Finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Drama
The Girl traces her life from surviving the foster care system to her struggles with addictions. She fights, hoping to break the cycle in order to give her daughter a different life than the one she had. The Mother sits in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, recounting memories of the daughter that was taken from her, and the struggles of living on the streets in Northern Ontario. They are both followed by Manidoons, a physical manifestation of the trauma and addictions that crawl across generations.
bug is a solo performance and artistic ceremony that highlights the ongoing effects of colonialism and intergenerational trauma experienced by Indigenous women, as well as a testimony to the women’s resilience and strength.
Drumming for the bug audiobook is provided by Nicole Joy-Fraser
Content warning: talk of drug and substance use and addiction, self-harm, violence: physical and sexual, intergenerational trauma and healing, scooped children*, racism
*The term “scooped” refers to the government practice where Indigenous children were (and continue to be) forcefully taken from their families.
News & Reviews
“bug pulls back the curtain on the falsehood of reconciliation using storytelling and movement, bringing everything we’ve seen in the news and the history books into the heart and gut.” —Mooney on Theatre
About the Author/Performer
Yolanda Bonnell (She/Her) is a Queer 2-Spirit Ojibwe/South Asian performer, playwright and poet from Fort William First Nation in Thunder Bay, Ontario (Superior Robinson Treaty Territory). She is now based in Tkar—n:to. Yolanda’s Dora-nominated solo show bug had its world premiere at the Luminato Festival in 2018, followed by a national tour and a remount at Theatre Passe Muraille in February 2020. She was also a part of Factory Theatre’s The Foundry, a creation program for new career writers.
About the Musician
Nicole Joy-Fraser (Bear clan; Settler, Dene Zaa, Nehiyaw and Métis) is an award-winning, Niagara-based, performing artist who has been storytelling for stage and screen across Turtle Island and beyond.
