Interview with LeAnne Howe (LAH) , artistic director; Jim Wilson, guest actor; and Liz Hopkins (LH), Rosebud residency participant

By Robert Leonard

Robert Leonard: RL: You were part of Project HOOP?

Liz Hopkins : Yeah. Project HOOP at Sinte Gleska University. It was the creative-writing class, when LeAnne showed up to actually write a play. A lot of us as writers had never had that opportunity. You know, how do you write a play? What is the plot? How does that break down? She explained it to us and we started as a group trying to put this play together. I’ve written another play that I’ve done by myself. In fact, I did one and now I have a second one. Back to what we did as a group: We got upset about Columbus Day. Not all the people know the truth about it. I know it makes Italians upset when we protest that, but you have to go back and look at the history of what happened. As humans, and not just Native Americans, we’ve got to have this respect for each other and to know each other’s histories. That goes beyond Indian, that goes beyond white, it is humans. I believe that. I believe that we have to have respect for people – have respect for their religion, have respect for their thoughts. So, we wrote this play about Columbus – what the truth was. We had three acts. The first act was my son – we had a son in there, and it was played by my son. He comes home from school and was excited about Columbus Day. In so many schools, they whitewash the event of what really happened. In reality, Columbus took slaves and more or less said that he could wipe them all out with what few men he had and the technology of the time. But they didn’t tell my son that in school, so he came home and was excited and happy. He had a hat and a little boat.

In the play, we are all sitting there, a bunch of women. The men are in the other room watching football. We are all sitting there and we get to talking, ’cause Indian women will do that. While they are cooking or making something they’ll come up with a thought, an idea, a theory. It started with Columbus Day – a lot of anger, a lot of frustration. It goes around, the conversation continues and people throw out their theory and people throw out their thoughts. That is the second act. Meanwhile, as this is going on, they go into making fry bread. We have an elderly lady in there; she will throw out some kind of gem every now and then. So that ends the second act. In the third act, we tie it up. All this time, the son is sitting there happy, playing with the boat, loving Columbus. The second act, he is thinking about it. The women aren’t paying attention that he is sitting there listening. By the second act, we’ve got him thinking, this is what happened, this is what is going on. Then in the third act, the day is done and he listens to all of that. By the time the third act comes around, we are talking about tradition. The theme on that third act is culture. Our cultural tradition will always be something that anchors us, something that we can go back to. Society says this, and maybe they are not going to change. We don’t know. Still the overall writing theme is that your culture, your tradition is what grounds you. The son, he listens to that and we get the dishes done. I sing him a song, a Native American song. I walk away and do dishes. He stays and takes off the hat, looks at it and the boat and then wads them up and throws them in the trashcan. That is how the play works out. That was our first chance to do a play. If LeAnne didn’t show up – none of us knew how.

LeAnne Howe Oh, sure you did.

LH: Well, we knew how to write. We were good writers. That is how come the play turned out. They were both very different, but both very good. I think Native Americans are good at thinking about what is important, how to tie it up, a problem. LeAnne talks about that all the time. Indian people will sit there and talk a subject to death. That is what happens in the play. They talk, they discuss it, they throw out a theory. They might eat in between. They’ll have this meeting of the minds. Then, when everyone has had their say, they will come to a conclusion and everyone seems to accept that. That is how it is. No one says, "Okay, that is it." But in our hearts, that is it. There is nothing more to say. That is how that play came about. That is true. Native Americans, we do sit there, we talk, we eat, we laugh. Maybe somebody might get mad. Maybe somebody might cry. There is a lot of therapy in Native American talking circles, they used to call them. I think there is a lot of therapy in that. People work out their frustrations, or express their thoughts.

The second play that I wrote, I was telling LeAnne that after she showed us how to do the play, I got to thinking about doing another play ’cause some ideas hit me, like how I was talking to you earlier about Columbus Day. The main idea is just to have this respect for each other, but we don’t have that. What I wanted to show was that if it had happened to you, you wouldn’t like it. When I wrote that play it was about that I had read a lot about the fishing in Wisconsin. It is a treaty right, supposed to be – the Native Americans guaranteed by the government. They made this promise to them that you will always have access to your way of fishing, your livelihood. They are spear fishers, but when they did that, these people would just totally disturb them, totally inappropriate, run their boat into them. I remember reading one instance where they threw rocks and they hit the Native people. And I was thinking, "That is so wrong. Why are they doing this? That doesn’t even make sense to me. Be angry, yeah, because maybe you don’t understand. There was a legal agreement here. Maybe because you don’t want to learn or understand and you go and do these foolish things." I was thinking what would happen if something happens to these guys. I start the play with these guys who are bigoted, they are a certain kind of element of society who are really prejudiced and angry at these Indian people. They are on their way to fishing. They are going to raise some hell along the way. They are driving up there, but through some kind of cosmic force, they go through this warp. They get lost in the woods and they end up on a mound, you know a sacred place. When they come down they realize that everything is turned around. The Indian people are the ones in charge, in control. They try to go to school and they are talking English. The Native people are in charge and they are speaking their own language. They come over and slap their hand, "You’ve got to talk the Native language." They are changed and every time they try to speak English they are beaten for that. They think, "Where are we? Let’s go to church. We don’t understand and we are scared." They go to the church. It happens to be a Catholic church, so they go there for Mass. They sit there and they are trying to worship, and they think about what happened. Just as the Father is getting the communion ready, Indians rush in there and tear apart the sacrament table and say, "You can’t do this. We are not going to let you."

It is three scenes where these things are happening. What I try to show people is that this is what happened to us. And now you are going to see it from a different perspective. We tried to have ceremonies like Lakota people and that is exactly what the Father would do. He would come in and set up a table and serve a Mass during our ceremonies. They do things like this, totally inappropriate, and have no respect for what they are trying to do. Yet, I wanted to show it so that everything is turned around. See that is what I am trying to show people. It is not anger, but I want them to have a different thought: "This is what we did." But also to think that we need to respect people. We have so much of mainstream society that these things get glossed over, or people try to forget about these things, or pretend that they never happened. Anymore, we have a lot of Native Americans who want to sue the Catholic Church. They want these churches to come and apologize to them. They want to know why they had to go underground. Another thing a lot of people don’t know is that these ceremonies, when they went underground they had to do them at night. Some people will say, "They do things in the dark, therefore it must be the Devil’s work." And yet ceremonies were held during the day, but we would have to cover the windows because Father would always come around and look in and say, "Are you having ceremonies in there?" He would disturb people, and I think, "How would you like it if this happened to you?" That has always been my thought, what would happen if this happened to you? That is what the play is about.

RL: That is great.

LH: So that is what we are going to work on. Then, when we go to Minnesota, LeAnne and I – well, no it is not that one that we are going to present; that one we are going to get published. The other one is about – Jim and I are involved in repatriation issues and cultural-resource management. I was talking about what would happen if all these people want to dig up Indian people and study them. They say, "We have to know, it is for science, for posterity." I wondered what would happen if we dug up – we picked Ben, didn’t we?

LAH: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, the Masons.

LH: We targeted on the Masons.

RL: I think that is such a good idea. That is fabulous.

LH: It is an idea to make people think. Indians must know: Did they have that ring on? We gotta know. We gotta tell our posterity.

LAH: Indian science! We are going to do this performance in Minnesota in March of 2002. It will be just a scream. We were hoping for the ALA if we could get lots of Indian schools around there and bring in all of these Indian students. All of that will make sense to these kids. It would be really good, and very funny. I just know it would work out.

LH: We always come back to: How would that make them feel if that was done to them? That is all it is. It isn’t done in anger. It is only done to make people think. What would happen, how would I feel about that? Hopefully it makes people think, "I shouldn’t treat people like that." That is the idea with that.

LAH: Or another funny play would be the Indian mascots: "We have decided to dress up like the Smiths." Just start picking out names.

LH: We are targeted in different areas. Why is that? Why Native Americans? I don’t know, you just read so many articles. Like there is some guy in California that insists he has absolute proof that Native Americans did wipe out the –

LAH: The mastodon! We took out the mastodon. We are like super people – and we just had a few sticks. It was miraculous. Incredible killers.

LH: Yeah, I know, that is what is crazy. We deal with those elements.

LAH: And you just have to think. If I did that, how come I’m not running this country now? He was asking about Indian humor. I said that I thought our humor is because – well, we laugh. Everything is just kind of funny.

LH: Oh it is. It is just like, the world could be falling apart and something could happen. We might not laugh about it then, but we will later when we tell it. It might be something inappropriate. It might be something that was really sad, but Indian people need to laugh. We need to have something to tie us down when we are really low. And we are ready, we are always ready for a laugh. That is a really important part of our society and our culture. Anywhere you go, Indians want to laugh. We don’t want to be sad, we don’t want to be angry. We have those elements, sure. We’ve got a lot of angry people, we’ve got a lot of sad people. For the most part Native Americans want to be happy. We just want people to respect us for what we are. There is a lot of Native Americans out there who deserve a lot of respect. They want a better world, and that is a lot of us. We want a better world. We don’t want to fight with anyone. We don’t want to be mad with anyone. We don’t want anyone to come and apologize to us. Those things happen. If you feel the desire to apologize, then whatever. But either way, whether you do or not, it’s not going to matter. What we are trying to do as Native Americans is to live, grow into this next century and be happy. At the same time, we want people to have some respect for our culture, and I would really think that is what is important. Like I was saying with this play, I don’t know if people will or won’t change, but we are still going to do it, regardless. That is just the way it is. But I do want to get them thinking along that line. That is really what life is all about. Being nice to your fellow men, having some respect. LeAnne was saying that you wanted something about how did the performers get together?

RL: Yeah, this research is to look at how groups function, so that people coming along who are interested in this don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. It doesn’t have to look always like some professional theater company. There are a lot of ways to make theater. If you’ve got a way that works, and you can read about it, then you can start to see what you like. The idea for us is to present as many different ways to make theater as there are in this group, and then get that sort of available online.

LAH: I was saying that really – and again this is ethnocentric on my part – but the way that we do things could be and should be a model for non-Indians because we are very fluid. We just make theater when we do, and yet we have a sense that we are still together. That is a model of hope as opposed to thinking that it has to be more structured. And maybe no one needs a lesson in that.

RL: A lot of people who have been to school do.

LAH: I can’t tell you – when I went into Wake Forest and the theater department, they were making theater and I said, "Well, you know, we do theater. We have a theater troupe." And I told them about WagonBurner. I said, "You know we could mount some plays here." They have all the stuff, they have everything, they have a damn stage, costumes, the whole schmeer, they have gels and all. They said, "Well. That was really interesting. Thanks for talking about it." No. They don’t want to It has got to be structured, classroom, a successful play. It was just so narrow and so blind. No wonder you are having trouble getting theater around the country when the mindset is closed.

RL: I guess one of the assumptions of this project is that there is, in this country, the idea that art can be made in the community, with community people, and have it be valuable for the community, and valued by the community that isn’t necessarily structured around major institutions. There are ways of making all kinds of art that have real roots in particular communities. We assume that’s true and part of the research is to see whether or not that assumption is accurate, what kind of art is being made, who is making it, so on and so forth. That is a larger issue. This particular project is in ensemble theater. I think there are people in storytelling, in dance, in visual art, in poetry – you know poetry slams are happening and schools are trying to stop them. Those things are happening regardless of the institutional structures. I guess I come out of a brief flicker in time when I believed – and I felt like there were a lot of people next to me who believed – that the artist could be a functional part of the community. It was something to offer in relationship to concerns the community had – the Civil Rights Movement, the antiwar movement...

JW: I am of that same generation.

RL: You know, in the mainstream issues that there was a response amongst the people that I grew up with that said it isn’t enough just to stand in a line and raise a placard or go on a march. That is important, but we need to be telling stories to one another. That is what has driven me all my life. I think the National Endowment for the Arts got some progress happening inasmuch as they moved dollar support away from the major urban centers like New York, so that in the ’70s and ’80s, there was money being put into Omaha and here and there for different kinds of art. Now that is being pulled back and, frankly, I think it is because it was successful. Conservatives in the federal sphere have pulled back in fear of what communities actually want to say.

LH: We all want to learn and grow, but it is hard when in mainstream society wants to put a lid on you. There a lot of us who don’t want that. We want to grow, but we want to grow in a different way than conservative society wants us to. That is a lot of it right there. That all goes back to control. People have control issues. They want to control people. As Native Americans, we aren’t going to be controlled. We are going to say what we want. But we want to do it in a way where people think about it. I don’t mean it as a lesson or anything, but our people, too, they need to hear what this play is about. I didn’t target it at white society. We need to remember our ways are best. You know, I got a lot of people saying, "That was a good play." One of the girls belongs in a gang, supposedly, on the reservation she said, "That was such a good play." That is the theme I am trying to get across. Our ways are best, and you don’t have to go and look for them. They are right here. All you gotta do is rediscover it ,if need be. But as it was, it makes other people in society think. What I wanted was to include all societies . A lot of times, we’ll write in our own language and that only includes our society. With this one, I wanted to include everyone and have everyone think about that. Our culture as well. That is who I was really targeting, but it just so happens that it works for everyone. I think that is what will work for Americans in dealing issues. That is how we deal with things in our speech, hash it out. Work it out. And when we are finally satisfied, then that is it. That is how the play ended, too. Work it out, hash it out and then when we are satisfied with the result, then we are finished.

RL: And the first play you want to have published?

LH: No. That is the one with the group, "Indian Lullaby" The second one is another one, that is the one I did by myself.

RL: And what is that one called?

LH: You know I haven’t come up with a title for that one yet.

LAH: But "Indian Lullaby," y'all were going to publish, or Jeff was going to publish both plays. He said Sinte had a little publishing company going so he was going to publish them both. I have the disc for them, as well as he has the disc for them.

LH: There were still some typos and clarification he wanted us to make; there was somebody in Miami who wanted to do it.

LAH: Miami here in Ohio, or Miami in Florida?

LH: Florida.

LAH: Hey, do you think that is part of the Seminoles that he is talking to?

LH: You know that could be.

LAH: You know they’ve got bucket loads of money because of their casino. I wonder if that is what he is talking about?

RL: I was wondering, you mentioned film. You taped on high-8. Do you have videos of performances? Where do you keep these?

LAH: At the University of Iowa they have both of those shows. Jeff taped both of those shows, and those are on high-8. He could show those to you. Our show was taped at the NMAI, the National Museum of the American Indian has our tape. And then we have a tape at the University of Iowa TV show, that was shown about fifty times, of WagonBurner. That is at the public television there. Iowa Public Television in Iowa City.

RL: What about your rehearsal or your classrooms?

LAH: Of WagonBurner?

RL: Of both.

LAH: I have the rehearsals and the tapes. Nancy Cho has the originals at Carleton. She still has them. All those tapes.

RL: Do you think they would be available for people to look at?

LAH: Yeah, I think so. I could call Nancy.

RL: One of the tasks of this project is to identify places people could go to, or where copies could be made so that they can have access to these kinds of things. They would be very useful.

LAH: Jeff Kellogg, out at Sinte, has the tapes of the Sinte productions. I need to get a copy of the Iowa City. I’ll ask NMAI to send you a tape of our performance there. They took stills and took a bunch of stuff, and we never asked for it. It is part of their archive. The government archive. I could also make the radio show tape and give you a copy. That was an NPR production. The thing about any of these archives is that if there isn’t someone to take care of them then you have sent material that is just going to be wasted. And their funding for a graduate student to really take care of that archive is very spotty. I’m not interested in seeing all this stuff boxed up and forgotten. Well, I haven’t sent any originals and I’m not going to until it is demonstrated. For WagonBurner our logo was a huge thunderbird. But it was glow-in-the-dark pink. It had the initials across it, and we all made it together. Steve, who was the artist, he helped put it together. So we have pictures of it. It has since deteriorated. But it was so much fun because it was this pink thunderbird. What was the initials? "You are listening to A.I.R. American Indian Radio." And it was a joke, because we are kind of listening to air aren’t we? We thought that was just so funny. We had offered to give our costumes and scripts and things to Miami. Then I got to thinking, no, y’all aren’t taking care of this. So, I have our stuff upstairs from WagonBurner in a couple of big tubs and all of our original materials because, you know, there are no Indians at Miami.

RL: If someone were interested in looking at that would you be willing for them to see that?

LAH: Sure. Sure! And I am hoping that someday we will have a place to put that. It was significant. We did travel around. It was a lot of fun. But I am afraid that Miami won’t have the funds, or won’t be committed. Or when Bill dies – he’s been there for 20 or 30 years – then that will just disappear. You know Spiderwoman [Theater] has given them a lot of stuff and they are really worried now. They are worried because they are not sure it is going to be taken care of. And talk about an innovative little theater. Those women are incredible. I would be happy to do that. I don’t mind for you or anybody else, but I am really weary of this archive business. You guys at Sinte, you should put all of those plays and stuff and archive them in the library there. You’ve got your own library.

LH: In fact, we’ve got our own archive.

RL: If it is used, then the institution that houses it will be inclined to want to fund it. But if it is just over there taking up space and nobody goes to it, that is when the institution starts to think that maybe they should lower that on the list of important things.

LAH: Jim was in the plays. He pinch-hit for us. He came along and was a real trouper. I can’t remember now what happened, somebody didn’t show up.

Jim Wilson: I had to do it.

LAH: We have men playing women, women playing men. It doesn’t matter. It is really funny. It just depends on who shows up.

RL: Debbie Hicks was really interested in what the play would be like with different Indian people playing roles that she had started – making a cultural distinction between southeastern Indian-ness and the way people are in Choctaw, Creek versus the Indian-ness of western Indians. She was saying that, by and large, WagonBurner was made up of southeastern Indians.

LAH: That’s right.

RL: I am fascinated by that.

LAH: I don’t know, it just worked out that way. Did you see "Indian Radio Days" at Vermilion? They took a bus over there.

LH: Yeah. I think I was in Tucson, though.

LAH: Well, what happened is that all the Indians were Sioux, except for one guy who was Apache. They did the show and they kept a lot of it. There was one Apache. He was good. I could tell stories. The show was the same, but it was completely different. The Bingo Lady was played by a woman who was Ogalala. Oh hey...I’ll bet you know who it was. Vanessa Shortbull. Miss South Dakota. She is Ogalala, but she has a grandmother from Rosebud. There were a lot of people from Rosebud there. Vanessa just ridiculed the Rosebudders the whole time. She brought a rat on stage. It was a white rat that she had bought at the store. She said, "Oh you are so cute, this is a dog on Rosebud." She had about one million Rosebud jokes. She went on and on. Then there were two other ladies that would come on stage with her. They threw out everything that was southeastern and put in the Sioux kids. It was a completely different show. Oh, he made me so mad I could have strangled him – Russell Means is on campus at the same time. Here those kids had come to see him that day during the day, and he didn’t bother to show up for their play. The first time Indians had been on stage there, he doesn’t come. So, you know what she did? She killed me, she killed me. She comes out as the Bingo Lady at one point and she says, "Oh my god! Russell Means!" She rushes down to this little old gray haired white man and says, "Russell please sign my book!" And the spotlight goes right on this old man. All of us were on the floor, because he didn’t bother to show up for them. She parodied him. She rushes back on stage and says, "Oh I’ve been an admirer of him forever." She’s telling the audience that. Oh God, she was funny. Just killed us. She killed us. So, it was a completely different take.

Robert H. Leonard is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre Arts at Virginia Tech where he teaches directing and improvisation. He brings 30 years of experience as founding artistic director of the Road Company, a nationally recognized theater ensemble (1972-1998) based in Johnson City, Tennessee, which created and produced two dozen original plays reflecting the history and issues of the Upper Tennessee Valley and Central Appalachia. Leonard served as a site visitor for WagonBurner Theater Troop for "Performing Communities," and currently serves as a member of the national board of Theatre Communications Group.

PERFORMING COMMUNITIES
Carpetbag | Cornerstone | Dell'Arte | Jump-Start
LAPD | Pregones | Roadside | WagonBurner
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