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INDIGENOUS HUMOR AND TRANSCULTURAL IDENTITY SHIFTS AND MIX-UPS...
Andrew (nicknamed Blue) and Angie are in their twenties and represent the
young and carefree lifestyle; Marianne and David, married by common-law, in
their mid-thirties, are the “Indian yuppies,” with jobs, responsibilities and an
expensive car. We find the following description of David’s persona in the stage
directions: “David is Marianne’s common-law husband, a stuffed shirt with an
overly developed sense of office and life protocol. He is an Indian yuppie.”
And finally, there is Martha, in her late-fifties, a devout and “good Christian
woman,” and an active member of the reserve Church committee. All the
protagonists are stereotypical stock characters, who represent the average
contemporary Native living in Canada today. However, one of the characters
is the odd one out: Noble, a mid-thirties, Aboriginal dancer, who merely
follows the powwow circuit and lives off the competition money awarded to
the winners. The play projects a very strong sense of carpe diem, questioning
whether one should live without any social restrictions or follow the unwritten
social norms of the dominant white Anglophone Canadian. Noble follows no
rules, his name is “short for Noble Savage,”** which identifies him with the
eighteenth century European romanticized image of the great Indian warrior.
For Noble, the powwow and traditional dancing are a spiritual quest, the
opportunity to be an Indian in its true sense of the word, as he himself says
at one point in the play: “That’s why I go to powwows. It’s a chance to sleep
under the stars, the light bulbs of Heaven, on the grass, listen to the trees and
the insects. To me, that’s the voice of the Creator. Id rather hear the voice
myself than go through a middle man.”*4
Through Noble’s figure, Taylor introduces the tricksterish spirit, the
likeable/loveable rogue, who we identify with the fantasy warrior of our
imagination. But fantasy clashes with reality, because Noble is an aging
drunkard, a womanizer, without ties, responsibilities or a fixed address. He
is a loner and a misfit, who can influence those who may feel lost within the
white man’s world, like Marianne within the play, who is overburdened by
her duties as a wife, her middleclass obligations (diet, jogging, wholesome
food), and the role she is forced to play. David and Marianne have shifted
from their own Native identity, their past and heritage, to conform to an ideal
that neither know how to handle, and this is where Taylor’s humor becomes
a major force. Noble, the irresponsible drunkard, disrupts this artificial and
frail world by presenting an alternative to Marianne: “I don’t want to be an
Indian yuppie. I want bannock, not whole meal. I want to fry my food, not
microwave it. Especially that quiche stuff of yours. The Creator meant eggs
31 Tbid., 15.
32 Tbid., 11.
33 Ibid., 36.
34 Tbid., 68.
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