By Drew Hayden Taylor. Directed by Renae Morriseau. At the Firehall Arts Centre on Wednesday, April 10. Continues until April 20

Ojibwa playwright Drew Hayden Taylor has written many successful comedies; with this new work, he sets himself the challenge of writing something that’s not for laughs. God and the Indian is a respectful treatment of one of the most painful chapters of Canadian history, but its lack of focus makes it emotionally unsatisfying.

Taylor starts off with a solid premise: a Cree woman who calls herself Johnny breaks into the office of newly appointed assistant bishop George King and accuses him of abusing her decades ago, when he was her teacher at a residential school run by the Anglican Church. King is steadfast in his denials as Johnny offers up shards of her broken life.

Not much actually happens until near the end of the first act, though, partly because Taylor seems undecided about the play’s central concern: is it to establish the veracity of Johnny’s accusations, to contemplate the church’s complicity in this systematic attack on First Nations culture, or to give a voice to its survivors? These are all worthy aspirations, but Taylor’s talky, repetitive text siphons off dramatic tension from the central conflict.

Both characters feel more like mouthpieces for positions than flesh-and-blood people. In Johnny’s case, that may be intentional: she has been robbed of her identity and repeatedly calls herself lost, invisible, a ghost. When she asks King why the church treated Native people with such contempt, he replies with a vague generalization: “To a lot of people it seemed like a good idea at the time.” But what did it seem like to him? He admits to having taught at the school for two years when he was young; watching him try to explain his participation in what he now recognizes as a travesty would be much more interesting than watching him recite platitudes.

Renae Morriseau’s direction underscores the script’s lack of focus: both Tantoo Cardinal, who plays Johnny, and Michael Kopsa, as King, shuffle aimlessly around Lauchlin Johnson’s handsome set for most of the first act. Kopsa does his best to get a bead on King, but the character as written is passive and unconvincing. Cardinal, who seemed a little tentative on opening night, shows us Johnny’s vulnerability as well as her resilience.

Ironically, Taylor’s trademark irreverent humour is both a strength and a weakness here. At times, he can’t resist a cheap laugh that doesn’t ring true in the world of the play, but occasionally grim one-liners offer relief within King and Johnny’s standoff: “When he said, ‘Suffer the little children,’ did you have to take it so seriously?” Johnny asks, pointing to a painting of Jesus on King’s wall.

We need to hear the stories Taylor is telling in God and the Indian. This production is a premiere; perhaps future mountings will bring the play’s themes into sharper relief.