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OCR
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. + 297 +
