Indian Comics Irregular #173

In ICI #163, I wrote about "Graham Greene, Shakespearean." That was far from
the first Native attempt to perform one of the Bard's masterpieces. Here are
some others:

Earlier this year a group of Aleutians did "Othello." According to the
Anchorage Daily News (2/3/08):

In a new version of "Othello," the bitter tale of jealousy,
ambition and racism centers on an Aleut man as he rises within the
Imperial Russian Navy and starts life with his new Russian bride,
Desdemona. But since this is one of Shakespeare's tragedies,
Othello's promising life is destroyed by scheming and bloodshed.

For Athabascan actor Allan Hayton, who plays Othello, this project
acknowledges how hard Native Alaskans have had to struggle against
stereotypes and exploitation. He said the production also is
further reminder that Native Alaskans belong in the theater
community, both onstage and in the seats.

Last year the Perseverance Theatre did a Tlingit version of "Macbeth." "To hear
young people speaking Tlingit and acting and talking about big ideas and big
emotions is something so unique, it was really moving and exciting to hear,"
said director Anita Maynard-Losh in the Juneau Empire (3/8/07). But when the
play debuted in the nation's capital, the Washington Post (3/12/07) wrote, "It's
nicely conceived but not very powerful. Shakespeare's play overflows with
emotional turbulence, but the acting is seldom intriguing or complicated."

Back in 1961, David Gardner produced an Eskimo "King Lear." Reviewers resisted
the changes in setting and language, but Gardner was unswayed:

In retrospect, I think our attempt to find an original
cross-cultural springboard for Shakespeare's tragic masterpiece
succeeded. For us, it gave the production a sharper artistic
focus. We were encouraged to stretch for the haunting extremes
within the play: its primitive, animalistic savagery at one end of
the scale, and its achingly lonely monumentality on the other.

The Bard Does Natives

Normally we associate Shakespeare with Englishmen, Italians, and Greeks. But he
also wrote a play about Natives, believe it or not. Louis Proyect of Columbia
University explains the situation in "What Shakespeare Thought of the American
Indian" (12/6/98):

The evidence is overwhelming that Shakespeare not only set "The
Tempest" on a Caribbean island, but included a native American
major character. The play's ambivalent attitude toward this
indigenous slave Caliban serves not only as a useful window into
17th century racial attitudes, it also helps us understand our own
period as well. The name Caliban, it should be added, is regarded
as a form of Carib, the name of the original inhabitants on the
islands invaded by Columbus.

In 1609 a fleet of nine ships set out from England to shore up John
Smith's Virginia colony, the first English settlement in the new
world. As most people already know from their high-school
propaganda, Smith was condemned to death by Powhatan, but was saved
at the last minute when his 13 year old daughter Pocahontas
interceded on Smith's behalf. The British returned the favor a
couple of years later by burning down Indian villages and
attempting to enslave them.

One of the nine ships was separated during a violent storm and
ended up on Bermuda. Pamphlets were published that gave a highly
imaginative account of the shipwrecked crew's experiences.
Evidently Shakespeare got the idea for his play from this
background material since "The Tempest" is a tale about shipwrecked
Europeans colonizing an American island and enslaving the native
population.

For more on Native plays, go to http://www.bluecorncomics.com/naplays.htm .

Rob Schmidt
Blue Corn Comics