OTTAWA - Young Inuk actress Abbie Ootova admits to both excitement and a tinge of loneliness in the run-up to her national theatre debut.
The 16-year-old from Pond Inlet, Nunavut, has only been south a handful of times and never away from her family over the holidays like this year. She says adapting to the schedule around "Night," debuting Monday at the National Arts Centre, has been challenging.
But then there's the allure of acting on a major stage, an experience Ootova says made all the richer because she's expecting a baby.
"It's pretty awesome...My parents are coming to watch me, from Pond Inlet to Ottawa," said Ootova, who has been drawn to the theatre since elementary school.
"I'm kind of excited they're going to see me on the big stage that they've never seen me (on) before, and they're so proud of me in doing that."
Ootova's experiences with life in the south, and the misconceptions and judgments people might have about her and her community, seem partly reflected in "Night."
Playwright Christopher Morris met Ootova when she was 10, while he was on the first of seven visits to Pond Inlet.
Morris was so marked by his experience that his company Human Cargo set up three theatre workshops in the community and in Iceland over three years, a kind of organic brainstorming exercise that eventually formed the basis of the "Night" script.
The result is a play that hovers somewhere between art and life, posing questions about the awkward and often destructive relationship between north and south.
"It's just kind of seeing what things are like there and learning more about what my culture's history is and how we might relate to each other now, and it was quite an eye-opener," said Morris.
"What I found was that it opened things up but didn't really offer more answers. I feel I'm more confused about it all in a way."
Ootova plays Piuyuq, a high school student in Pond Inlet who must cope with a damaged family history, and with abuse and suicide in her community. The audience is given a flavour of swirl of influences in Pond Inlet: a Britney Spears tune on the radio and Google searches on one hand, a mother dead on the tundra after a hunting trip on the other.
The plot centres around the arrival of a southern scientist in Pond Inlet around the sunless time of the winter solstice. Well-meaning but ignorant Danielle has brought the remains of Piuyuq's grandfather, who died in a southern hospital of tuberculosis in the middle of last century like so many other Inuit.
Morris accompanied members of Ootova's own family two years ago to hospitals in southern Ontario where they had been treated, and to the grave site of one relative.
"That really affected me," said Morris.
Much of the material is dark, and unfortunately familiar to those who worked on the play. Ootova's own family has been hit by suicide.
But Morris sees hope in his protagonist.
"In essence to me, it's a play about her trying to find her way out of the darkness," said Morris.
"I feel quite strongly about youth and young people, and it's very important that we take care of young people and that's my strongest feeling from being there, and that's always stayed with me."
Ootova is hopeful, too, for the future, in which she sees herself in more than one career after starting her family.
"I'll want to do acting and open a little business doing hairdressing with my boyfriend," she said. "His dream is that he wants to be a businessman and I really enjoy doing hair, so I kind of want to do two jobs."
"Night" runs Jan. 4-16 at the National Arts Centre before stops in Inuvik, NT, and Whitehorse.
