Traumatizing Drama—Dramatizing Trauma: The Residential School Legacy in Kevin Loring’s Where the Blood Mixes and Drew Hayden Taylor’s God and the Indian

After providing an overview of the residential school system and its legacy in Canada, this paper will discuss the implications of historical trauma for Native people and assess primarily traditional Indigenous approaches to healing, as well as Western psychological treatments. The main focus will be placed on the role of Native playwrights as contemporary storytellers and on the use of theatrical productions to create a critical Indigenous counternarrative, give a voice to the silenced survivors, and provide pathways to healing for wounded communities. Two post-apology dramas—Kevin Loring’s Where the Blood Mixes (2009) and Drew Hayden Taylor’s God and the Indian (2014)—will be analyzed to offer deeper insights into the insidious nature of traumatic experiences, various coping mechanisms, and potential sources of healing using the experiences of the fictive characters as examples. Will these characters remain eternal victims, or will they break the vicious circle and emerge as victors? Finally, there will be a call to action not only to raise more awareness about the damage wrought by colonial policies, but also to further decolonize the minds of the settler population.