains CBC’s Burden of Truth star Meegwun Fairbrother, who takes on all nine roles in the play accompanied only by audio and visual elements.
Grinhaus, Fairbrother’s co-creator, is also the former artistic director of Theatre Northwest. Fairbrother says he and Grinhaus developed the play as a response to the residential school apology by Stephen Harper.
“When we were first working on the play, we were trying to find a word for 'sorry' or the concept of 'sorry' and we couldn’t. We didn’t have it in the Ojibway language. It just wasn’t in the worldview,” says Fairbrother.
“The closest thing to that worldview was: that one is connected to their actions and the consequences of their actions and one has to acknowledge that. So that is Isitwendam — you understand what you did and how you grow as a human being.”
Fairbrother’s father was a victim of the residential school system. He says creating the play allowed him to work through a lot of anger.
“I’m trying to bring my heart to the piece and I’m hoping that when people come to the show, they are bringing their hearts too so that we can create bigger circles. That is what this show is about for me, creating circles rather than division.”
He notes that all of that is packaged in a very entertaining piece with music, dance, song and Indigenous sign language and some really fun characters, who are embodiments of differing Canadian perspectives.
“We had all of these Canadian perspectives come into our understanding of the issue, so those perspectives then became people and we put them into bodies and put voices around them.”
Fairbrother says performing Isitwendam feels like a gift to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities alike because it allows for dialogue to take place in a really engaging way. He also added that performing the play back in Prince George at Theatre Northwest feels like a homecoming.
“We developed the first initial workshop presentation of this here, in this space, so it feels full circle — coming back home and finishing out the creation that we started here and now get to show on a bigger scale,” says Fairbrother. “This land and area are very important to me. It is like a second home.”
Isitwendam (An Understanding) runs from Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, to Sunday, Feb. 23, 2020, at Theatre Northwest. Tickets are available online.
“I just want to thank Prince George for all of the support and the love that I have been shown here while I am working,” adds Fairbrother. “We all love this land so it’s about creating those circles.”
