The Rez Sisters

The Rez Sisters
Written by	Tomson Highway
Date premiered	November 26, 1986
Place premiered	Native Canadian Centre of Toronto
Original language	English
Subject	Indian reserve life
Setting	A fictional reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada

The Rez Sisters is a two-act play by Cree Canadian writer Tomson Highway, first performed on November 26, 1986, by Act IV Theatre Company and Native Earth Performing Arts.

The Rez Sisters is partially inspired by Michel Tremblay's play Les Belles-soeurs, as it focuses on the hopes and dreams of a group of seven women on the Wasaychigan Hill Indian reserve. While Highway's treatment of his women characters is sympathetic and perhaps gentler than Tremblay's, their portrayal can only be described as gritty and grim realism.

The Rez Sisters is the first of an unfinished cycle of seven plays the playwright refers to as his Rez Septology, which also includes 1989's 'flip side' play Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, originally entitled The Rez Brothers.

The Rez Sisters features an ensemble cast of seven women dreaming of winning, and working toward raising enough money to attend, "The Biggest Bingo in the World," and one male actor/dancer in the role of Nanabush (originally played by the playwright's brother René Highway). The play melds the sometimes dark realities of life on an Indian reserve with humour and elements of Aboriginal spirituality. It features excerpts of dialogue in the Cree and Ojibway languages.

In 2010, Highway also staged Iskooniguni Iskweewuk, a Cree language version of the play.

The opening scene begins with Pelajia Patchnose nailing shingles on her roof on the fictional Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario. She is joined by her sister, Philomena, with whom she discusses her longing to leave the reserve, to which Philomena receives skeptically: "But you were born here. All your poop's on this reserve". They are joined by their half sister, Annie Cook, who they treat disdainfully, and who shares the news that she is expecting a package before leaving to pick it up.

Meanwhile, Marie-Adele is playing with Zhaboonigan, while Nanabush, in the form of a seagull, watches on. This is where we first learn of Marie-Adele's (cervical?) cancer, and Veronique's insecurity about having no blood children of her own. The various tensions between the seven sisters, such as shared lovers and stolen husbands, is slowly exposed. This is also when we first hear rumors about THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD, a possibility which all the women are ecstatic about. Soon Annie arrives and the women march to Emily Dictionary's store to discover the details.

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