by Kevin Loring
A Playhous Theatre Company/Savage Society Production
for the Luminato Festival
Factory Theatre
June 7-8, 2008

 evin Loring is a young Nlakapmux First Nation actor and freelance writer based in Vancouver. Where The Blood Mixes won him second place in the Herman Voaden National Playwriting Competition. The play takes place in a village named Kumsheen, which means “the place inside the heart where the blood mixes.” There’s a Coyote legend behind this reference, and one that is mentioned in passing. Just as there is a back-story about perverse abuse in residential schools, though this story never gets a strong airing in Loring’s script that insists on avoiding what should be its main subject. Instead, the playwright asserts that his play “take place on the river bottom, during the salmon run, in the heart of [his] people.” Fascinating thought but incomprehensible to me and without much connection to good theatre—at least from what I saw in Glynis Leyshon’s rough-hewn production that has flashes of poetic expressionism.

   Stereotypes are written large in the story and its characters. Floyd, who has never recovered from the dark anguish of abuse at a residential school, becomes a drunken Indian, forever playing a slot machine at the neighbourhood tavern, where he becomes a frequent touch for Mooch, a loud wastrel who is forever cadging cigarettes and booze from him. Mooch is a kept man who steals money from girlfriend June who supports him—when she isn’t battering him in angry frustration. One day, Floyd’s adult daughter, Christine, whom social services had taken from him after his wife’s death and his descent into alcoholic depression, returns in hope of forming a meaningful relationship with him, but she is cruelly rejected by Floyd. So far, all the stereotypes are firing on old engines: the drunken Indian, the battering wife, the estranged child who is also estranged from tribal ways, and a dark shadow from the past that cannot ever be dispelled. However, they don’t get anywhere either dramatically potent or filled with fresh meaning. The abuse (that helps perpetuate other abuse) remains in the background—it is given to bartender George, the only shama or white (Tom McBeath in a thankless role) to introduce the subject of residential schools and compensation—and the flawed characters merely flail helplessly around in life or, more accurately, melodramatic theatre, replete with a “live” musician (Jason Burnstick) who provides wistful mood music and underscoring. The most poignant scene—Christine’s discovery of her estranged father—goes for virtually nothing because the playwright doesn’t seem to know how to use dialogue and situation to their fullest possibilities in dramatic scenes, though he is better at comic ones.

   The performers can’t be blamed for seeming ineffectual or for appearing to be stock types, although Ben Cardinal as Mooch could have tamped down his boisterous single note of drunkenness. He does register in his comic moments, especially in a monologue about a giant sturgeon that got away, but his playwright fails him at other moments that count for more. Billy Merasty as Floyd has a wonderful profile and stage presence, but he isn’t given enough range by the text, and what should be his most important scene—his daugther’s return—is disappointingly empty of emotional resonance. Quelemia Sparrow is likewise limited by the text, though she strikes notes of tender vulnerability and despair. The best performance is Margo Kane’s as June by virtue of the actress’ straightforward attack and her direct simplicity in her scene with Ms. Sparrow, where she shows a soft, human side in the stereotype.

photo: Itai Erdal

Billy Merasty as Floyd; Quelemia Sparrow as Christine


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