"Dry Lips: Breaking New Ground"

There is an unscripted, magical moment in Cree Playwright Tomson Highway's latest production.

In the second act of Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, Gary Farmer stands in the lobby of the theatre in this case the Royal Alex waiting for his cue to re-enter the scene.

Often, as he waits, he is passed by members of the audience who have given up on the play and are barrelling headlong in the opposite direction and out the door.

It's a "special moment" says the Cayuga man from the Six Nations reserve.

This is also a special moment for native theatre. An all-native play written by a native man and produced by a native theatre company has just finished a six-week run in the posh, sometimes pompous, and generally mainstream Royal Alex.

It seems that Mr. Highway has broken through the glass ceiling (or door) of the Canadian theatre establishment, and behind him stands a cast of native actors and playwrights who are ready to storm onto Canada's biggest and richest stages.

Mr. Farmer, 38, believes people are starting to listen to native stories and the lessons behind them, and pointed to the near-capacity crowds at the Royal Alex as evidence. But he knows that it's not always easy for them, because many people have little or no knowledge of native culture.

"I'm sure it's very drastic for most people. It's almost like their bubble's going to crack in them if they sit through the whole thing."

For some, the experience is too much. An average of 15 people walked out of Dry Lips every night, unable to comprehend or tolerate images of a native culture suppressed and suffocated by the Christian church.

He believes one of the central causes for environmental destruction is the way people relate to their religion, their God, and that must be examined.

"As long as people continue to follow a religion that says man holds absolute dominion over the earth, that ecology will continue to be destroyed.

"Only over a period of many years, and with the appearance of successive works of a similar nature asking similar questions about the same essential issues, will people begin to realize and begin to act to change."

Mr. Highway is eager to provide the plays which will raise those questions again and again. Dry Lips was the second play in a series and he says there will be seven before the cycle is completed.

If Dry Lips has opened the doors to the big stage, Six Nations playwright Daniel Moses may be one of the first to follow.

The Delaware man has written several plays, including Big Buck City, which looks at the difficulty of integrating native spiritual values into urban life. It is now playing at the Tarragon Extra Space in Toronto.

Mr. Moses feels Canadians should be tuned to the voices from this land, but the big theatres are still looking elsewhere.

"Dry Lips getting into the Royal Alex, that kind of exposure is not usually available to Canadian theatre."

Mr. Farmer, who plays a Hopi policeman in the Hollywood film Dark Wind to be released this fall, also hopes to join the writers' queue.

He is planning to write and perform a one-man play, to raise his own questions about Canadian society.

"It's a culmination of a lot of things that I've experienced and lived and learned over my career as a performer, and it's important that it be said."