Cliff Cardinal raises necessary dialogue on uncomfortable truths in As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement
In his one-man show, the theatre artist of Cree and Lakota heritage addresses empty land acknowledgements with unapologetic conviction
As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement. Photo by Dahlia Katz
The Cultch presents As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement from September 25 to 29 at the York Theatre
ORIGINALLY PRESENTED AS an adaptation of the Shakespeare classic, theatre artist Cliff Cardinal’s one-man play William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal subverted expectations and hilariously challenged audiences when it debuted here at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in 2022. Informed by Cardinal’s Cree and Lakota heritage, the Governor General’s Literary Award-winning show is a bold satirization of the cultural and political practice of land acknowledgements and the uncomfortable truths behind them.
“How is it that someone who has no footing in the Indigenous community whatsoever can stand up there and give a 30-second or five-minute speech on how they think that Indigenous issues are really important, and then just stand there and accept applause like they’ve done something good?” Cardinal says of land acknowledgements in a phone interview with Stir.
“These people who both give and listen to empty land acknowledgements should have a relationship with the Indigenous community,” he continues. “And if not with the Indigenous community, then with me, and that relationship should be based on honesty.”
Playing with the suggestive title As You Like It, Cardinal opened the production with a teasing assurance to please all tastes. But he had something different planned: a production filled with unapologetic conviction and brash comedy, in which he would play the Trickster.
“In Canada, to be an Indigenous person is to be lied to,” Cardinal says. “Resources have been systematically kept from Indigenous people. We’ve been lied to about our history. We have had our culture taken from us from a genocidal church culture. I think that part of that honesty means that you should get to be lied to as well. For just a second, for one evening, you should come out and have me say to your face that you’re going to see one of your bullshit white cultural things, William Shakespeare’s As You Like It.”
Cliff Cardinal in As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement. Photo by Dahlia Katz
Receiving critical acclaim, Cardinal’s daring approach has both impressed audiences and stirred controversy. Now presenting the play with the longer title As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement, Cardinal is taking a more direct approach and tempering audiences’ expectations.
“People enjoy the show every night, people have come back and seen the show many times, and other people have gotten upset about it. And that’s okay, you want it all when you’re doing a satire, something that’s edgy,” Cardinal says. “You want tears, you want boos, you want people to be elated, you want people to be offended. And we get it all.
“I thought there was one really good criticism of the piece, and that is ‘I don’t like that guy’. In the old version, you walk into the theatre, you get me, you say ‘I don’t like that guy’, and then I stay,” he continues. “People will still go and see something that they don’t want, and they get pissed off about it, because people come to the theatre because they think it’s a good thing to do, or it’s an enriching thing to do,” he adds. “I’m here to tell you, going to the theatre should be a fun thing to do.”
With As You Like It or The Land Acknowledgement, Cardinal transforms the theatre into a space for dialogue around the uncomfortable truths of Canadian culture.
“Let’s provoke an interesting conversation in which some of the old rote responses, some of the soundbites that people have been carrying for years and years, don’t fit anymore,” Cardinal says. “The idea that this is how cultures meet each other, one culture displaces another culture. Get over it. Human beings are a hateful, genocidal, warlike species, and that’s to be celebrated.
“That is not the correct relations strategy moving forward, we should do better than that,” he adds. “You should have enough confidence within yourself as a human being to say, maybe I don’t know everything.”
Cardinal, who is the son of Canadian actor Tantoo Cardinal, doesn’t concern himself with public opinion. Look no further than his contentious yet humorous work Huff, a one-man show about Indigenous youth struggling through grief and drug abuse.
Instead, the artist aims to present a performance rooted in honesty and humour.
“I’m not trying to change the world,” Cardinal explains. “I’m trying to change our lives right now in this theatre. I know people work hard for their money, and so for them to give it to an artist, that’s a sacred relationship.
“I just want people to have a good time, and to have an experience that’s not so predictable,” he concludes. “People shouldn’t be so predictable. You should come out and be surprised, you should sit next to someone you don’t know. That being said, if you have a hard time taking an experience that’s not on your own terms, you should stay home. You’re not gonna like it, and I don’t want you there.” 
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