A quiet life is hard to maintain when a puckish ancestor interrupts your workday shift and refuses to be ignored.
That interruption is the lynchpin of Mischief, Lisa Nasson’s debut play about what happens when history refuses to stay abstract. Now on stage at Tarragon Theatre in a co-production with Native Earth Performing Arts Centre and Neptune Theatre, Mischief is a funny and incisive exploration of grief, activism, and the long reach of colonial history. Written by and starring Nasson, the play slips readily between comedic moments and deeper reckonings, revealing how personal and collective histories interweave.
At its heart, Mischief is a study in unexpected transformation. Brooke, a young Mi’kmaw woman (Nasson) is content to keep her life small while working at her Uncle Chris’ (Jeremy Proulx) convenience store on the Rez. But she finds her notions of peace disrupted when a loud, enigmatic visitor named Emily (Nicole Joy-Fraser) appears unbidden in the store’s utility room. A routine day grows into a confrontation with old wounds and new urgencies, as once-buried dangers collide with the backdrop of protests in the city of Halifax over the statue of Edward Cornwallis, the British colonial governor and military commander responsible for the founding of the city and for violent policies targeting the Mi’kmaw. Angered by an act of vandalism against her family friend Tammy (Trina Moyan), Brooke commits an impulsive act of mischief (yes, there’s the titular connection) that draws her into a widening reckoning with colonial history and a deeper engagement with her community, her cultural history, and her own voice.
Nasson’s writing captures the rhythms of everyday life with a lightness that belies the serious undercurrents. Early scenes are almost sitcom-y: a regular customer named Fisherman Fred (a slow-talking, almost insidious Devin MacKinnon) gives impatient voice to a litany of service expectations, and Brooke, whose politeness develops a decided edge, frustrates them. It’s funny, and the humour never feels forced. But it’s not benign.
Brooke’s journey, as embodied by Nasson, is compelling. She occupies her character’s emotional landscape with a careful balance of detachment and vulnerability, revealing in small gestures the weight of loss and the apprehension of stepping into uncertainty. Proulx’s Uncle Chris is a genial presence whose warmth and comic timing add texture and depth to Brooke’s everyday world. And Trina Moyan, as assertive family friend Tammy, brings humour, warmth and urgency as a person who is already pulled toward action and community.
MacKinnon’s performance stands out. In his dual roles as Fisherman Fred and then “Good Guy” in the second act, he embodies two different sides of casual white entitlement – with unerring precision. Each character serves as a reminder of how deeply ingrained attitudes and ignorance can persist beneath seemingly innocuous surfaces. In the context of the play’s larger questions about power and visibility, MacKinnon’s turn provides a sharp, personal, and frequently uncomfortable touchstone.
Emily the visitor’s appearances provide a dramatically different touchstone, drawing lineage and ancestral presence into the everyday. Joy-Fraser’s performance lends the character a bold physicality and humour, but never tips into the merely whimsical. Her insistent, storeroom-filling presence helps anchor the play’s most reflective moments, reminding us that history resides not only in the public monuments that attract collective attention, but also in our memories and relationships.
Visually, the production is simply stunning. Andy Moro’s design conjures the interior of Chris’s Convenience with a framework that suggests whale ribs and shorelines, making the space feel both recognizable, mythic and surreal. Throughout the show, projections on the spaces between those ribs morph to conjure the setting—whether that’s the wood-lined walls of the store, or, starry skies, lush landscapes or even a frantic drive. The result is immersive, surprising – I might even say wondrous – and adds deep resonance and emotional texture to the story.
Directors Mike Payette and Joelle Peters structure the piece with a sure hand, allowing scenes to breathe even as the stakes escalate. There’s an easy generosity in the ensemble’s chemistry that keeps the work elastic, even as the play probes hard questions about justice, remembrance, and what it means to find your place in a world shaped by forces larger than your own.
What Mischief understands especially well is that colonialism is not an abstract inheritance or a past event. Rather, it’s a persistent condition that surfaces daily, even hourly, in civic spaces, everyday interactions, public memory and familial history. And Nasson’s script compels by approaching it obliquely, rather than head-on: allowing humour, discomfort, and emotional restraint to coexist, rather than pushing for didactic clarity.
In the end, like its playful-yet-serious title suggests, Mischief does not offer tidy answers. It goes to compelling places in surprising ways, and raises provocative questions … questions which are likely, after the lights come up, to prompt larger conversations and inward reflections about where we’ve been and where we might go from here.
Mischief continues at Tarragon Theatre MainStage until February 8, 2026. Tickets are available at tarragontheatre.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
