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Anthtropologist Santiago Genovés and his family spent some time in a concentration camp during the Spanish Civil War. In the late 60s I attended a lecture by him in Mexico City about his relationship with Thor Heyerdahl with whom he embarked on several of the latter’s raft expeditions. Genovés said something that I will never forget. I will translate it into English:

“In studying history one must attempt to be objective but we must not forget that objectivity is a subjective invention of man.”

With those words in mind I find myself attempting to grapple and write about my witnessing the opening performance presented by the Cultch at the York Theatre on Friday of Corey Payette’s musical Children of God (an urban Ink Vancouver Production with collaboration with National Arts Centre English Theatre and in association with Raven Theatre, Vancouver).

Those who have gotten this far in this blog may want to skip most of it until the end. As I am not a traditional theatre critic (in fact I am not a critic at all) I must write subjectively how this tough musical affected me. By doing so I will have to compare and contrast Friday's experience with those in my past.

In the Wednesday media call I attempted to make conversation with director (listed also as bookwriter, composer, and lyricist of the muscial) Corey Payette by telling him that I had as a Latin American in my early teens been forced into a Roman Catholic boarding school in Texas (while we were living in Mexico) by my mother. Payette saw through my subterfuge and simply countered, “Being forced by your mother is not at all like being forced by the government.” He was right.

As soon as got home I immediately went to Wikipedia to see what they had on Canadian Residential schools. I found the information quite useful and to my eyes non-partisan (objective?). It is here.

I was born in Argentina and in the 19^th century the history of Argentine aboriginals is much like the one in the United States. The government sent armies to kill them. They were not as efficient as the Americans and many remained. To this day if you are robbed in the street it will be by a Bolivian (a euphemism for an aboriginal). In the 60s I remember how shocked government workers were when they attempted to give wool sweaters to near naked Ona Indians from the Patagonia who paddled their boats in cold rain. The Ona were immune to colds and when they wore the sweaters, the sweaters got wet and many died of pneumonia.

The most famous Argentine writer Jorge Luís Borges is on the record in writing in a most shocking way on how the Canadian Government could have possibly sent a totem pole as an example of their culture. The totem in question outside the Retiro Train Station was the first totem pole I ever saw.

In Mexico it was not until the 1968 Mexican Olympics that finally dark-skinned Mexicans found the handle of calling their race the copper race or the Aztecs. There was a new-found pride in their race, culture and studies began to preserve native languages like the complex but beautiful Otomí.

All the above is as background to my being shocked by the roles of the nun, Sister Bernadette played by Trish Lindstöm and the priest, Father Christopher played by Michael Torontow. It was doubly shocking because in my five years at St. Edward’s High School in Austin I received a very good education by strict Brothers of Holy Cross who never resorted to violence. There was never even the rumour of any sexual shenanigans.

Herbie Barnes

It was this contrast between my personal experience at St. Edward’s that ameliorated my guilt about not being one of those “survivors” (as Canadian Aboriginals who survived the Residential Schools call themselves) who candidly spoke of their experience at the end of the show.

My favourite local actor Kevin Loring, who plays Wilson as a boy in the residential school of the musical and as an adult Native attempting to pass as a white man, in the after-performance-talk told us about the value of not losing one’s language (one of the bleak cornerstones of Payette’s musical). He told us that speaking one’s language and thinking in it is important. It was brutal to watch how the Sister Bernadette and Father Christopher punished the boys and girls (played by adults in the musical) punished for speaking  or even writing in their native tongue.

At St. Ed’s the local Mexican Americans attempted to anglicise the pronunciation of their names so a Juan Reyes became John Reis. Many spoke perfect Spanish but lied and said they could not speak it. They were ashamed of their heritage. It had to be the sudden taking over of municipal officials in small towns like Carrizo Springs in Texas that started the Chicano revolution of pride in the Mexican heritage.

My experience with Canadian Aboriginals came as a shock on my first job in Vancouver in 1975 ( I arrived with my Canadian wife and two Mexican born daughters that year) for Tilden Rent-a-Car. I was told not to rent to anybody with the surname of George or John. I asked why and had to insist until they told me, “Because they are Indians.” I promptly rented a car to the first Native Canadian that came through the door. His name was Moving Rock. He took an Oldsmobile station wagon and abandoned in Arizona. I was almost fired. I was also told not to rent to one of my best clients, Johnny Stone who was a black pimp fromSeattle.

While working shooting photographs for CBC films and variety shows the only Native Canadian I ever met in those days was Pat John who played Jessee Jim in the Beachcombers.

With all the above as background to my watching Children of God I did not have to ask myself why Payette would choose a musical to tell the story of residential schools which is not a happy one. Without revealing the ending I can say that it is much like any tragic opera. Things don’t end too well. Payette nicely answers in the Q&A in the Vancouver Sun (May 18 and I still pay for a subscription in hard copy) with writer Shawn Conner on how Children of God adds to the conversation about residential schools:

In terms of the connection to how indigenous stories work, and why it feels right for it to be a musical, what I’ve been taught from the elders I’ve worked with is that you cannot tell a story without the story having a song. You cannot sing a song without that song having a dance. And you cannot dance without that dance telling a story. So for me, the musical form really lends itself to indigenous performance.

I found that the actors of Children of God were not only good actors and singers but most intelligently eloquent when they spoke to us after the performance. I asked Kevin Loring to send me a paragraph (last Wednesday) on how he feels about the play. This is what he sent me:

This production is important. In light of recent comments made by certain politicians around this issue, it is clear that the impact of the Residential System is still not really understood by many Canadians, and we still need to educate the public about this legacy of trauma. Music transcends boundaries and allows a more direct connection to the heart of a moment, this enables an easier path to empathy and catharsis. Children of God will open your heart and rock you.

Kevin Loring

Children of God did not exactly rock me because thee music is too lovely and particularly by the orchestration by violist Elliot Vaughan (part of the musical group made up by Brian Chan, cello, Allen Cole, piano, Martin Reisle). And even more beautiful was the sound of that viola in some of the songs like And We Wait.  

Since I began this blog on the subject of subjectivity, while I was impressed by the overall performance of the actors I was most affected by the that of Michal Torontow's Father Christopher and Trish Lindstrom's Sister Bernadette. And of course my fave Kevin Loring was superb as the Native Canadian passing off as a white man (only in the opinion of the excellent Herbie Barnes who plays young Tommy and older Tom). It is only when Loring's Wilson throws back to Tom what happened to Wilson's brother Vincent (Aaron M. Wells) does the tragedy of this musical hit your gut and it hit mine.

I cannot let go in this blog without mentioning that for the Vancouver East Cultural Centre to have had the foresight to choose this musical says something about the slow but steady improvement of the content in what used to be a theatrical wasteland. This is not part of the Push Festival or any of the other avant-garde festivals that our city may have. It does not make Children of God, less avant-garde, less cutting edge.

If  you call yourself a Canadian then you have a duty to see this dark but illuminating work.  Guilt is not enough. There is more and Children of God tries to answer that conundrum called reconciliation.

Dazzling Movement in the Cultch's Children of God