A graduate in playwriting from the English section of the National Theater School in 2015, Cliff Cardinal was quick to impose his voice. The following year, when the author and performer presented his striking solo huff in Montreal, the critic of Duty underlined the shock caused by the work of this “ferocious storyteller”. This renowned creator of the Canadian scene is passing through the Festival TransAmériques with his William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal. A daring show that caused a lot of talk when it premiered in Toronto in the fall of 2021.
Based in the Queen City, this Oglala Lakota artist is from the community of Pine Ridge, Dakota. He qualifies asoutsider. “The thing that seems most universal from my perspective as an Indigenous person — but no two are alike — is that I live in a country that has tried to kill me, to kill Indigenous people. And we’re still here, and we’re still laughing at them. [Cette identité] therefore brings me an outside point of view. As if I always saw things a bit with fresh eyes. »
His new creation comes, he says, from an idea of Chris Abraham, the artistic director of the Crow’s Theatre: to revisit As you would like, Shakespeare’s play in which city dwellers leave the city to go to the Forest of Arden, a space of freedom. “It’s a sweet pastoral comedy full of delicious body humor and sexuality. And I thought that was a really good way to look at the relationship with Indigenous people” in Canada.
Humor, secrecy and subversion
There is also question in the premise of the original text of a usurped territory (a duchy)… “I haven’t read the play itself for a while, since I adapted it, retorts Cardinal. But I can tell you this: my version is much better than Shakespeare’s! The remark reflects the ironic tone that will often permeate our telephone conversation. As if the creator, renowned for cultivating black humor in his shows, played a bit of the exercise of the interview.
Just look at the humor teaser video posted on the festival website, where Cliff Cardinal announced the distribution of his play: an eclectic group including Jean Leloup, Ken Dryden and even Jean Charest… All these people have since canceled their participation, he informs me . “So it’s going to be a whole new unexpected cast, which is going to be announced the night of the performance. We don’t know who they are yet. He himself, he claims, plays only a small role in the show. Why this secrecy surrounding the performers? “I think it’s more cool if the spectators show up and they are surprised. And that will make sense in the story. »
Obviously, the creator prefers not to reveal what his show really consists of (already presented at the Carrefour international de théâtre, in Quebec, last year). Let’s say that, without betraying the punchit appears that with its protagonists disguised under false identities, the Great Will play is well suited to the subversive concept deployed here by Cliff Cardinal.
Is it that William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal — which will be resumed during the La Licorne season at the end of September — deals with questions of territory and colonization? “No, no, no, assures its author. It is As you would likeit’s the fun. We’ll sing some songs and tell fun stories. »
When asked if he signed a political show there, the creator replies that “every artistic work is political, because you have a certain perspective, a way of seeing the truth”. But that his piece is not a political work. The theater does not resist propaganda, he explains. “As soon as a playwright shows up thinking they have the answers to something, the audience starts to fall asleep. »
But would Cliff Cardinal say he can be provocative? ” Absolutely. The artist believes that a theater performance should not meet the audience’s ready-made standards. “One can be touched by a show and you can meet a performer or an idea that doesn’t exactly fit with the way you understand the world. Things can then move within oneself. And I think that’s great. »