Indigenous Artist Spotlight: Lisa Nasson

This month, we spoke with Lisa Nasson, a Mi'kmaw actor, playwright, and emerging director raised in Millbrook First Nation in Mi'kma'ki, Nova Scotia. Lisa wrote and acted in her recently-debuted play Mischief, a co-production between Native Earth Performing Arts, Neptune Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, and Roseneath Theatre.

Lisa's Links: Instagram • Mischief / Tarragon Theatre

Hello!

I am Lisa Nasson – a Mi’kmaw actor, playwright and emerging and hopeful to-be director. All labels translate to storyteller and paid pretender. Most importantly I am a daughter, sister, niece, friend, auntie and cousin. I am a lover of stories. I love movie theatre popcorn and decorating the rooms of my house.

Looking Up at Birch Trees

I have always made clear that I was raised in Millbrook First Nation in Mi'kmaki Nova Scotia – probably in every interview I've done. I'm truly proud of it. My mother's side of the family is from Membertou First Nation in Cape Breton Una'maki First Nation, and is a community I spent a lot of time in growing up. Both of my parents worked closely with the community in Millbrook, and I was surrounded by constant laughter and resilience.

As long as I was making people laugh I was happy. I am a middle child of 5 – my older brother and I are only a year apart so we were raised like twins. He is a little more shy than I am, and if I could make him laugh by bouncing off the walls I was going to do it. I carried the same mentality within my community at every event we went to. I remember taking the microphone from my Dad and I would just start talking, trying to shift the room in any way I could. I was such a people watcher, and loved to do impressions of anyone I found fascinating.

I grew up outdoors, as we all did in the 90's. Looking back, those are the years that shaped my life. My 4 siblings and I formed a community with the kids that we grew up with on our street. We fought, we lived at each other's houses, we shared parents, we got in trouble together and solved our own problems. Most of all, we loved to create stories. Sometimes truthful and sometimes totally made-up. We created our own legends and repeated the ones that were passed down to us. We didn't have phones and our bikes were our vehicles. We really took care of each other and would spend hours in the woods in a world of mystery, away from the noise. This is where the first form of creating stories happened for me – as a kid, with my friends and siblings, creating a world where we could make each other light up. It was the closest thing to magic I could feel. When I write, I go back to the birch trees I grew up staring at, thinking of my first audience – my friends and family.

Why Do We Bother?

In 2018, activists in Halifax successfully pushed for the removal of a statue of Edward Cornwallis – a colonial figure who issued a bounty on Mi'kmaq scalps in 1749. Lisa was watching from afar and began writing the story that became Mischief in response.

When the protests were happening around the statue, I was away living and working in Toronto. I so much wanted to be home but it just wasn't possible.

But I have lived in a pessimistic place, asking myself: Why do we bother? Will we ever have Indian law again? Are the protests surrounding our own rights going to work? With so many effects of colonization, how can we truly go back to the way things were before the Indian Act, Indian agents, residential schools and alcohol? Maybe we should assimilate. Maybe I should shop at Abercrombie & Fitch and become a vegan. Maybe it's easier. Would I be less stressed? I think at some point, many Indigenous people ask these questions. It's the human experience of living as an Indigenous woman in this country. It can be exhausting and sometimes you want to give up.

This is where the protagonist Brooke's headspace is when the play begins. Her own mother was a victim – the colonized world contributed to her death. This is real for a lot of Indigenous people. It can have a ripple effect on our loved ones. We are human and sometimes surrendering happens.

I really wanted to write Brooke at this point of her life, to show audiences that we can live in a certain turmoil. In the media, we see the terrible things that happen to our women who go missing, but we also see courageous acts from our people who go to the protests and walk the marches. We haven't really seen the "behind the scenes" look at the personal confusion we can feel – and how anger and isolation play a part. This anger can bubble and eventually burst. Out of sight, out of mind.

Writing Mischief, I wanted to remind our people of the superpowers of community and humour. It's mega healing. It's a tool of survival. Mischief is its namesake. Writing about a terrible true thing done by a bad man in 1749 in a way that makes people laugh was and is always the point. We don't have a choice.

I think me and Brooke were a lot alike at some point in my life. I just wanted to hug her when I was playing her.

Humour Is My Language

I've always said my work is something I do for my family. I often wish there was a camera crew that followed my family around. They are all truly just so naturally funny. I'm the only writer out of all of us (on paper), and as a writer, I can't help creating a story out of the people I witness. If I can make my family laugh, and have them talking about my story and ask the big questions, then I was successful.

As an Indigenous woman, I wanted people to laugh with us. I feel there has been a huge misconception about who we are. I wanted to change the stereotype. We are human, we hurt, we love, we laugh and grieve. I want you to feel welcome when you come see the show – if not then you are not a true witness and you become guarded and aren't fully able to listen.

But I also really wanted audiences to know the history of Edward Cornwallis and his scalping proclamation. That history still lives in Nova Scotia, in a modern day form. I hope putting that language in the play allows audience members to see themselves in those aggressions – their own micro and full. I feel it would be a disservice to write a play about Indigenous peoples, especially women, without highlighting how we are treated. There was awkward laughter in these moments, walk-outs, and cringey vocal expressions. It was my little dig. It was felt and I'm satisfied it was.

Humour definitely comes from the heart of my family. Whenever something terrible happens, we let it be terrible for a few minutes – then we make a dark joke about it. It can seem crazy from the outside perspective, but it's crucial. It isn't a defence mechanism, it's a language. My parents are the funniest people I ever met. My siblings are nuts and so am I. It's also a tool to get each other to listen, to help us get out of our own heads for a second. If I have to write an ancient Mi'kmaw ancestor yelling that she isn't Jesus three times in a play – of course I'm going to do it. It's crazy! (Crazy is a word celebrated in my play).

100 Years Too Long

Mischief exists in two forms. The full mainstage production ran earlier this year at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. Moose & Hawk is its 20 minute school-touring counterpart, produced by Roseneath Theatre for grades 7 to 12.

In Moose & Hawk, Brooke and a female police officer named Miss are the only characters. Brooke is more pro-activism from the start in this version – but she dances around the officer’s questions deliberately to make her point about why she "vandalized" the statue. I wanted to show the aftermath of Brooke taking down the statue and being held for questioning at the police station. I wanted a clear picture of two opposing perspectives. The question that lingers here is, can Brooke change the police officer’s opinion?

In Mischief, we see Brooke struggling to lean into her own culture. She is actively fighting against it. She is surrounded by her family and a villain named Fisherman Fred, at the same time she’s grieving her mother who passed. We get the full story that leads her finally to the statue.

What exists in both is the fact that there is a monument in the city of Halifax that should not be there. The truth is that the statue was taken down in 2018, which is 100 years too long of a wait. Yes it was finally taken down, but I wanted to write about why it was wrong so we don't forget the city’s role and how it made Mi'kmaw people feel when we walked by that statue. Where are the statues of our great chiefs, and why does the city celebrate the same man who tried to take them out by way of murder? Seems simple to me. I think we have been led the wrong way.

Running Lines in the Kitchen

I've been doing theatre from a very young age. My Mom started to do community theatre when I was a kid, and she got cast in the play "Noises Off". I remember her asking me to help her study her lines. So I stood in the kitchen as she cooked, holding her script and I read lines with her. I was very precise with her memorizing, and we had the best time. We started to study the text, the comedy, and I helped her try different tactics with her lines. She continued doing plays and I helped her along the way. She started directing community shows, and I would go to rehearsal with her in the evenings wide-eyed, observing it all. When I was 11, she asked me if I wanted to be in a play with her, "The Vagina Monologues." We had a scene together. I put a Cape Breton accent on one of my lines and the audience laughed forever. I loved it. It was something I shared with my Mother. My Mom eventually stopped acting, but I kept going. Eventually I turned to writing and directing when I could. I loved all of it. The three roles somehow co-exist for me, and I think it purely derives from the love of it.

My Mom passed away a couple of months ago. I haven't stepped into a theatre since. I started to write a new play, but that has been a slow process. I hope to go back when I'm ready. Right now, I'm on the healing road and taking some quiet time. I've been on the go for a long time. I'm not really sure what is next but whenever that comes, I'll be happy to get home.

My Most Electric Moments

There have been so many! I love working with actors on stage, there's nothing like having that chemistry in front of an audience. It's so powerful. One moment that sticks out in Mischief is a scene after the intermission with the character Good Guy and Brooke. Listening to the audience laugh at Good Guy's presence in general is something I looked forward to every night. He’s played by Devin Mckinnon, who is one of my best friends and played that part so perfectly – but I could say the same for the whole cast. Yolanda Bonnell made the house roar, Trina Moyan made everyone cry, and Jeremy Proulx broke all of our hearts. Listening to the audience in this show has been a dream. It's truly a ride throughout.

I love engaging with young people. If I can inspire young Indigenous people, that is the best feeling ever. I love hearing about what they are passionate about, and what their dreams are. I just want them to know that they can do anything.

I hope audiences feel, hear, and remember the honesty of this show. How present I can be in a scene without parameters. To tell the truth in this way is always crucial for me. That and my comedy. It's my favourite thing. ∎