Play examines decline of Indian language Passamaquoddy actors explore culture

It’s community theater with attitude: tough, raw and cut-to-the bone about an issue that plagues American Indians across the country – the decline of their language and the resulting loss of Indian identity.

For the past three years, the Passamaquoddy Players have been performing plays that deal with that issue in an attempt to get tribal members to realize that the loss of their native language also is a loss of their traditional culture.

“It’s not only true for us, it’s true for all indigenous people to stay true to their culture and true to themselves as individuals,” said Madonna Socktomah, a Passamaquoddy and veteran cast member.

“That’s a constant struggle, even within the communities we live in, because we’re so integrated now.”

While the majority of cast members are Passamaquoddy, there also is a member from the Penobscot Nation and a Maliseet from St. Mary’s Reserve in New Brunswick.

The first performance of this year’s play, which has no particular name, was done in late June at the mawiomi, or powwow, hosted in Caribou by the Aroostook Band of Micmacs.

In August, the group of eight amateur thespians will travel to Calgary, Alberta, where they will perform at the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education, a worldwide convention held every three years.

“It’s a big honor because it will be seen by indigenous people from all over the world,” said Gail Dana, who founded the theater group three years ago.

The play’s basic story line revolves around Melissa, a Passamaquoddy girl who goes away to law school, graduates and passes the bar exam to become a lawyer. With that, she is offered a high-paying job at a New York law firm.

The conflict comes over the fact that, prior to leaving for school, Melissa had been working with her sister on a Passamaquoddy language-immersion project and promised to return to the reservation to continue that effort.

When she decides instead to go to New York, her family and friends, as well as Melissa, must deal with the conflicts that come with that decision. Joy and excitement over her return to the community quickly deteriorate to frustration, anger and arguments when she decides to leave.

“It isn’t just young people, it’s all our people,” said Socktomah, who herself once left the reservation but later returned. “It’s mostly a lack of jobs. When you get out of school, there nothing to do.”

For the past three years, David Diamond, an artistic director for Headlines Theater in Vancouver, British Columbia, has held workshops with the Passamaquoddy Players.

“I work with people in the community to help them make theater about issues of concern to them in their community,” Diamond said during a rehearsal break. “The task is to take ownership of it and to transform it into whatever it needs [to be] for here. Slowly, the work has deepened, broadened out.”

During a preliminary activity that also serves as an introduction to the main play, one of the cast members is instructed to strike a pose. Other players are then asked, one at a time, to add to what the preceding player did with their own pose.

Eventually they build a sculpture of bodies, each depicting an action or emotion.

Each player is then asked to make a statement beginning with “I want” that expresses the feelings that go with their respective poses.

“I want him to know me,” “I want to know what’s over there,” “I want him to know me for who I am,” “I want to learn my language, but not from a book,” they respond individually before being asked to all talk at once.

The intent of the activity is revealed to the audience at the end of the actual play. As Melissa yells at a gathering of family and friends that “I’ve already gone,” about her decision to go to New York and starts to dash from the room, each of those characters reacts in some way to what has happened.

As they grab for her or move toward her, they are instructed to stop and hold their poses. This time, they verbalize their feelings as they pertain to the scene: Anger, sorrow, betrayal, helplessness and friendship.

And as they all talk at once, Melissa’s own emotions become intertwined with all the rest.

The story takes on added depth when the play is repeated a second time and members of the audience are invited to step into the play to deal with the myriad of issues portrayed, using their own poses and statements of emotion.

“In my opinion, one of the biggest reasons the struggle for our language is so difficult is that we haven’t dealt with some of the issues that are blocking us,” said Dana. “We aren’t able to put [those issues] into language we can understand. We have a lot of stories about what’s happened in the past, but we’ve got to deal with the issues that are important to people today to make a difference.

“Language of theater provides another way to do that,” she added. “The development of the story; it’s our story; it’s the story of our community.”