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KRISZTINA Kopó
to be fried, not baked."? This back-and-forth movement between cultures is
the cause of mix-ups and the identity crises that Marianne faces. She has her
responsibilities as a wife, but she longs to be the traditional Native dancer
and carefree girl that she was a decade ago. She decides to leave David and
go with Noble to Michigan, the location of the next powwow. However, she
does offer David the alternative of going with her: “There’s an escape route
for every place and situation David. Here’s yours. Come with me. Let’s hop in
your Camaro and go to Michigan. Just say, what the hell, we’re here to burn
rubber and gas. Then Ill know there’s still something still alive in you.”?®
David’s inability to decide forces Marianne to act and leaves with Noble.
This dramatic conflict, however, is not the main line of the story. The major
comic element within the play is the act of bootlegging, which is carried out
by Martha, an elderly and devout Native Christian woman, who is forced into
an unpleasant situation in which she must illegally sell one hundred and forty¬
three cases of light beer. Martha, the image of the decent, god-fearing woman,
is willing to bootleg beer to raise money for a church organ. The situation
is utterly impossible and hilarious, which, nevertheless, dramaturgically
functions well on stage. As an elder in her community, and within her family,
she behaves contrary to expectations, and succeeds in selling the beer within
the community. But there is a double sidedness to her character: she sells
beer only to those financially better situated, while admonishing others for
drinking instead of providing for their families. This bilateral function within
the play reflects the contradictions abounding in the lives of Natives, which
ultimately point to the interconnectedness, hence transcultural movements
and shifts between Native and non-Native cultures. Furthermore, it also
adds to the contradictory conceptions of the past in terms of heritage and
cultural roots, and the present with its multicultural framework. The play
offers us a glimpse of the Native way of life, which offers two directions, but
as Martha explains, it is the individual’s decision to choose: “In my life I’ve
seen two kind of Indians, those that are happy doing what they do, and those
that feel they should be happy but aren’t. I think it’s every persons journey
in life to choose which one they are.”*’ The ability to choose is our inherent
right, but are we capable of deciding at all or do we have cultural obligations
and standards forced upon us? After all, living on a reserve in Canada today
differs from living in one of the big Canadian cities, where different social
norms, standards and expectations must be met.
Perhaps one of the major obstacles that Indigenous Peoples have had to
overcome was the use of the English language, which markedly differs from
the native languages and the worldviews they project. The medium for Native
35 Ibid., 72.
36 Ibid., 77.
37 Tbid., 79.
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