YGSNA Members Attend Cliff Cardinal’s Radical Retelling of As You Like It

On a cold mid-winter’s night, several YGSNA members, supported by the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, traveled to the NYU Skirball Theater to see Cliff Cardinal’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous comedy, As You Like It. 

An award-winning Cree and Lakota playwright and actor, Cardinal debuted his play in 2021 in Toronto. Since then, the play has traveled across provinces to much acclaim, and recently was awarded the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, one of the top Canadian literary prizes.

At once satirical and deeply vulnerable, this brilliant re-telling of As You Like It brought many in the audience to the edge of their seats–and even beyond! Cardinal tells a story that dares the audience to recoil from its sharp comedy and hard truths, staging a truly Shakespearean tale of mistaken identity. 

3rd Year Student at Yale Law School, K McCleary (Little Shell Chippewa) emphasized the importance of the group outing: “I am so grateful that the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (YIPAP) enabled us to see this incredible performance. Indigenous theater is so often under-funded, making programs like YIPAP even more important.” The YGSNA group also met up with several colleagues at Columbia to watch the show, building upon its members’ multidisciplinary networks.

Assistant Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, Tarren Andrews (Bitterroot Salish) who organized the event, described Cardinal’s work as “an incredible piece of performance art that played beautiful[ly] with the audience[’s] experience of time.”  

The NYU-Yale American Indian Sovereignty Program Manager, Leah Shrestinian, called the play “moving and hilarious…This Indigenous retelling of As You Like It brought new meaning to the play’s notable line that ‘all the world’s a stage.’”

The group is hoping, with further YIPAP support, to bring the play to the Yale Repertory Theatre soon.