By Pat Launer
It’s high time to listen to Native Voices. The 22 year-old company that develops new work by Native American writers is the Resident Theatre at the La Jolla Playhouse this year.
Under the guidance of producing artistic director Randy Reinholz (Choctaw), a long-time faculty member at San Diego State University, the group regularly stages plays at the Autry Museum of the American West. They’ve brought their New Play Festival to the Playhouse for short runs over the last decade. Now, they’re having a full-run, full production in San Diego.
“They Don’t Talk Back,” by Frank Henry Kaash Katasse (Tlingit) features voices that aren’t often heard around these parts: the Tlingit of Southeast Alaska. The action takes place in a remote, unnamed fishing village. It’s 1994, and 17 year-old Nick (Román Zaragoza, Pima) has just arrived from the “big city” of Juneau, to live with his grandparents for a while, since neither of his parents is capable of taking care of him.
Grandpa (Duane Minard, Yurok) is a gruff but caring old coot, a lifelong fisherman who’s devoted to the land and the culture. Grandma (Jennifer Bobiwash, Ojibway) is strong but secretly sickly, competently caring for her ‘men’ as she straddles the traditional ways and her Christian religion. Cousin Ed (Kholan Studi, Cherokee, son of the Hollywood actor, Wes Studi) is a tad younger than Nick, but he seems way behind the times in terms of the right teen moves, taste and lingo. He also lives with his grandparents; he says he doesn’t know where his parents are.
Nick chafes at the food, the traditions, the language. He’d rather listen to his tunes than fish. But gradually, he learns the importance of heritage and family.
It’s a familiar trope, but there are so many fascinating twists, given all the information and intricacies of an unfamiliar culture and its belief system. The cast is credible (including Brían Pagaq Wescott, Athabascan/Yup’ik), who plays an unconventional minister and Nick’s damaged, PTSD dad. But it seems unlikely that two adolescent boys would talk about sports and music and movies, but never mention girls.
Reinholz brings the Tlingit mysteries, chants, language and values to the fore in varied and imaginative ways. Each character gets a moving, heartfelt and intense monologue that delves deeper into their psyche, history and motivations. And, this being a Native American play, there is, of course, humor coursing through. Some of the writing is poetic (there’s even a rap for Nick). Some of it is beautiful; some mundane. It feels like a developing writer’s work, yet it manages, especially in the second act, to call forth deep emotion.
The projections (designed by Tom Ontiveros) bring us close to the incessant rain, the sometimes wild tides and the seagulls that feature prominently in the story. (People are often compared to animals in this culture.) The evocative music and movements were composed and choreographed by Ed Littlefield, who also served as Tlingit language advisor. The design of the set (Sara Ryung Clement), lighting (R. Craig Wolf), sound (John Nobori) and costumes (E.B. Brooks, Sami/Algonquin) add to the ambience.
If you’re looking for something a little different, a new work that gives you insight into another corner of American culture and another way of thinking, you should listen to these Voices. They have a lot to say.
- “They Don’t Talk Back,” a co-production of Native Voices and the La Jolla Playhouse, in association with Alaska’s Perseverance Theatre, runs through June 5 in the Shank Theatre on the campus of UC San Diego
- Tickets ($30-$70) are available at 858-550-1010 or lajollaplayhouse.org
- Running Time: 2 hrs. 15 min.
Pat Launer is a long-time San Diego arts writer and an Emmy Award-winning theater critic. An archive of her previews and reviews can be found at patlauner.com.
