ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the politics of theatre translation and translation theatre at work in the Rakutendan productions of Highway's Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing and The Rez Sisters and suggest how First Nations theatre is transformed by different bodies, languages and audiences. It begins with a brief historical overview of the myth of Japan's racial/cultural homogeneity and the particular issue of visibility in somatic and semantic terms. The book shows how Rakutendan textually represents Highway's plays in the promotional handbills before focusing on the productions of Dry Lips and The Rez Sisters, respectively, to consider the telling aspects of their textual translations, as well as how Rakutendan negotiates a fine line between translation theatre performance and cultural appropriation. The political is enacted rather than inscribed by the disruptive spirit of a queer Nanabush and rez sisters who are also rezubian.
