Native American Theatre Analysis

Layering the Native Story: How Modern Indigenous Playwrights are Making an Impact in Theatre Native Americans have a long, rich history of performing arts. Closely tied to their religious ceremonies, their theatrical expressions range from oral tradition stories, dance, reenactments of events and use of masks to portray other beings. These ceremonies included the theatrical elements of storytelling, drums, costume and even lighting. Performances were integrated into many aspects of Native cultural life well before Europeans invaded the Americas. However, North American indigenous peoples have long been under and misrepresented in traditional North American theatre performances. From the antebellum period through the mid twentieth

Within the small span of four centuries, Native American life was nearly exterminated. The population dropped from 15 million to less than a quarter of a million in 1880, the Native American Indian lifestyle was nearly extinct (Geiogamah 89). The American motto of “Manifest Destiny” had the US Government using assimilation as means of handling the “Indian Problem.” Politicians felt that if the Native Americans were converted to Christianity and introduced to the American modes of farming, then the Native American Indians would be more willing to give up their lands. By the beginning of the 1800s, the United States Congress hired missionaries to convert entire Native communities to attempt to educate the children according to American standards (Simpson 13). The United States government enacted policies that removed children from their families, often by force or coercion, and entered them into Native American boarding schools. Within these schools, the American Indian children were forbidden to communicate in their native languages, forbidden to practice their tribal religion, and forbidden to participate in any tribal dancing, music, or storytelling. These policies remained in place until the early 20th century. Yet, many of the performing arts, ceremonies and traditions survived this oppressive

These works are valuable in facilitating understanding among the many cultures that share this land and there is a growing body of indigenous playwrights who have begun to present “their” Native stories. There are two camps in which Native playwrights are categorized: indigenous artists who consciously adopt colonial structures to make their performances more palatable for non-Native audiences, and indigenous artists who purposefully disrupt these structures to unsettle the non-Native audience members. These playwrights and theatre companies have found unique ways to produce the Native story, while maintaining interest with non-Native audiences. The overall goal is to devise a method that will reproduce a ceremonial experience on the contemporary stage without violating the soul of the Native art through a literal reproduction (Carter