Editor’s Note: This story was published as part of a sponsorship arrangement with Western Canada Theatre. As such, it abides by The Wren’s sponsorship policy. Funding partners do not have input into the stories that will be produced, do not review them before publication, and do not have special access to reporters.
Kevin Loring, a member of the Nlaka’pamux Nation from the Lytton First Nation, first started writing the play Little Red Warrior and his Lawyer when he was in theatre school in Vancouver in the 1990s.
Back then, Loring wanted to write a comedy about his own experiences with navigating land claims, inspired by his time working with a team of forestry surveyors in the watersheds in the Fraser Canyon right above the Siska First Nation.
“I was hired by the Siska band to go and accompany these foresters to go survey this cut block. My job was to document whether or not there were any culturally modified trees, any signs of Indigenous usage, any rare animals, just document the territory,” Loring says.
“I thought that my job was to save the Siska watershed, but ultimately what I realized was I was there to gather information so that the Siska band could have a better bargaining position about how the watershed resources were going to be extracted and utilized, who was going to be cutting them down and who was going to be building the road. It was a bargaining leverage, so that was a real eye opener for me.”
The eye opener helped Loring devise a story that combines themes of power and Indigenous sovereignty, ultimately culminating in Little Red Warrior and his Lawyer. The play features the story of Red, the last member of the Little Red Warrior First Nation, who finds out a land development company invaded his traditional territory and wants to start construction.
The storyteller of the play is Coyote, the trickster of his Nlaka’pamux Nation.
“Coyote, or Snky8 é̓ p, was present in all these stories I heard growing up and created a world through their adventures,” Loring explains in the press release for the play. “Coyote is vain. He’s scheming, always trying to get the advantage, and has magic powers to transform the world.”
Through Coyote, Loring is able to use humour to explore themes of colonialism and resistance.
Now 25 years after it was first presented as a student production at Langara College’s Studio 5 in 2001, Little Red Warrior and his Lawyer will show with Western Canada Theatre in Kamloops (Tkʼemlúps) from Feb. 20 to March 2 at the Sagebrush Theatre.
The play is written and directed by Loring and co-produced by Savage Society in Vancouver and Belfry Theatre in Victoria, in association with NAC Indigenous Theatre in Ottawa and Theatre Calgary.
Since its debut, Loring has revised the story, showcasing it in workshops to various audiences to finally get it to what it is today.
“Every time we presented it as a stage reading or whatever, [the] audience’s response was always really, really positive. So, I always knew I wanted to get to it, but I just was busy with other things,” Loring says.
As the artistic director of Savage Society, an organization committed to telling stories from traditional and contemporary Indigenous perspectives, as well as artistic director of Indigenous theatre at the National Arts Centre of Canada in Ottawa, Loring has gained experience necessary to translate the play from paper to stage. After working on many projects like the play Where the Blood Mixes, which earned him the 2009 Governor General’s Award for English Drama, he finally got to the point of bringing Little Red Warrior and his Lawyer to life.
“It was ready to go, I just needed to really be committed to it. In the pandemic, we did a staged reading over Zoom, a play presentation where lots of folks tuned into. People were reaching out to me saying ‘My God this is so funny, this is exactly what we need.’ And I just took the signal and I put it forward,” Loring says.
This iteration of the play was presented at the Belfry Theatre in Victoria in 2022.
“It’s really fun, it’s really irreverent, it’s not what you expect and you will get a kick out of it,” describes Loring. It is designed to throw curveballs all the time, so the audience does not know what to expect.
“It was either you hated it because it was maybe too close to the bone or you were like, ‘I can’t believe he said that on stage!’”
All of the work Loring does is from an Indigenous lens, about Indigenous characters, from his own perspective and what interests him based on his own history. More broadly, Loring tries to share stories from Indigenous perspectives across Canada and beyond.
“We often forget that Indigenous people exist the world over. This is my milieu, this is the work that I do every day, every week, so it’s part of how I operate in the world.”
“Now more than ever, as we are staring down the face of the climate catastrophe and all of the global issues that we’re facing, we need Indigenous voices.”
In the play, Loring makes fun of it all. He makes fun of Indigenous people, non-Indigenous people, royalty, the system, the country and others, following all the absurdities and inconsistencies.
“I put it all on the table so that people kind of look at it,” he says. “I’d rather people hated a show be like ‘My God I couldn’t stand that’ or have their minds blown away than ‘That was pleasant [or fine]’.”
His aesthetic is to provoke, while still showcasing human experiences and feelings. His goal is for the audience to leave the play full of ideas so they can think about issues in a different light.
Little Red and WCT
Cheyenne Scott is the Artistic Associate for WCT, she is a member of the Tsawout (SȾÁUTW̱) First Nation and has Norwegian settler descent. Scott grew up in Tkʼemlúps off the reserve, and has brought expertise to her role in WCT from having experience as an actor, playwright, director and producer.
The decision to bring Little Red Warrior and his Lawyer to the 2024-2025 season for the WCT happened before Scott came into the role, but she mentioned that WCT has had a great history of bringing Indigenous works into Kamloops.
“I think a really important value of WCT is to continue to bring Indigenous works to the main stage. Kevin Loring is an incredible playwright whose work deserves to be seen,” Scott says.
The planning for what plays are presented during the season vary and they tend to do it three to four years in advance, Scott says.
“Kevin [Loring] does a really brilliant job of utilizing comedy so that you’re having this bigger conversation, but it’s so much more digestible through pushing the limits, really highlighting how ridiculous our systems are in Canada through comedy.”
Scott mentions the importance of seeing Indigenous art, and how there should be more plays shown across the country.
“I do think that part of making, curating, art, there’s escapism, and life is really hard right now… But then there’s the responsibility of art to challenge and to share information or create critical thought around a topic. Sometimes that’s uncomfortable but also really necessary,” Scott says.
“It’s so important to also expose ourselves to a diversity of stories because that’s how we grow and learn. And it’s not going to be the whole season. This is just one night. So, I feel like this is the show to come to. If you’re nervous, this is the one that you might be surprised about and really enjoy yourself.
”Tickets for the play are available to purchase online, or by contacting WCT at 250-374-5483. The recommended ages for the play are 16 and older. For this play there is a special offer for Indigenous peoples of $15 per ticket, for more information contact Indigenous Community Engagement Coordinator, Laura Michel, at lmichel@wctlive.ca.
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