Legendary Canadian playwright Tomson Highway’s joy is captured in new film: ‘I need human laughter like I need air’ - Toronto Star

'Permanent Astonishment' was inspired by the playwright's acclaimed memoir about his childhood.

 “I’m not interested in being seen— I’d rather see,” says Tomson Highway, one of the foremost Canadian dramatists of his generation, who is the subject of a new documentary.

Legendary Cree playwright and composer Tomson Highway, Officer of the Order of Canada and lucky number 11 of 12 children, was born near a sub-Arctic snowbank in negative-50 degree weather. But Highway has never been fazed by the coldest moments in a life he describes as a “victory celebration.” His warm outlook on the world’s beauty and his ever-present laughter are enough to melt even the thickest ice.

Highway’s delight fills “Permanent Astonishment,” a new CBC documentary directed by fellow Cree artist Barbara Todd Hager, which had its world premiere screening at the TIFF Lightbox on Nov. 11.

“The moment you utter the first syllable in the Cree language, you start to laugh,” Highway told the Star. “It’s the world’s silliest language. The religion that came to us told us that we were born on this earth to have a miserable time — to apologize for the fact that we exist. Well, if you look at our mythology, we are not here for that. We’re here for one reason, and that reason is to laugh. If I teach you anything in life, that’s the fact I want to teach.”

The documentary was inspired by Highway’s acclaimed memoir about his childhood, winner of the 2021 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for nonfiction. Peter Raymont, president of White Pine Pictures, optioned the book.

At first, Highway was embarrassed by the very concept of a documentary. “I wouldn’t make a very good movie star,” he said. “I’m not interested in being seen; I’d rather see.” Eventually, he got over his reticence, and the film went forward.

Hager soon got involved. “Peter was looking for an Indigenous co-producer because, in Canada, it’s really important to have Indigenous leadership in films about our stories,” she said. “Tomson auditioned me to be director, and I guess I passed.”

Cree artist Barbara Todd Hager is the director of the new CBC documentary “Permanent Astonishment.”

Highway was impressed with Hager, even if she substituted smoked salmon for the moose meat he’d requested as a meeting gift. “You were brilliant,” he told her. “You knocked me off my feet. I’m still recovering.”

Directing the film was a serendipitous opportunity for Hager, who was inspired to pursue the arts after attending a production of Highway’s 1986 play “The Rez Sisters” at a small Kentucky college. She’s in good company — Highway’s work highlighting multi-layered Indigenous stories launched so many careers that he calls his plays “an employment program for Native actors.”

“I always produce my own work because nobody else would,” said Highway. “And I’ve won every time, because I’m very stubborn.”

“The documentary does the same thing,” agreed Hager. “We employ so many creatives.”

The film features interviews with some of the actors Highway “put to work in show after show after show” and who became his second family, such as Gary Farmer and the 101-year-old Gloria Miguel. Their testimonials intersperse with clips of rare footage of “The Rez Sisters,” which Hager finally found on a VHS tape in the University of Guelph archives, and the CBC special of its 1989 sequel, “Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.”

In 2026, almost 40 years after the premieres of his two most famous works, Highway finally mounted a full production of their sequel. The film covers an emotional Banff workshop and full National Arts Centre production of “Rose,” an epic 3.5-hour musical that brought together the characters from the first two plays to examine the impact of violence against Indigenous women.

“If I’m going to be in the spotlight, then I might as well take advantage of it,” said Highway. “I’m a great activist in promoting native Canadian literature, thought and philosophy.”

That includes a focus on the natural world. “The most important thing was to go back to Brochet,” said Hager, who called Highway’s Manitoba hometown the “heart” of Highway’s story.

Tomson Highway, photographed in 1986 for the Star. 

Highway returns each year to the “tiny, tiny First Nation on the northern tip of Reindeer Lake, which abuts the Northwest Territories on the one hand, and the border of Saskatchewan on the other,” where everyone is related to everyone else and gravel roads and fences are novelties. His journey home at the film’s beginning parallels a 1967 memory of flying back after nine years as the star pupil of the Guy Hill Indian Residential School.

“In order to get to my roots, the story of my life, they had to go there. 99.9 per cent of Canadians will never see the Northern Manitoba that I know because it’s inaccessible,” explained Highway. He’s travelled to 70 countries, but nothing compares to the pristine, glasslike surface of Reindeer Lake, where reflected clouds seem to drift lazily on the water and tree-covered islands rise from the mist.

“I realized only little by little as I was getting older that I was raised in paradise,” said Highway. “I want people to see the extraordinary beauty of Canada.”

Highway hopes that, by showing the splendour of the landscape, the film will persuade viewers to preserve it.

“At this point in our history, as a people in northern Canada, we are in danger of being wiped off the face of the map. That land is being eaten alive by forest fires,” he said. “When I was growing up in the 1950s, there was no such thing as a community evacuation. Now there are hundreds every summer. And we have to do whatever we can to prevent that from happening.”

“Permanent Astonishment” is both a love letter to Brochet and to Highway’s family, particularly his loving father Joe, a national dog sledding champion, and his younger brother Rene, whose career as a modern dancer prompted Highway to write his first piano compositions for productions at Toronto Dance Theatre, and whose death at 35 of AIDS-related causes motivated Highway to find happiness in any way he could.

“Human laughter is my favourite sound in the world,” said Highway. “It’s a kind of music, and I need it. I need human laughter like I need air.”

For “Permanent Astonishment,” Hager filmed live footage and turned it over to Victoria company PeZo2 Media, which created a watercolour effect for a sense of heightened reality.

Highway was moved by these depictions of his most cherished stories. “It’s the closest I have come to seeing my own birth, and I was born under the most magical conditions imaginable. How many people can see their own birth?”