Katharsis

Warriors returning from battle 
used to have to go through purification rituals
before they could rejoin their communities.
What ceremony will allow us to gather again?

A specially commissioned short play, created for and filmed in our empty theatre in September 2020, Katharsis is a marking of a period when our theatre was in waiting.

Featuring: Tracey Nepinak

From the playwright:
I am a theatre rat, not a filmmaker. But the opportunity to write for an actor, in a theatre, and then have that story transmitted to the world through another medium, is enough of a lifeline to keep me connected.

We have always used the theatre to work things out, together. Even though we are not in the same physical space, we can come to together in the virtual space, and watch the actor in the physical space, and perhaps begin to work out some of these recent events that have separated us from each other.

“In almost every Indigenous play I’ve seen there was a ceremony welcoming everybody to come into the circle, without exception. That’s the sense I got in Nolan’s play and Tracey Nepinak’s playing. I loved this piece because of its generosity of spirit and embracing of the missing audience. Tracey Nepinak plays the woman with nuance, humour and sensitivity. It’s beautifully directed by Thomas Morgan Jones.” – The Slotkin Letter

“For all its brevity, it feels like a real theatrical experience.… For all its economy of production, it also has a hang-in-there, light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel message, more cautiously optimistic than delusionally sunny. It acknowledges that COVID-19 derailed life as we know it, but it will pass. And the theatre will be waiting.” – Winnipeg Free Press