ACCIDENTAL WOMAN VERSION 0.02.2 SERIAL

ACCIDENTAL WOMAN VERSION 0.02.2 SERIAL

It’s based on the real-life case of Vancouver serial killer Gilbert Paul Jordan, the “Boozing Barber,” who murdered his victims – most of them middle-aged Indigenous women – through alcohol poisoning. But when it finally hits its stride in Act 2, it does ample justice to the script’s heady blend of raucous comedy, foreboding thriller and joyous reclamation of lost voices.įirst produced in Vancouver in 2000, 15 years before the federal government launched the national public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, Clements’s play is clearly due for rediscovery. Clocking in at three hours-plus with an intermission, it’s too long and suffers from some slack pacing, especially in the first act. That said, the production unveiled at the Babs Asper on Friday isn’t all it could be – and perhaps more than it should be. Its impressive cast of 11 actresses ranges from veterans (Monique Mojica) to rising stars (Yolanda Bonnell) and the director is Miguel, founder of the legendary Indigenous feminist Spiderwoman Theater. It’s a big, ambitious revival of the Métis playwright’s phantasmagorical tragicomedy, for which the Indigenous theatre, in partnership with its English counterpart, has pulled out all the stops. The takeover continues throughout this month with the Moshkamo Festival, a spate of Indigenous-themed programming, but the theatrical centrepiece is the Clements show. After that, everyone tucked into a community meal that included bannock and elk stew. He then led a procession into a packed NAC lobby for another traditional ceremony, the bestowing of blankets on four Canadian Indigenous theatre trailblazers – Marie Clements, Tomson Highway, Margo Kane and Muriel Miguel. Loring, a Nlaka’pamux from B.C.’s Lytton First Nation, was steering the first canoe.

The NAC sits on unceded Algonquin territory, and this was their way of giving a stamp of approval to the new theatre. On Saturday, a procession of canoes, paddled by members of the Algonquin and Anishinabek nations, made its way – whooping and waving – down the Rideau Canal to the NAC for a ceremony accompanied by drumming and prayers. It was a weekend filled with solemn ritual and high spirits.

Accidental woman version 0.02.2