kar0ling

Women of the Fur Trade, RMTC, 📷 Dylan Hewlett Siri Cruise and Shiloh Pitt: a feud to go down in history like Louis Riel and Thomas Scott? The opening words to Women of The Fur Trade at RMTC Warehouse set the tone for the lighthearted play with whiplash syncretism of history and pop culture. This playfulness redeemed the heavy-handed moralizing that permeated the play. It was to be expected in a piece taking the perspective of women in the early days of Manitoba, a play written by an Indigenous woman, that the action would obliquely, if not directly, urge action on the hard work of reconciliation. The women talked of belonging, of fearing for their lives, of land protection -- all issues as relevant and urgent today as they were back then. The most surprising part of the play was the recasting of Thomas Scott as a friend of Riel's -- actually, a simpering acolyte -- whose relationship turns suddenly, resulting in the ending we know. The most surprising joke in the play ...

Obviously not Winnipeg The light dribbles away in fall a trickle at a time. Each day, another few seconds, a minute, is lost. It erodes gradually as a tide of darkness slowly encroaches on the day. And then Christmas comes. The twinkling lights provide a welcome distraction from the ebbing daylight. But the return of the light. That comes back in fistfuls. In the midst of frigid January, suddenly, one realizes the light is returning. Even as the mercury reaches its lowest, the hope of spring beckons as daylight hours stretch out longer and longer. The winter wind may howl, the temperature may dip again and again after the false promise of spring, but the light tells the truth: warmer days are coming. And it does so generously, glopping out bigger portions of daylight each day.