Joelle Peters’ Niizh is a brand-new coming-of-age love story that honours Indigenous Identity

Niizh, a new play by Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) award-winning playwright and actor Joelle Peters, is a heartwarming and humorous coming-of-age story that celebrates Indigenous identity, family dynamics and love.

Premiering this Friday at Native Earth Performing Arts, and directed by Desirée Leverenz, Niizh is set on a reserve in Southwestern Ontario. The play follows the youngest of the “Little” family, Lenna Little (Theresa Cutknife), who is preparing to leave home for the first time and meets Sam Thomas (Kole Durnford) . . . who has just returned to the reserve after many years away. Rounding out the cast are Jason McDonald as Billy Little, Aren Okemaysim as Jay Little, and PJ Prudat as KC Thomas.

The twin inspirations for Niizh were Peters’ love of reading and her desire for Indigenous stories that celebrate joy and humour. In high school,  she became passionately interested in YA romance novels – in particular The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen. Dessen’s writing spoke to her on a deep level, and made her yearn for her own meet-cute, summer romance: “It never actually happened because I was an awkward theatre kid (spoiler alert, I still am), and so when I started thinking about writing my first play, I knew right away what I wanted.”  

And what she wanted was rarely available on stage: “contemporary Indigenous love. Young love. Familial love. Community love. I wanted it to be awkward, silly, cringy, and above all, full of heart. There’s often so much pain and suffering in our stories, and of course we need to honour those and respect the truth behind them. But at the same time, I think we’re in a place where we really need to remind audiences (and ourselves) of our humour. Sometimes we get so caught up in the seriousness that we forget that laughter is medicine. It is a release. Laughter heals.”

As someone who grew up with limited knowledge of the Anishinaabemowin language,  Peters also saw an opportunity to incorporate the language into the script. “There’s great power in language,” she notes. And she was thrilled to work with a language keeper from her home community to infuse the play with meaningful Anishinaabemowin.

Peters was named the Siminovitch Prize Protegée for Playwriting by Laureate Tara Beagan in 2020. Her plays include Do You Remember? and Frozen River (nîkwatin sîpiy), co-written by Carrie Costello and Michaela Washburn, winner of the 2021 Sharon Enkin Plays for Young People award and running April 17 – 30 at Young People’s Theatre. Peters developed Niizh over five years in Native Earth’s Animikiig Creator’s Unit, and as a commission by the Blyth Festival. Falen Johnson, one of her mentors, encouraged her to “get it all out and write anything and everything that floated out of my brain.” She smiles, “Turned out to be a lot!” This prodigious output brought with it a worry. She was becoming so attached to the character’s very full lives, but could she  hone in on the actual story?

Peters found it essential to take breaks, then returning to the script only after fully detaching herself. “Short writing spurts are my jam,” she laughs. “I’m super happy to write, write, write for two weeks, then tuck it away for a few months, and then return to it when I feel ready or inspired.” During this cadence, she also took trips back home to her community, where she found additional inspiration and crystallized the feeling she wanted to convey to the audience: “Summers on the rez always make me feel so nostalgic, and if I could bottle it to carry around with me all the time, I would. This was my attempt.”

Peters resists categorizing the end result as either comedy or drama. After a very challenging couple of years, she “leaned into the laughs, and found a beautiful balance between humour and heart”, and exterior and interior:  “There’s lots bubbling underneath the surface, lots of subtext . . . If you allow it, it can break your heart a bit. But there’s a beautiful balance built in – I give credit here to our incredible director desirée leverenz –  that doesn’t let you stay there for too long.”

Niizh is not only a celebration of Indigenous identity. It is an important contribution to the ongoing conversation around Indigenous representation in Canadian theatre, and a new opportunity for Indigenous audiences to see themselves reflected on stage in an authentic way. “We’re in a time where folks are craving authenticity over one-note caricatures. We are more than Tiger Lily and Tonto,” Peters stresses. “I want to see Indigenous characters that remind me of my aunties. Or cousins. Kids I grew up with on the rez. Myself.” 

“Witnessing that kind of self reflected back at you and taking up space on Canadian stages is powerful because it hasn’t always been there” she points out. Moreover,  “it was important to me that we see a bit of a mess. People don’t always say or do the right thing, it gets weird sometimes. I wanted a sense of realism.” And Peters also hopes that alongside the specificity of that  authenticity, audiences will find a universal message of self-acceptance and individuality. “I’d love for the play to show youth that it’s okay if your journey looks different from your peers’.”

Niizh has been a long time in the making, and Peters literally can’t wait for people to see its many long-evolving elements tied together: “Some jokes and monologues stayed, while others shifted or informed new text.”  And she is looking forward to audiences’ reactions to the awkwardness between the love interests: “Oh my god, they are so cringy. It’s incredible,” she laughs. “Sometimes in rehearsal, they’ll be working on a scene and I’ll find myself having a full body cringe experience, and think ‘why are you saying it like that?!’ Then I remember they’re saying it that way because that’s how I wrote it!! They’re doing the thing we hired them for.”

Peters has already garnered feedback from other artists about Niizh – and it has been fascinating. Some focus on the humour. Some focus on the love story. Others find more connection with the journey of self.  And that . . . feels right: “I guess – thinking out loud now – I’d like audiences to take what they need from it, and be reminded of the fact that we are all on our own journey, and there is no ‘one size fits all’.” She expresses deep gratitude to Native Earth’s previous Artistic Director Keith Barker for programming Niizh, and makes a special point to “rave” about the cast and creative team: ” They are truly putting THE WORK into this, and I appreciate everyone so much. Chi miigwetch.”

Niizh promises to be a powerful, authentic and contemporary addition to Canadian theatre that celebrates Indigenous identity, language, community and individuality in a way that audiences of all backgrounds can relate to and appreciate. 

And for those curious about the title? Peters is happy to clarify: “Niizh means ‘two’ in Anishinaabemowin!”

Niizh is on stage at Daniel’s Spectrum, Aki Studio until April 30, 2023. Reserve tickets on nativeearth.ca.

© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2023