The headline is a quote from late in the second half of Zaiba Baig’s double header Kainchee Lagaa + Jhooti: The Begging Brown Bitch Plays which opened on Thursday night at Buddies in Bad Times in a production directed by Tawiah Ben M’Carthy for House of Beida Inc. The plays are loosely linked in that both deal one way or another with queerness and Pakistani-Canadian identity and experience.
Yolanda Bonnell’s White Girls in Moccasins, presented by manidoons collective and Native Earth Performing Arts opened at the Aki Studio on Friday night. Co-directed by Bonnell and Carmen Alvis, it’s a play about identity and and recovering roots. The principal character Miskozi, like the playwright, is Indigenous but I don’t think the play is entirely about Indigenous identity. The other two roles are Ziibi, played by a Bermudian Trans Woman of African ancestry and Waabishkizi; played by a second generation Settler woman. So while the focus is on Indigenous identity I think it raises a lot of other questions too.
Natasha Mumba’s play Copperbelt which had its premiere at Soulpepper on Tuesday evening is a very interesting work. On one level it’s a tight, well crafted drama in the “dysfunctional family” genre so beloved by playwrights. Intergenerational and gender role conflicts abound. But beneath that there’s something much more interesting.
