Arjun Pillai
Daily Herald
A haunting reimagining of Shakespeare’s Macbeth will soon take the stage at the EA Rawlinson Centre in Prince Albert. But this is no ordinary retelling. Pawâkan Macbeth, written by acclaimed Indigenous playwright Reneltta Arluk, blends Cree worldviews, spirit guides, and ancestral teachings to deliver a transformative experience steeped in both tragedy and healing.
The idea for Pawâkan Macbeth began over eight years ago during a theatre residency in Frog Lake First Nation, where Arluk worked with students from Grades 6 to 12. When asked if they could adapt Macbeth using the cannibal spirit as a metaphor for greed, Arluk recognized the power of reimagining Shakespeare through Indigenous stories. She reached out to the community for support, and with their encouragement, the idea took form and grew into a professional theatre production.
Reworking the play wasn’t just about translation; it required cultural transformation.
“I didn’t focus so much on the greed element,” Arluk explained. “I asked myself, what is it to be human? What is the humanity that brings the darkness in this moment?”
These questions led her to create a version of Macbeth where the emotional and spiritual journey takes precedence over raw ambition alone.
In Shakespeare’s original, witches guide Macbeth’s fate. In Arluk’s version, the pawakanak spirit guides take their place. With a howling, coyote-like energy, they represent living beings navigating survival, hunger, and the will to thrive. Their goal is not to manipulate, but to reveal the cannibal spirit through guidance, offering both caution and insight.
Cree language and poetic structure play a vital role in Pawâkan Macbeth. While Shakespeare’s text remains faintly present, most of the dialogue has been rewritten in Arluk’s own poetic style. The characters’ names are in Plain Cree, and relational terms, like ‘Mother’ or ‘Prophecy,’ are subtly interwoven.
“You hear the word and understand the intention,” Arluk said, “even without knowing the exact translation.”
At its core, Pawâkan Macbeth explores hunger, not just for power, but for connection, land, and meaning.
“You realize that hunger just creates more isolation,” Arluk noted. “But the community comes together, and that’s really the key value: we have deep relations. We connect to one another, and when you go against that, you end up so alone. You end up eating yourself.”
The play has received powerful responses from Indigenous youth and communities.
“They laugh, they celebrate, they love it,” Arluk said.
Performances at festivals in Halifax, Yellowknife, and Edmonton have brought the story to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous audiences, though international touring has not yet been the focus. Instead, Arluk emphasizes accessibility, taking the show into Indigenous communities and often performing for free after a local theatre presentation.
So what does Arluk hope audiences take away from Pawâkan Macbeth?
“That we thrive together,” she said. “That community is the way forward. That through hardship, we still need each other. That’s the grace of it all.”
Pawâkan Macbeth will be performed at the EA Rawlinson Centre for the Arts in Prince Albert on June 11 and 12 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available through the Rawlinson box office or online at www.earc.ca.
