400 Kilometres
400 Kilometres is the third play in Drew Hayden Taylor’s hilarious and heart-wrenching identity-politics trilogy. Janice Wirth, a thirty-something urban professional, having discovered her roots as the Ojibway orphan Grace Wabung in SOMEDAY, and having visited her birth family on the Otter Lake Reserve in ONLY DRUNKS AND CHILDREN TELL THE TRUTH, is pregnant, and must now come to grips with the question of her “true identity.” Her adoptive parents have just retired, and are about to sell their house to embark on a quest for their own identity by “returning” to England. Meanwhile, the Native father of her child-to-be is attempting to convince Janice/Grace that their new generation’s future lies with their “own people” at Otter Lake. Which path for the future is Janice/Grace to choose, for herself, her families and her child, having spent a lifetime caught between the questions of “what I am” and “who I am”? Cast of 3 women and 2 men.
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Reviews
“Drew Hayden Taylor has a deft touch for mixing comedy and commentary in an entertaining and all-Canadian form of social satire.”
“Very tender scenes, very loving scenes… its very well done… I think its a very clever idea that Taylor had here in that instead of going to the “scoop up” and giving us a play about a child who had a horrible life, he gives us instead a story about a child who had a very, very good life. And shows that despite the wonderful life this girl had, she still wants to know who she is and thats the drama!”
“Taylor uses a light touch to open up painful subject in his entertaining new play… delivers some great one liners, sets up a juicy conflict and quickly and credibly captures the white parents in their amusing, affectionate, assured banter… he has allowed something painful to be examined and easily entered into by a laughing native or white viewer.”