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written by Matthew MacKenzie, directed by Yvette Nolan

Punctuate Theatre! with Tarragon Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Extraspace, Toronto

April 9–26, 2026

Great Grey Owl: “Owls are an omen of sudden change”

Strife by Matthew MacKenzie, now receiving its world premiere at the Tarragon Theatre, explores important ideas concerning the way Indigenous history is taught and perceived. The pity is that MacKenzie could not have found a more dynamic way of presenting these ideas. The universally excellent performances of the cast enliven their characters but can’t aid the forward momentum of a story where there is none.

Strife is set in the present near the Athabasca oil sands of Alberta. It is four months since the death of Nathan, an Indigenous climate activist and brother of oil patch worker Monique. All the characters are related to Nathan and Monique in some way. Nathan’s girlfriend Sarah is still grieving. Eleanor, a professor of Indigenous Studies, taught Nathan and later selected him to be her Research Assistant along with Sarah. Eddy is Monique’s common law husband and was a friend of Nathan. Andrea is Monique’s therapist, tasked with determining if Monique is in a fit mental state to return to work after her brother’s death. One being who knows all these people is the Great Grey Owl, a symbol in Indigenous culture of wisdom and understanding and a being who can help guide people on a spiritual journey. In Strife, MacKenzie uses the Great Grey Owl as a sharp commentator on the nonsense that human beings say.

A peculiarity of the play is that about 80 minutes of its 95-minute running time, the action does not move forward. The play functions primarily as an examination of how the loss of one individual affects the whole community and how opposing interpretations of the death can lead to conflict.

As the play opens, the community has already split into two camps. One camp, represented by Monique and Eddy, is grappling with the guilt that there had been a rupture between them and Nathan in the weeks before he died that caused them to stop speaking to each other. The other camp, represented by Eleanor and Sarah, are keen to use Nathan’s death as an example of the government’s negative treatment of Indigenous people and its suppression of environment activists.

The central point that only gradually becomes clear is that no one has any information about Nathan’s death. Eleanor assumes that it was murder and that government forces must have done it, whereas Monique and Eddy try to accept the fact that the cause of Nathan’s death may never be known and may have had no outside perpetrator at all. Murder would make sense of the death, but Monique and Eddy face the fact that there may be no sense to it at all.

The essential question of the play is who can and cannot speak for Nathan and, by extension, the entire Indigenous community. Eleanor has no qualms taking on this role, even to the extent of using Nathan’s death to further her own cause in fighting the government. Monique and Eddy, however, see a major irony in Eleanor’s view. Nathan might have become an environmental activist under her influence, but to keep a roof over his head he relied on Monique, who was employed by the oil sands, the main source of pollution in the area. Indeed, the main quandary is that the oil sands is the major employer in the region (over the past 11 years, Aboriginal-owned companies secured over C$3.7 billion worth of contracts from oil sands companies) and, at the same time, working the oil sands has polluted the land and water of which Indigenous people are meant to be the guardians.

There ought to be drama in such a subject, but for most of the play all MacKenzie gives us are debates between characters over who is right or wrong interleaved with Monique’s sessions with her therapist which MacKenzie uses to fill us in on Nathan’s past. It’s patently obvious from Monique’s first session that she is coping better with Nathan’s death than any other people in the play so that it is no surprise that the therapist gives her a clean bill of mental health by the play’s end.

All that can be said to happen is that Monique, who says outright that she not “political” and not “cultural” (i.e., has little interest in her cultural heritage), finds that she cannot participate in the protests that Eleanor organizes. Yet, after all this stasis, MacKenzie ends the play with an epilogue set year after the events of the play that contains a development no one could have seen coming. In retrospect, we might be able to piece together how this development came about, but MacKenzie could have used the first 80 minutes of the play at least to suggest that such a change was imminent.

What makes the play watchable are the fine performances of the entire cast. As Monique, Teneil Whiskeyjack is the intense centre of the play immune from the unwavering politics of someone like Eleanor as well as the unwavering cynicism of Eddy. Whiskeyjack portrays Monique as someone who wants to make peace with Nathan’s death on her own and in so doing Whiskeyjack makes us admire Monique’s independence of thought.

The strongest personality in the play after Monique is that of the professor Eleanor. MacKenzie gives us samples of Eleanor’s lectures in which she spouts a defiantly politically correct version of Indigenous history that admits of no doubt or questions. Many will be surprised that MacKenzie’s view of Eleanor is unremittingly satiric. To MacKenzie and Eddy, Eleanor has positioned herself as a “knowledge keeper”, a role that has to be conferred on a person, not self-proclaimed as in Eleanor’s case. As the play moves forward MacKenzie’s negative view of Eleanor intensifies as she seems willing not merely to politicize Nathan’s death but to include it in her forthcoming book since it will increase sales. Valerie Planche plays Eleanor’s humourless self-righteousness to the hilt. In a signal exchange that boils down to “I’m more Native than you”, she tells the Métis Eddy that he is “White passing” (as if it is his intentional decision) whereas she is “White presenting” (as if she is not responsible for how she is perceived).

Jesse Gervais gives an impassioned performance as Eddy, even though MacKenzie allows Eddy only one principal passion, namely anger. Director Yvette Nolan places Eddy in his own small space within the audience as if to associate Eddy’s mocking views of those around him, except Monique, will be the same as ours. Luckily, Gervais is able to make Eddy’s incessant carping appear as the way that his character manifests grieving.

If MacKenzie depicts Eddy as constantly angry, he depicts Sarah, Nathan’s girlfriend, as unceasingly sorrowful. Sarah is still grieving after four months and can easily slip into tears at the mere thought of Nathan. Grace Lamarche makes clear that Sarah’s grief is stronger than that of any other character. She also makes clear that Sarah’s grief leads her to be easily enthralled to a stronger personality like Eleanor’s.

Michaela Washburn, who has a long career of fine performances, plays the thankless role of Andrea, Monique’s therapist. All MacKenzie has Andrea do is ask standard, fairly boring questions to the point where we wonder why the character needs to be present at all. Couldn’t Monique simply respond as if an invisible therapist had asked a question? At least Washburn is able to infuse her part with some sympathy, but MacKenzie has given Washburn virtually no room to make the role even interesting.

The most delightful character in the play is that of the Great Grey Owl who watches over and comments on the action. Tracey Nepinak is a genial presence and she delivers the Owl’s cutting remarks with a wry sense of humour sorely missing elsewhere in the play. After all, the Owl looks on the follies of humankind from the point of view of eternity. Indeed, I would have been happy if the role were much larger and if MacKenzie had allowed the Owl to take a greater hand in the action.

Designer Jackie Chau’s set consists of three large nesting tables on a ground cloth depicting a circle divided into three. Along the back and two sides of the playing area runs the outline of a metal bridge, thus keeping us in mind of that Nathan died from a fall from a bridge. Yvette Nolan has the cast mostly pointlessly move the tables into various configurations. The only meaningful one is when the cast turn two of the tables upside down and we see they display the same girder pattern as the bridge in the background.

It is certainly unexpected to have a Métis playwright like MacKenzie portray a professor of Indigenous Studies as the closest character to a blocking figure in his play. But that attack does not infuse Strife with conflicts strong enough to create a gripping drama. The subject matter is full of potential that MacKenzie’s play has left unrealized.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Tracey Nepinak as the Great Grey Owl and Teneil Whiskeyjack as Monique; Jesse Gervais as Eddy, Teneil Whiskeyjack as Monique, Tracey Nepinak as the Great Grey Owl and Michaela Washburn as Andrea; Teneil Whiskeyjack as Monique; Jesse Gervais as Eddy. © 2026 Jae Yang.

For tickets visit: tarragontheatre.com.