In plays including Bears, After the Fire, and The First Métis Man of Odesa, Cree-Métis playwright Matthew MacKenzie has centred Indigenous perspectives while examining how identity and power operate within both personal and political spheres.
By Krystal Abrigo /Apr 9, 2026
iPhoto caption: (Front) Brefny Caribou, Trevor Duplessis, and (back) Cheri Maracle in 'Rose.' Photo by Curtis Perry.
Rose is, in many ways, a story oriented around grief — particularly queer and lesbian grief for Indigenous women. But it also centres humour and kinship.
By Madeleine Vigneron /Apr 1, 2026
iPhoto caption: Photo courtesy of Playwrights Canada Press.
“There’s a venn diagram [in which] wolf displacement across Canada matches Indigenous displacement,” he explains ahead of the play's publication with Playwrights Canada Press. “If you look at a map over the years of wolf territory, it's very similar to Indigenous territory in the way that it's been pushed over and up.”
While playwright Matthew MacKenzie’s lyrical storytelling is always a delight, there’s something astringent and detached about Takwahiminana that produces a distancing effect, preventing it from reaching the emotional highs of his other recent work.