How do you hold an audience accountable? Cliff Cardinal’s As You Like It premiered in Toronto the day we moved to London, so I didn’t get to see it. . . but it was hard to avoid the furor it caused amongst Canadian theatregoers and critics. Some adored it; others were appalled. And in a way, that was the point. Reminding comfortable middle class audiences in Canada of the things they do and say to make themselves feel better, without actually doing anything.
So when I saw that this show was coming to London for the LIFT festival, I was excited of course, but also intrigued. In Canada, audiences are familiar with land acknowledgements as a construct, and have at least SOME knowledge of the horrific acts against indigenous people. But how would this translate to English audiences? I’ve now lived here nearly 3 years (this time around) and am reminded regularly how little Brit’s think about Canada, much less the politics of indigeneity, or indeed what the concept is at all. Furthermore, not only do they not think about Canada, but they are wildly underinformed (in the main) about their country’s role in “creating” the country, stealing the land, and the ensuing 200+ years of history.
Cardinal is an engaging performer, disarming the audience and making them feel comfortable, creating truly funny moments early on. He made some really clever adaptations to the script, providing some context to the UK audience that were necessary for the script to work, and for the accountability to have a hope of happening. He did a brilliant job in bringing this audience in — educating them while also adapting to their knowledge level, making it all the easier to turn the knife when the moment came. And you could feel this in the audience when the moment came (and came again. . . and again).
My only question is whether it could have gone further. . . did that audience really leave with a sense of what happened, continues to happen, and is in parallel with the much more publicised genocides? Or are they still sold the Canadian propaganda of nice people in a clean country with lots of trees? It is hard to tell.