Tomson Highway's "the Rez" Plays: Theater As the (E)Merging of Native Ritual Through Postmodernist Displacement (The Rez Sisters) (Critical Essay‪)‬

Introduction Canadian Native playwright Tomson Highway emerged on the national and international theatre scene with the production of two plays in the late 1980s: The Rez Sisters, first staged by Native Earth Performing Arts Toronto in 1986; and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, originally produced at Theatre Pass Muraille in Toronto in 1989. Both plays were extremely well-received at the time and made Highway the talk of the Canadian theatre establishment. Both plays won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for an Outstanding New Play (1988-89), as well as the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award, given to Canadian plays produced professionally in the Toronto area.