“Reaching for the same can of beans”: transnational indigenous performance in the U.S. and Canada

It is in this most recent play that a francophone woman with Cree heritage sorts through the mail in the fictitious town of Lovely, Ontario. Marie-Louise Painchaud, 49 years old, the mother of five children and the only character in this two-act play, has been working at the post office for 31 years (8). Reading letters from Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans, Montreal, Val-d’Or (Quebec), Lake Menard (Ontario), Toronto, Buenos Aires, Saskatoon (Saskatchewan), Ottawa, and Complexity (another fictitious town), she programmatically unfolds an array of a dozen love stories – including her own – all across the Americas.