Eight plays by Yves Sioui Durand, Tomson Highway, and Floyd Favel all demonstrate the powerful impact of language in theatre by repositioning the debate between the two so-called official languages of Canada and putting Aboriginal languages at the fore. Sioui Durand, a French-speaking Huron-Wendat, uses French, English, Spanish, Mohawk, Innu, Attikamek, Huron-Wendat, Ojibwe, and the Nahualt dialect of the Aztec language. Similarly, Highway uses Cree, his mother tongue, as well as some Ojibway-Anishnaabe in The Rez Sisters (1988) and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (1989), while Favel uses Cree in Governor of the Dew (2002) and All My Relatives (2002). Speaking in an endangered language is political and resistant; it also allows for greater ease and power of expression. Although Durand’s approach is pan-Native, encompassing many different Indigenous languages and cultures, while Favel and Highway deal specifically with Cree, all three playwrights succeed in decentring the power of the dominant languages.
