Frances Končan gives voices to “Women of the Fur Trade”

I look at Frances Končan’s Women of the Fur Trade as the feather in the magnificent cap that is the Native Earth Performing Arts 2023-2024 season. The play offers a new look – through the perspectives of three different women – at the fur trade and Louis Riel, who is recognized as Manitoba’s first premier for setting up the provisional government which led the province to join Confederation in 1870.

An irreverent, clever and compelling satire, the play’s female-centric focus upends the single-storied history that too many students have learned from school textbooks. 

The production, whose all-indigenous casting furthers the disruption of familiar narratives, is presented in association with National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre and Great Canadian Theatre Company, and runs at Toronto’s Aki Studio from April 9 – 21, 2024.  

The play’s story goes something like this: It’s “eighteen hundred something and something”. At a fort along the “Reddish River” in Treaty One Territory, during a power struggle between British colonists and Métis for control, three women in a fort discuss the Red River Resistance and Métis leader Louis Riel. They ponder his potential to form a Métis nation, his ability to counter colonial forces . . . and whether he’s the hottest man around. 

Marie-Angelique (played by Kelsey Kanatan Wavey, Tataskweyak Cree Nation in Manitoba) is a Métis woman who ardently supports Riel, and seeks to attract him with playful letters. Eugenia (Lisa Nasson, Millbrook First Nation in Nova Scotia) is an Ojibwe fur trader who expresses skepticism about the rebellion after meeting Riel. She cautions Marie-Angelique that her fantasies may not match reality. Meanwhile, Cecilia (Cheri Maracle, Haudenosaunee of Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario) is a British settler anxious about her absent husband. She finds herself infatuated with Thomas Scott (Jesse Gervais, Métis), who has been secretly intercepting Marie-Angelique’s correspondences with Riel (Jonathan Fisher, Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory in Ontario). 

The play is not a history lesson

Directed by Kevin Loring, Artistic Director of NAC Indigenous Theatre, with assistance from Joelle Peters, Artistic Director of Native Earth, Women of the Fur Trade mixes comedy, historical insight, and satire to critique survival strategies, societal norms, and cultural legacy. In the process, the play delivers a tight blend of humour and heritage commentary. That said, Končan is the first to stress that Women of the Fur Trade is not a history lesson: shifting the gaze to the women of the fur trade gives voice to those who have been long denied a voice – and these nineteenth-century women’s penchant for 21st century parlance (zodiac signs, anyone?) roots the themes firmly in the present. 

When speaking of her inspiration for Women of the Fur Trade, Končan reveals a mix of fondness and pride. Written after she earned her MFA at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, the play represents a turning point in her development, so it holds a special place in her heart: “In school, it’s hard to know if what you’re doing really has legs and can stand on its own as a play, because there’s always that shadow of being graded informing the work.” By contrast, notes Končan, “with Women of the Fur Trade, nobody was telling me what to write or how to write it. And there were no expectations of me or my work.” She felt an “enormous sense of freedom” to stretch as a playwright and to reflect on and reevaluate the roles and historical portrayals of figures like Riel through a nuanced lens: “It was hugely influenced by a memory I have of learning about the history of Manitoba in elementary school, and how Louis Riel was depicted as the villain of the story, rather than the founder of Manitoba we know him as today.”

Končan had to build her own female protagonists 

Končan’s decision to shift the narrative focus of Women of the Fur Trade from the traditional male gaze to emphasize women’s power and influence underscores her commitment to reexamining history through diverse lenses. “Early on in the process, I knew I wanted to write about the Fur Trade and Louis Riel, but had no particular interest in having a man as a protagonist. I wanted to have a woman as the protagonist, and set out to research more about women’s stories during that time period,” she states.

She soon made a discovery: “It was fairly easy to find stories about women, but much more difficult to find stories being told by women about their own experience.” The realization that she is “not a historian” and that “research was starting to give me a headache” led her to a crossroads: “I could either keep digging around trying to unearth some miraculous historical documents in hopes of creating truthful characters, or I could just draw from my own experience of growing up as a female-presenting person to create (hopefully) compelling fictional characters”. 

She began to ask herself, “What would I be thinking about if I was alive back then? What would I be doing? What would my friends and I talk about? . . . And after I tapped into that, everything else fell into place pretty organically, including the intersectionality at play between women of different levels of privilege during the time period.” 

And Končan sees this as much more than a creative exercise: “There’s immense merit in reflecting on history through new perspectives. History is ultimately just a story, and it’s told by humans, who have biases and prejudices and are not all-knowing. And I think the more we retell stories from different perspectives, the more we can glean from these historical moments that can guide us in the future.”

From “music geek” to “theatre nerd”

In speaking with Končan, her natural humour and quick wit are obvious – and disarming.  She describes herself as “a Taurus”, and notes, with a twinkle, “I take that pretty seriously, but also not seriously at all.” She characterizes her approach to theatre almost identically: “I take it seriously, but also not seriously at all.” This blend of sincerity and levity reveals much about Končan’s creative ethos, which balances genuine depth with elements that are playful, irreverent . . . and silly, even.

But she wasn’t always drawn to the dramatic arts. Her initial passions were those of a “music geek”: playing the piano and French horn. From there, her “interest-trajectory” led her to musical theatre, before she settled into non-musical theatre like a true “theatre nerd”. Upon reflection,  she can see that “writing plays felt like a natural fit. I became specifically interested in writing plays because I wanted to participate in making theatre, but felt too self-conscious and shy to be an actor.” The journey to playwriting was also fueled by her extensive experience in the “very online” digital landscapes of message boards, chat rooms, and blogs such as LiveJournal and Tumblr. “What initially was . . . just a way to get my foot in the door…ultimately became a bit of an obsession with the possibilities of the theatrical form to tell stories,” she admits. 

Her educational journey, particularly the encouragement she received from her professors, was also pivotal in her development as a writer. During her time at Brooklyn College, professors Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney were enormous champions of the individuality of their students, a sentiment that would profoundly influence Končan’s approach to storytelling. Končan points to an article in americantheatre.org, in which fellow alum Sarah DeLappe (The Wolves) is quoted saying, ‘Mac empowers us to feel like writers, instead of imposters.’ Končan concurs without reservation: “I absolutely credit that empowerment as a guiding light in how I discover ideas and tell stories.” 

This play is hot – and it’s in good company

From the start, Women of the Fur Trade struck a chord with audiences. First mounted as a workshop production at the 2018 Toronto Fringe Festival, it won the festival’s Best New Play contest. It was then further developed as part of the Animikiig Creators program at Native Earth Performing Arts Centre, and at the Carol Shields Festival of New Works in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Since then, the play has had successful runs at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg in March 2020 and the Stratford Festival in 2023, and most recently enjoyed a sold-out run at the National Arts Centre this past January.

In the spirit of community, Končan is quick to highlight fellow playwrights whose work resonates with her:

• She expresses admiration for Gillian Clark’s “diligent, sensitive, thoughtful, precise” writing – specifically Trojan Girls & The Outhouse of Atreus produced by Outside the March in 2022. “I was lucky enough to be an Associate Director for part of the workshop process on it. I am so ready for her to get produced more and more, so everyone can see her beautiful writing!” (Read our interview with Clark here.)

• She also praises the innovative contributions of Winnipeg-based Gislina Patterson and Dasha Plett of We Quit Theatre: “They are possibly the smartest people I have ever met, and even though their work is likely categorized as experimental, it’s in a playful and vital conversation/argument with mainstream theatre.”  (Read our interview with Patterson here.)

• Finally, Končan praises Cheyenne Scott, primarily known as an actor, for the captivating, nature-inspired play Wolf Cull. “A few years ago I was lucky enough to hear a reading of their play, Wolf Cull, and it’s been floating around my brain ever since. It was so grounded in nature and land. I hope to see it on stage someday soon!  (Read our interview with Scott here.)

To wrap up our conversation, Končan leaves me with a provocative tagline that captures the rich yet playful essence of Women of the Fur Trade: “Someone recently summarized the play to me as ‘Louis Riel is hot, but sisterhood is hotter,’ and I really think they hit the nail on the head with that!”

Women of the Fur Trade runs at Toronto’s Aki Studio from April 9 – 21, 2024. Read the audience advisory and reserve tickets (on a slide scale at 3 price points) here.

© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2024