Little Red Warrior & His Lawyer makes Vancouver comeback, March 6 to 16
The production written and directed by Nlaka’pamux playwright Kevin Loring is a land-claims farce
Gordon Patrick White, Little Red Warrior & His Lawyer. Photo by Trudie Lee
The Cultch presents Little Red Warrior & His Lawyer from March 6 to 16 at the York Theatre
NLAKA’PAMUX PLAYWRIGHT KEVIN Loring’s Little Red Warrior & His Lawyer is back on The Cultch stage after a highly successful Vancouver debut in 2022. A hilarious and bold take on land claims, the 2025 iteration features Gordon Patrick White in the lead role.
The play, which Loring also directs, tells the story of Little Red, the last remaining member of his First Nation. After discovering that a land-development company has sent construction crews to his traditional and ancestral territory, he is arrested for attacking one of their engineers and gets assigned a court-appointed lawyer. Things get even more comical when Little Red is forced to move in with the lawyer and his wife—who finds herself strangely attracted to him.
In a 2022 interview with Stir, Loring explained that in writing the work, he drew cues from snk̓ y̓ép, or Coyote, the Trickster in the Nlaka’pamux stories he grew up with. Instead of a single character, however, he described the whole outrageous universe of the play as the Trickster.
“It was the intention of wanting everything to be tricky,” Loring explained. “There’s a lot of storytelling in it, and the narrator, Floyd, is himself a Trickster or a transformer. The other element is all the characters transform throughout the show.
“So aspects of duality are present throughout—one thing can be two things. I’m just having fun with that,” added Loring. “And I’m really playing on those stereotypes—the lawyer, the ‘Karen’, an Indigenous man, a homeless man—and twisting them upside down. Nobody gets away with anything.”
The play is a Savage Society and Belfry Theatre co-production in association with NAC Indigenous Theatre and Theatre Calgary. ![]()
Gail Johnson is cofounder of Stir. She is a Vancouver-based journalist who has earned local and national nominations and awards for her work. She is a certified Gladue Report writer via Indigenous Perspectives Society in partnership with Royal Roads University and is a member of a judging panel for top Vancouver restaurants.
Related Articles
At The Cultch’s York Theatre, wonderfully weird characterizations meet gravity-defying feats in a raucously unpretentious banger that has “hit” written all over it
Whether you’re looking for a quick drink and snack, conversation, reflection, or people-watching, these airy meeting places hit their marks
Playwright Kate Besworth and director Ming Hudson team up for a contemporary adaptation of the classical Sophocles tragedy
Cheeky, DIY theatre event aimed to throw light on the stage scene’s unsung heroes—and ended up selling out
The veteran theatre artist grappled with big questions of good and evil, and took inspiration from genre films, for his visually stylized new adaptation
Elevated visual design and a strong, multitasking cast bring ample Newfoundland warmth to new Arts Club Theatre Company and Citadel Theatre coproduction
Ashley Wright has helmed it himself, but in Bard on the Beach’s new production, he plays Shakespeare’s dissolute knight under the capable direction of Rebecca Northan
London’s Three Legged Race Productions folds in influences from contemporary circus to cabaret in a raucously funny show that celebrates a ’90s-style birthday at The York Theatre
Boca del Lupo and ArtstageSAN’s show at the Vancouver International Children’s Festival is more of an immersive experience than a plot-driven play
Megan Milton’s Free Kittens and William Rubel’s Robin Redbreast in a Cage converge on close human relationships in an age of reality TV and AI
The Arts Club teams up with Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre for new local production of the international smash-hit musical
Two senior artists play young Newfoundland couple in Western Gold Theatre’s gentle staging
Stephen Drover directs his own haunting adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, laced with tyranny and moral corruption
Boca del Lupo returns to the outdoor stage in partnership with Korean puppet masters for five-metre-tall spectacle
Event’s top works from across the country and the globe leap between juggling, circus, art installation, concert, and more
Laugh-out-loud, music-filled production sets Shakespeare’s play in a fictional soccer-obsessed Vancouver suburb
The Vancouver director says there’s something “extraordinarily intimate” about Nobel Prize laureate Peter Handke’s 1966 “anti-play”
Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life documents the creator’s retirement, cancer diagnosis, and pursuit of a long-deferred passion for music
Sharply funny shows by standup comics Scarlet Chen and Megan Milton get theatrical about themes of immigration and mother-daughter relationships
Veteran actors Craig March and Dolores Drake play the young lovers in David French’s play, set in a Newfoundland outport 100 years ago
Arnaud Hoedt and Jérôme Piron look at linguistic absurdity and educational inequity in their hit shows La Convivialité and Kevin
