“SHE WAS MY BROTHER” IS A RARE PIECE OF THEATER
Exactly what, we might ask, is the nature of human nature? There are so many different cultures around the world that hold people together with an agreed-upon set of values. Are there any values all these cultures – both technological and non-technological – have in common?
Murder is bad, but sometimes necessary. Stealing is bad, but sometimes justified. And what about homosexuality?
Why do some societies embrace the homosexual nature as a strength to be treasured and honored, while other societies denigrate homosexuality as a curse of the Devil? Is there a right and wrong answer, or is it just a subjective matter of opinion?
These are the sorts of questions that lie in the subtext of “She Was My Brother” by Julie Jensen. This is Borderlands Theater’s season-opening play in what is turning out to be a whopper of a season for Tucson theatergoers.
Rogue Theatre started it off with those “Animal Farm” metaphors about equality and democracy. Arizona Theatre Company followed with “The Kite Runner” contrasting Muslim and American attitudes. Borderlands has pitched in “She Was My Brother” with its mirror-image effect of two cultures looking at each other.
And on Saturday, Sept. 26, Beowulf Alley Theatre Company opens a production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Seascape” about one lizard-like couple wondering if evolving into human beings living on the land is such a great idea.
For a few days, all four of these thoughtful plays will be running at the same time. This is truly a unique moment in Tucson theater history, to have such a wealth of choices.
Also in the news right now are the United Nations meetings where less wealthy and technologically driven countries want to be considered the equal of nations with great wealth and powerful armies. You can hear echoes of “Animal Farm” with its reference to some animals being more equal than others.
Barclay Goldsmith directs Borderlands’ contribution with a low-key approach that allows time for reflection on the implications of what is actually being said. “She Was My Brother” boldly asks the question “Which culture is more civilized, the American white culture or the more sensitive Zuni culture that considers itself to be the caretaker of the land?”
“This play brings up issues you don’t see in theaters much,” said Los Angeles actor Kalani Queypo in an earlier interview. He plays Lamana, a Zuni living as one of the people thought of as having “two spirits.” They were a “third gender” in the Zuni culture, valued for their unique insight into the deeper feelings of the main two genders. The roles for this third gender included being mediators in spiritual and domestic matters.
Queypo portrays Lamana as a quiet, introspective person who looks with detached amusement at the anxieties of white people.
“They have a lot of diseases,” Lamana says a couple of times to the two white people who insist on visiting with the Zuni. He is speaking of Wilson (Brian Levario) and Tullis (Martie van der Voort), ethnologists dispatched from Washington DC in the late 1800s to study the Zuni as a primitive tribe.
“It’s a question we still have, that indigenous cultures are somewhat under the white cultures – that the indigenous people should model themselves after the white culture,” Queypo explained.
Wilson is a young, bookish scientist more than a bit intimidated by the Wild West. Tullis is a middle-aged scientist, the wife of the army colonel heading this field study. But the colonel is very ill and she is taking him back to St. Louis where there is a proper hospital.
It will be Wilson’s uneasy task to stay behind and guard the equipment. He must also make friends with the Zuni in order to get food and survive until Tullis returns.
That’s the set-up for a series of rotating conversations: Lamana and Wilson, Wilson and Tullis, Tullis and Lamana, but rarely all three at once.
The two scientists are ethnologists, considered a budding field of study at the time. They arrive at the Zuni settlement in northern New Mexico, schlepping trunks of scientific instruments, giving little thought to how odd it would be if the Zuni showed up in Washington DC wanting to observe and study this new tribe of white people.
But it is the two-spirited Lamana who becomes the heart of this play. Wilson is attracted to Lamana’s tender side, drawing strength from Lamana’s wisdom. At the same time Tullis finds other strengths in Lamana’s personality, for the Zuni is fluent in several languages (including Spanish and English) and is a shrewd observer of multi-cultural behavior.
Since both Tullis and Wilson are bound up in the strict Victorian code of repressed sexuality as well, their feelings of passion for Lamana are bound to be thwarted. It would seem that no culture is immune to the demands of the human heart.
Performances of “She Was My Brother” begin Friday, Sept. 25 with a special Opening Night Celebracion at 7:30 p.m., continuing at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, Oct. 2, 3, 9 and 10. Sunday matinees are at 2 p.m. Sept. 27, Oct. 4 and 11. All performances are in the Zuzi Theater at the Historic Y, 738 N. Fifth Ave. Regular admission is $18.75, seniors $17.75, students $10.75.
Opening Night Celebracion tickets are $20.75, for students $10.75. Special post-performance discussions are set for Oct. 3-4. For details and reservations, 882-7406, or visit www.borderlandstheater.org
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