A Conversation with Tomson Highway
A conversation with Tomson Highway on the 30th anniversary of the Royal Alex staging of Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.
Tomson Highway is one of Canada’s most celebrated writers. Best known for his two groundbreaking plays, The Rez Sisters (1986) and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (1989), that looked at the lives of Indigenous people living on a reservation in northern Ontario, Highway has also written a bestselling novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen, and several books for children. He is also a classically trained concert pianist and has written musical works in various genres, including jazz and musical theatre. He also has the distinction of being the librettist of the first Cree language opera, The Journey or Pimooteewin. In 2018, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra opened its 85th season with Chaakapesh: The Trickster’s Quest, a chamber opera with a libretto by Highway in Cree.
Born in Brochet, Manitoba, to Pelagie Highway, a bead-worker and quilt-maker, and Joe Highway, a caribou hunter and champion dogsled racer, he speaks Cree, English and French.
Highway’s work uses Cree, Greek and Christian mythology, his own form of magical realism, and documented facts of Indigenous life in present day Canada to weave stories that are both painfully sad and joyful. He says: "There's a certain ‘un-reality’ of life on the reserve. It's twice as funny. You start laughing a lot. But it's also very tragic at the same time. Tragic things happen on reserves. And sometimes, they happen cheek-by-jowl with the funny stuff”.
In 1991, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing made its debut on the stage of Canada’s oldest and most prestigious stage, the Royal Alexandra Theatre. It was the first play by an Indigenous author to be staged there. The play and its production were loudly and passionately lauded. It became and remains one of the seminal moments of Canadian theatre.
Kiss of the Fur Queen has just been reissued as a paperback, joining the Penguin Modern Classics catalogue. The publication of Highway’s memoir is eagerly awaited. Called Permanent Astonishment, it will be released on September 28, 2021
Here is the description of Permanent Astonishment, courtesy of Penguin Random House Canada:
In 1991, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing made its debut on the stage of Canada’s oldest and most prestigious stage, the Royal Alexandra Theatre. It was the first play by an Indigenous author to be staged there. The play and its production were loudly and passionately lauded. It became and remains one of the seminal moments of Canadian theatre.
Kiss of the Fur Queen has just been reissued as a paperback, joining the Penguin Modern Classics catalogue. The publication of Highway’s memoir is eagerly awaited. Called Permanent Astonishment, it will be released on September 28, 2021
Here is the description of Permanent Astonishment, courtesy of Penguin Random House Canada:
Growing up in a land of ten thousand lakes and islands, Tomson Highway relished being pulled by dogsled beneath a night sky alive with stars; sucking the juices from roasted muskrat tails; and singing country music songs with his impossibly beautiful older sister and her teenaged friends. Surrounded by the love of his family and the vast, mesmerizing landscape they called home, his was in many ways an idyllic far north childhood. But five of Tomson’s siblings died in childhood, and Balazee and Joe Highway, who loved their surviving children profoundly, wanted their two youngest sons, Tomson and Rene, to enjoy opportunities as big as the world. And so when Tomson was 6, he and Rene were flown south by float plane to attend a residential school and begin the rest of their education.
In 1990 Rene Highway, a world-renowned dancer, died of an AIDS-related illness. Permanent Astonishment is Tomson's extravagant embrace of his younger brother's final words: “Don’t mourn me, be joyful.”
Infused with joy and outrageous humour, Permanent Astonishment offers insights, both hilarious and profound, into the Cree experience of culture, conquest and survival.
Highway divides his time between his home in Gatineau, Quebec, and Naples, Italy. He is an avid traveller, often to attend literary festivals or speak at academic conferences. Of course, since the pandemic began, he has been ensconced in Gatineau, which he describes as idyllic.
“It’s wonderful here. We live five-minutes walk from where the Ottawa River widens into a great big lake. And, oh man, there are bicycle paths around here that are amazing. You can just go for miles and miles and miles on both sides of the river. And there's bridges of course. Everything is paved beautifully, beautifully kept. On my days off from writing, I can spend the entire day on a bicycle. I'd do 60 kilometres sometimes.”
Asked about the impact of the pandemic, he says: “We were living in Naples when it struck. We had to flee Italy, literally. And I left behind four very expensive tickets to shows at Il Teatro de San Carlos, one of the great opera houses in the world. Well, I couldn’t be reimbursed for the tickets to the cancelled concerts. There was no mechanism for that. You couldn't even reach the box office, everything was closed.
“And I said to myself, I'm glad not to be reimbursed. It's a point of pride to be able to contribute to an organization that has given me and many people so much joy over the years. They deserve this money. It's a gift. Thank you.
"And that's the role of art. It's a necessary part of life. It keeps our brains and our hearts alive, with joy and beauty. It would be like having the Earth with no trees. It's that kind of thing, that kind of absence, keeping in mind that without trees, we wouldn't even have air to breathe, no chlorophyll.
“People forget that this is why art was created and why it is here. Theatre, the arts, music — they’re not here just for decoration. I’ll never regret spending money on the arts, because it's a fundamental expense. Otherwise we will suffer a spiritual bankruptcy."
