Nowadays, Kevin Loring (Nlaka’pamux, Lytton First Nation) is a highly respected theatre artist. He was the first artistic director of Indigenous Theatre at the National Arts Centre. He’s also artistic director of Savage Society and has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Drama.
But a quarter-century ago, Loring was a little-known student enrolled in the Studio 58 theatre program at Langara College. Back then, he had an idea for a satirical student production about an Indigenous man’s dealings with his lawyer. Loring started writing Little Red Warrior & His Lawyer in 1998 and it premiered at Studio 58 in 2001. And after Loring made several revisions over the next 20 years, it came back to the Belfry Theatre in Victoria and the York Theatre in 2022 in critically acclaimed performances.
The Cultch will present Little Red Warrior & His Lawyer again at the York Theatre from Thursday (March 6) to March 16. Veteran actor Gordon Patrick White plays the Little Red Warrior in this Savage Society and Belfry Theatre co-production. White’s character is at the centre of various shenanigans involving other characters, making him the driving force of the play.
“He’s like the straight guy,” Loring, who’s also the director, tells Pancouver in a phone interview. “He brings a stoicism to it that’s really quite fun. And strength.”
Little Red Warrior becomes enmeshed in a noble fight for his land. Loring says that in writing the manuscript, he played with the idea that Indigenous people have a special relationship with the Crown.
“Non-treaty First Nations, in particular, haven’t made those deals and come to those sorts of agreements in terms of how we exist together,” he states. “They are sovereign communities—people—within this relationship that we call Canada.”
Loring alludes to terra nullius
Other characters include his lawyer, Larry (Shekhar Paleja), and Larry’s wife Desdemona (Luisa Jojic), Lizzy (Nick Miami Benz), and Floyd (Kevin McNulty), who is the narrator. McNulty saw the original production at Studio 58.
“He transforms into all these other characters in the show,” Loring says. “He said, ‘Wow, it’s a lot darker than I thought it was going to be, but it’s funny.’ “
Loring points out that terra nullius has traditionally underscored the Crown’s relationship with First Nations. It’s a Latin phrase and legal doctrine used to justify colonization. It basically dictates that the land was unoccupied prior to European claims of sovereignty. Therefore, the Crown holds underlying title and can transform ownership to settlers.
“It’s the idea that First Nations—Indigenous people—are not human,” Loring states. “Therefore, their lands are free for the taking, right?”
Loring acknowledges that his play includes some “pretty offensive things” to reflect the absurdity of the characters’ perspectives. They treat Little Red Warrior badly because they don’t really see him as human. This is Loring’s way of subtly embedding the terra nullius concept into his manuscript.
“It has a real punch to it because it’s poking at some really deep truths,” he notes.
The back story behind Little Red Warrior & His Lawyer offers intriguing insights into how Loring developed his play.
“It came out of an experience that I had while I was working in the Fraser Canyon for one of the First Nations there,” he says. “I was going to university and the chief at the time said, ‘Hey, we have this team of surveyors who were going to be walking up in the Siska watershed.’ ”
Finding culturally modified trees
The forest company had timber rights to one of the last remaining unlogged valleys in the Fraser Canyon. The Siska First Nation hired Loring to tag along as its team marked out areas for future logging cutblocks. As an Indigenous observer, Loring’s job was to document and photograph trails, food caches, and other evidence of traditional First Nation activities.
“The whole time I was up in the mountains, they said that there are no cedar trees up here—‘you won’t find any cedar or culturally modified trees,’ ” Loring recalls.
However, on the last day as a storm was brewing, he ran from the valley bottom to the alpine area with other crew members to reach a helicopter. He stopped to tie his shoes, looked back, and was stunned to see an entire cedar grove with culturally modified trees. That’s when he realized that he had been duped by the surveying crew, who had carefully travelled around this patch of land to conceal its existence.
“All of the trees had had their bark stripped in 10-foot sections all the way around,” Loring says. “I took photographs, ran, caught up to the rest of the team, jumped in the chopper and got out of the valley.”
Loring turned over the evidence to the band. Later, he headed into the mountains with a team of archeologists to map out the extent of culturally modified trees and other evidence revealing traditional First Nations activities. He believed at the time that he had done something heroic to save the valley from chainsaws.
“It turns out, I was there to give the band leverage so that they could have a say over who and how a valley was logged, which is a very different thing,” Loring reveals.
As a naïve twentysomething, he didn’t believe that this is what he should have been doing. But on reflection, he came to appreciate that the Siska First Nation should be the beneficiaries of any resource extraction.
“I sort of had a bit of a wake-up there,” Loring admits. “So, that’s what inspired me to write the play.”
Event details
The Cultch presents Little Red Warrior & His Lawyer from March 6 to March 16 at the York Theatre. For tickets and more information, visit the Cultch website. Follow Pancouver on X @PancouverMedia and Bluesky @pancouver.bsky.social. Pancouver is also on Instagram @PancouverMedia. In addition, follow Charlie Smith on Bluesky @charliesmithvcr.bsky.social.
