Lisa Nasson in Mischief Photo by Stoo Metz
Lisa Nasson’s play Mischief, which runs at Neptune Theatre now until October 12th, 2025 as part of the Prismatic Arts Festival, is set in the months before January 31st, 2018 when the statue of Edward Cornwallis was finally removed from what is now known as Peace and Friendship Park, just in front of the train station in the South End of Halifax.
In a conversation we had at Neptune Theatre Nasson tells me that during the time when folks were beginning to hold protests at the statue in the park calling on the City Council to remove Cornwallis from this place of reverence and honour in our city, she was in Toronto working as the Associate Artistic Director at Native Earth Performing Arts. She started to follow the mounting protests on social media and said, “I was just so hurt that I couldn’t be there… that’s actually when I first learned about Edward Cornwallis and what he did to our people.”
Nasson was not at all alone in this experience, in fact the protests at the statue proved to be an effective information campaign that highlighted a moment in Haligonian history that we all should have learned about in Junior High School, but that most of us didn’t. Edward Cornwallis was Halifax’s first Lieutenant Governor, yes, but he was only here for four years before he returned to England, and in that time he ordered his men to deliberately kill the original inhabitants of this land, the Mi’kmaq, and to bring back their scalps for a bounty of ten guineas. “When I did my research and found out that he was a man who was the founder of Halifax, who put this proclamation into effect, it was kind of confusing and disturbing. Then I questioned everything: why is that statue up if he did something so awful? A lot of this play stems from the roots of those feelings of confusion and feeling overlooked, feeling discluded in history.”
Another misconception that many Haligonians had about the statue was how historical it actually was. Many folks, myself included, assumed that it dated back to much closer to Cornwallis’ time, but, in fact, it was only erected in 1931, and Cornwallis had largely faded from the memories of Haligonians until 1899. In 1927 Dalhousie University professor Archibald MacMechan argued that Cornwallis should hold greater prominence in Halifax because “men of English blood all the world over are accustomed to feel and give voice to a just pride in the achievement of their race, as a colonizing power,” he also cautioned that the Mi’kmaq were “[cruel] and [cunning]” and still needed to be actively guarded against- so, in this way from the very beginning the statue was conceived as not just an obnoxious assertion of white dominance and power, but also a warning to anyone who might object and resist.
MacMechan’s characterization of the Mi’kmaq in this Dalhousie Review article could not be further from the truth. In the earliest primary sources from the British settlers who first came with Cornwallis Nasson points out that the Mi’kmaq were described as being friendly. Indeed, their friendliness, generosity, and naïvety made them vulnerable to the settlers’ insatiable greed. “Mi’kmaq people were peaceful people, and we lived off the land, and we believed in spirit and had our ceremonies. We didn’t know what money was, and I don’t think we cared to know… we didn’t know what hierarchy was, we were a matriarchal society, so we didn’t know the ruling of a man over multiple people. It was community based… the settlers took advantage of that kindness.”
In Mischief the protests at the statue are largely the backdrop, while the bulk of the action takes place in a convenience store on a reserve just outside the city where Brooke, who works at the store, is visited by someone very unexpected. “[Brooke] has conflicting opinions [about the protests],” says Nasson. She also stresses that the play is a comedy. “It has a lot of heart and a lot of deep moments, a lot of quiet moments, but it’s a lot of Indigenous humour. It’s fast…. I’m really excited to have people come in and see a show with Indigenous people that’s funny and lighthearted and really real and authentic… I wanted to write a play about those struggles, what it’s like to be Mi’kmaq every day in a modern society, based on historically what has happened to us, and how we still feel it today, but never feeling like the victim. We’re powerful, we’re strong, we’re ceremonial, we’re funny. We’re really funny.”
Nasson was at Stratford in 2020 when the world shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and so she decided to return home to Nova Scotia, and she was living in an apartment in Halifax and was writing and having Zoom meetings, and was going on little “pandemic walks,” and during those walks she would pass by where the statue of Edward Cornwallis had been. Around the same time she was asked by Roseneath Theatre to write a short Theatre for Young Audiences play for a digital series they were doing to send theatre into schools. “I just thought of this man and [wondered] why doesn’t this become an educational play for kids?” This piece is now called Moose & Hawk, and has toured to schools here with Neptune Theatre’s TourCo. Mischief comes from the same seed, but is a much expanded, completely different work. “I guess it has the same heart [as Moose & Hawk],” Nasson says. She wrote it very quickly in her apartment in Toronto; it went through a few workshops, and now she’s thrilled to have it open here at Neptune.
“It’s a classic play, it’s text, it’s dialogue, it’s heart, the actors are really strong,” she says, “it’s that classic play, but let’s Indigenize it, right? Let’s see it through a Mi’kmaw lens. I think that’s the most important thing, especially a modern day Mi’kmaw lens.”
Along with being the playwright Nasson also plays Brooke in the show, and she characterizes her cast as being like a family. She has known Yolanda Bonnell, who plays mysterious visitor Emily, since she was in her early 20s and says, “she’s like my auntie kind of,” and they have been looking for a project to work on together for years. She also notes that she is a “superstar.” She notes that Trina Moyan, who plays Tammy, is an authentically free spirit who makes them all laugh. Jeremy Proulx, who she calls “incredible,” plays Brooke’s uncle Chris, and Devin MacKinnon, who Nasson met a few years ago at Stratford, plays two different characters: Fisherman Fred and Good Guy. “He puts his heart into everything,” she says.
Nasson stresses to prospective audience members that, despite some of the more serious subject matter surrounding Cornwallis, she hopes that folks won’t be afraid to laugh during the show.
“We welcome laughter. We want it. We need it,” she says. And certainly in this world, in this moment, there is great power in laughing, especially against a backdrop of darkness.
Mischief plays at Neptune Theatre’s Scotiabank Studio Theatre (1589 Argyle Street, Halifax) until October 12th, 2025 as part of the Prismatic Arts Festival. It is a Co-Production with Native Earth Performing Arts and Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. Tickets range in price from $73.00 to $33.00 based on seating and are available online here, by calling the Box Office at 902.429.7070 or visiting in person at 1589 Argyle Street. Shows run Tuesdays to Sundays at 7:30pm with 2:00pm matinees on Saturdays and Sundays. Special Performances are as follows:
Talkback
Thursday, October 9 – 7:30pm
Masked Performance
Sunday, October 5 – 2:00pm
Mischief plays as part of the Prismatic Arts Festival, which takes place in venues throughout the city until October 5th. For more information about Prismatic’s programming please visit this website. Mischief will play at the Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman Avenue, Toronto) from January 15th to February 8th, 2026. For more information about these performances please visit this website.
