By Mandy Moraes, NLPS Staff
When Dover Bay Grade 10 student Maxine Small first spotted a Facebook post searching for “a Nuu-chah-nulth female actor wanting to be in a play,” she didn’t know it would lead to a meaningful and culturally significant experience.
The call-out was for Scenes from the Nanaimo Indian Hospital, an applied theatre piece written by Dr. Laura Cranmer to be performed in November at the Port Theatre and VIU’s Malaspina Theatre.
The work explores Cranmer’s own childhood experiences of isolation and abuse in the 1940s as a survivor of the Nanaimo Indian Hospital. The piece follows three young girls, each from a different community and language group, who find connection and strength through culture and survival.
The research-based production is part of a collaborative project with Dr. Amanda Wager, Canada Research Chair in Community-Engaged Research at VIU, and has travelled across Vancouver Island since its first staged reading at Western Edge Theatre’s 2022 festival.
Small stepped into the role of Mary Robins, one of the three girls held at the hospital and a representation of the Nuu-chah-nulth language. While she grew up speaking the Barkley dialect, the script required her to perform in the central dialect.
“I couldn’t look at the script and know exactly what I was saying, but I knew how to pronounce it,” she said. “I recognized the mood endings, but still had to really focus.”
Despite joining the cast at the last minute after the previous actor suddenly departed, Small performed without a language coach and relied on her own knowledge and experience.
She was joined on stage by Mariah Elliott, a Grade 12 Learning Alternatives student who played Esther Williams and represented the Hul’q’umi’num language.
Dr. Wager said that including young people speaking their ancestral languages has always been central to the project’s intent.
Though the subject matter was heavy, Small said the play also held lighter moments.
“I was nervous about my line about bedpans at the start of the play. I have to say we poop in them,” she laughed. “But it was very fun once I was actually on stage… I really enjoyed exploring a different world on stage and seeing what my limits are as an actor has been interesting to me.”
The young actor admits she didn’t fully understand the play’s weight until after she expressed interest in the role.
“Once I knew what it was about, I felt more of the importance and the responsibility that would come with being part of this,” she said. “What happened is not spoken about enough… Whenever I think of the fact that it’s not a fictional story and people, my family included, went through that, it makes me feel very sad.”