Finding family, finding truth
New play unfolds in the shadow of ’60s Scoop
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The latest play written by southern Manitoban duo Darrell Racine and Dale Lakevold is Rattle, a story rooted in the inherited legacy of the ’60s Scoop.
Based on the stories of Robert Doucette and Roberta MacKinnon — friends and students of the playwriting pair — this play from Brandon-based Root Sky Theatre, directed by Charlene van Buekenhout and Cory Wojcik, opens at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film on Wednesday night.
Rattle is the fourth product of the Racine-Lakevold playwriting partnership, following Misty Lake, Stretching Hide and 2024’s Owl Calling.
LEIF NORMAN PHOTO
From left: Alissa Watson is Lina, Dezarae Meade is Crystal and Josh Ranville is Dan in the play Rattle by Darrell Racine and Dale Lakevold.
Each play by the twosome thus far has been a heartfelt study of issues facing Indigenous Peoples in Canada, using history as a mirror to understand the country’s legacy of both immense harm and attempted reconciliation.
A co-production with local collective Theatre Incarnate — Brenda McLean and Christopher Sobczak — Rattle was awarded the best full-length play award in Theatre BC’s Canadian National Playwriting Competition.
Earlier this year, Racine, a professor of native studies at Brandon University, also launched Stolen Science, a podcast about the “largely unacknowledged contributions of Indigenous Peoples to Western European science between 1670 and 1870,” according to the university.
Rattle is set on a North End street in Winnipeg where friends Bobbie (Melanie Badger) and Dan (Josh Ranville) are finding where they belong.
Meanwhile, Bobbie’s son Jordan (Mackenzie Wojcik, Cory’s son) forges a bond with Dan’s kid Crystal (Dezarae Meade), who hopes against hope that she won’t have to move to the south end.
From left: Dezarae Meade (Crystal) and Mackenzie Wojcik (Jordan) forge a bond as the kids of members of a found family.
Dan and Bobbie met when Bobbie aged out of care, learning to relate to one another as found family.
The character of Bobbie is based on MacKinnon, who was taken away from her biological family at the age of two. Adopted by a Mennonite family, Bobbie is always wondering not only where she came from, but why she was taken away, the actor explains.
“Any moments where the past is brought up it’s just too painful to confront those things,” Badger says.
Fateful interactions with the next generation and her ancestors help Bobbie find her truth, she adds. “In that moment it’s her healing moment, you can really feel that part of the play where she found her place,” adds Badger, an actor whose most recent performance was in 2019, in Theatre by the River’s The Hours That Remain.
Badger’s first performance was in Douglas Nepinak’s Crisis in Oka, Manitoba. That play — staged at Prairie Theatre Exchange last year as part of the second annual Kiyanaan Festival, produced by Van Buekenhout and Philip Geller — has served as an inspiration for both Lakevold and Racine.
Josh Ranville, who plays Dan in Rattle, as been acting since he was a child.
“I’d like to think of it as blood memory as an actor, that’s the choice I made (in approaching the role of Bobbie), is that instant connection to her mother, her memory, her roots, her place,” says Badger, who works for the Winnipeg Foundation and Manitobah Storyboot School, a national charity offering cultural craftmaking workshops.
The play opens Wednesday with nightly performances to Saturday beginning at 7:30 p.m. Matinees run Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.
The production is sponsored by the Riverton & District Friendship Centre and received funding from the National Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation of Canada, along with both Canada and Manitoba arts councils.
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Melanie Badger (left) plays the role of Bobbie and Dezarae Meade plays Crystal, the daughter of Bobbie’s best friend, Dan.
From left: Melanie Badger and Josh Ranville see each other as chosen family in the play Rattle.
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Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University’s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben.
Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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Theatre preview
Rattle
Root Sky Theatre Company
● Asper Centre for Theatre and Film, 400 Colony St.
● Wednesday to Sunday
Tickets: $25-$35 at rootsky.ca
If you value coverage of Manitoba’s arts scene, help us do more.
Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism.
BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER
Click here to learn more about the project.
Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University’s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben.
Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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