Garden of good and evil

It’s a rare play that has its audience chase after the actors, through gardens and across a pond, perhaps encountering a strange character perched in a tree along the way. Kmùkamch, l’Asierindien is just such an exercise in outward-bound theatre. This is the third installment in a trilogy of works by native theatre company Ondinnok that examines what it means to be North American Indian in the 21st century. Here, they have traced their roots all the way back to Asia with this mythic Syberian tale about a battle between good and evil.
Written and directed by Yves Sioui Durand, who also acts in the piece, the work is being staged in the First Nations and Chinese gardens of the Montreal Botanical Gardens. The play’s themes are reminiscent of the Inuit film Atanarjuat/Fast Runner: it seems that Kmùkamch is so jealous of his son Lynx’s youth and beautiful wife that he kills him. A story of rebirth, a meditation on the repercussions of refusing to age, and a cultural retracing of roots, the piece also features installations, storytelling and shamanism. At 4600 Sherbrooke E., nightly at 8 p.m. (except April 29, and May 2), through May 5, $15. Info and reservations: 595-1990. :

—Genevieve Paiement