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written by Tomson Highway, directed by Leah Cherniak

Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto

June 24-27, 2010

Tomson Highway’s Kisageetin: A Cabaret provides an exciting new view of Aboriginal culture.  By adapting the European form of cabaret to Aboriginal themes and language, Highway both re-invigorates the form and opens a new path for Aboriginal expression.  For those who know Highway only as a playwright, not as a composer, the show is a real eye-opener.

Kisageetin really is a cabaret.  Peruvian-Canadian Patricia Cano is the vocalist with Highway himself, a classically trained pianist, on piano and Christopher Plock on sax.  The show consists of twelve songs--one in Cree, one in French, most in English, some in a mixture of all three.  Highway provides the briefest of introductions but his programme note explains that the songs are part of a planned one-woman musical, The (Post) Mistress, in which the titular small-town character has the ability to “read” unopened letters.  Each song is her rendering of a letter of one of her favourite clients.  The show works so well in its present form it’s hard to believe this framework is necessary.  The songs are written in many styles with influences from Kurt Weill, Cole Porter, Latin American dance and even rap.  The subjects range from the profane to the sacred, the comic to the tragic.  Yet, they are written from a distinctive, non-European perspective that views humankind as part of a protective nature.  The children’s lullaby “Oh, Little Bear” immediately relates the singer’s encounter with a real bear to our being eternally guarded by the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.  The beautiful “Some Say a Rose,” about permanence and impermanence, includes a spoken section in Cree, “We thank all of you who on this Earth so very well watch over us” addressed to animals, trees, brooks and stones.  This is where the word “kisageetin” of the title occurs, the Cree word for “I love you.”  

Cano is an ideal interpreter of Highway’s songs.  Her vocal and expressive range is huge and she uses it to capture the widely different moods of every piece along with the sense of playfulness that underlies them all.  Plock, who has played  with Jeff Healey and K-OS, sometime accompanies but sometimes lets loose on wildly inventive riffs.  Together all three convey a joy in performing that is truly infectious.  If there were CDs available of the songs, I’m sure the audience would have bought them up.  Catch these two hours of pleasure while you can.    

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-06-25.

Photo: Tomson Highway. ©Peter Puna.