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Two small boys and a big fish are at the heart of the latest version of the acclaimed play, Lake of the Strangers .
The hour-long performance debuts in the Westbury Theatre on Dec. 11, but it’s also available that same night via livestream on Fringe TV, making it possible for theatre lovers to indulge in the comfort of their home or favourite coffee shop.
The play is part of a Lakes & Streams-themed weekend of entertainment timed to kick off the 2021/22 season of Edmonton Fringe Theatre. The night prior, also in the Westbury and via Fringe TV, a musical performance by the Jay Gilday Band will take place on the set of Lake of the Strangers.
The play, created by Jacquelyn Cardinal and co-written with her brother Hunter, is set in 1973 in Sucker Creek, the First Nations reserve located on the shores of Lesser Slave Lake where the Cardinal family has been rooted for a very long time. The story revolves around two Indigenous brothers, aged 10 and seven, who decide to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to have an adventure in the woods. While the play is not autobiographical, it is inspired by Cardinal’s childhood, which featured regular trips from the city to the family’s ancestral home.
Co-produced with Fringe Theatre and Naheyawin , the Cardinal siblings’ communications company, Lake of the Strangers premiered in 2019 in the Backstage theatre, later winning a Sterling award for Outstanding New Play.
The Journal caught up with Hunter, a 28-year-old graduate of the University of Alberta’s theatre program, after a day of rehearsals to discuss the night sky, his new passion for film and the attraction of avocado toast. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
A For me, a major part of my immersion into my own Nehiyaw, or Cree culture, came through looking up at the stars and learning about these constellations and the stories that are woven in there. Mista Muskwa, The Big Bear constellation, has always been a really powerful story for my sister and I. We were really interested in how we can weave together these really old technologies – because that’s what stories are – to tell new stories to get us through our (present) time.
Q How different is this version of Lake of the Strangers compared to the first?
A At the core, the story is the same. It’s about family and life and the journey we’re all going on. How do we both carry, and also let go, all the things that we love and that we learn in our time? But this version has a new aspect. There were stories we didn’t have time to share at that moment, and the characters have more depth.
A I’m navigating through many different, nuanced characters. There are the boys at their age, and also 20 years later, and their dad. It’s demanded a lot not only from my sister, who is an incredible writer, but from me as an actor. I had to go into the CBC archives to find different clips of my great uncle (activist Harold Cardinal) speaking and then try to imagine a similar person who spent his life hunting to create the voice and physicality of the father. Then I had to imagine the two younger boys and to age them up, and age them down. For me, being a big acting nerd, it’s a wonderful process. I don’t feel I nail it all the time, but I’m doing it because I love my family and am proud of where I come from.
Q You’ve had to adapt Lake of the Strangers to be filmed during the live stream performance. Do you see television and movies in your future?
A I’m in love with this medium and the idea of transitioning into that is exciting for me as a storyteller. So now it’s about starting to speak with my friends who are working in this medium, and looking at agents. You get a good team and get clear with the vision of where you want to go and then you take a leap.
Q The pandemic has been hard for lots of artists. What has it been like for you?
A It’s hard to process that it’s going into a third year now. The pandemic has been asking us where do we want to go in our lives and who do we want to have with us, and how we want to get there, and what’s it for? I’ve been grateful for the pause so I could think about all of that. For most people, that’s deeply uncomfortable, but super-needed.
But I’ve also been diving into making so much bread. I’ve seen that as mushom, or grandpa, training. I want my grandkids to wake up with the smell of fresh-baked bread and that became super clear for me. I found a wonderful recipe that’s very forgiving and thank goodness for that. It’s a classic boule — a round rustic loaf makes wonderful avocado toast. It’s wonderful to do that and to gift that to folks I care about.
Source: EdmontonJournal
