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    400 Kilometres
    400 Kilometres
    400 Kilometres
    Ebook137 pages58 minutes

    400 Kilometres

    By Drew Hayden Taylor

    ()

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    About this ebook

    400 Kilometres is the third play in Drew Hayden Taylor’s hilarious and heart-wrenching identity-politics trilogy. Janice Wirth, a thirty-something urban professional, having discovered her roots as the Ojibway orphan Grace Wabung in Someday, and having visited her birth family on the Otter Lake Reserve in Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth, is pregnant, and must now come to grips with the question of her “true identity.” Her adoptive parents have just retired, and are about to sell their house to embark on a quest for their own identity by “returning” to England. Meanwhile, the Native father of her child-to-be is attempting to convince Janice/Grace that their new generation’s future lies with their “own people” at Otter Lake.

    Which path for the future is Janice/Grace to choose, for herself, her families and her child, having spent a lifetime caught between the questions of “what I am” and “who I am”?

    Cast of 3 women and 2 men.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTalonbooks
    Release dateDec 2, 2022
    ISBN9781772015294
    400 Kilometres
    Author

    Drew Hayden Taylor

    Ojibway writer Drew Hayden Taylor is from the Curve Lake Reserve in Ontario. Hailed by the Montreal Gazette as one of Canada’s leading Native dramatists, he writes for the screen as well as the stage and contributes regularly to North American Native periodicals and national newspapers. His plays have garnered many prestigious awards, and his beguiling and perceptive storytelling style has enthralled audiences in Canada, the United States and Germany. His 1998 play Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth has been anthologized in Seventh Generation: An Anthology of Native American Plays, published by the Theatre Communications Group. Although based in Toronto, Taylor has travelled extensively throughout North America, honouring requests to read from his work and to attend arts festivals, workshops and productions of his plays. He was also invited to Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute in California, where he taught a series of seminars on the depiction of Native characters in fiction, drama and film. One of his most established bodies of work includes what he calls the Blues Quartet, an ongoing, outrageous and often farcical examination of Native and non-Native stereotypes.

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      Book preview

      400 Kilometres - Drew Hayden Taylor

      ACT ONE

      Scene One

      Lights up on ANNE WABUNG, an elderly Native

      woman sitting somewhere in the theatre, a fair

      distance from much younger JANICE

      WIRTH/GRACE WABUNG who is sitting on the

      dark stage. ANNE is talking while sewing white

      baby clothes, her voice searching out and finding

      JANICE/GRACE. She exudes a warm, motherly

      personality which JANICE is drawn to. JANICE does

      not move, nor speak but ANNE has her full

      attention.

      ANNE

      Did I ever tell you where the name Otter Lake

      came from? No? Well, then I should tell you. It’s

      important that you know about the place you

      come from. Now, as my grandfather tells it, and

      keep in mind this isn’t necessarily gospel. If the

      story wasn’t interesting enough, my grandfather

      was known to add a few details here and there to

      make it really interesting. It seems that a long

      time ago, the Chuganosh … that’s what we called

      white people, were still trying to figure this land

      out. These fur traders came paddling their way

      up Otter Lake one day. In this one particular

      canoe were a bunch of scruffy Frenchmen and a

      Jesuit. They were looking to build a settlement of

      some kind to trade for furs with the

      Annishnawbe. That’s us. And much like

      Columbus, the Chuganosh were lost. Somewhere

      along the way, they took the wrong river or lake,

      the one they were looking for was a couple miles

      up stream. But the Jesuit was sure they were in

      the right lake and started to give orders about

      setting up camp, but the French guide started

      arguing with him. He knew they were in the

      wrong place. They were supposed to be in the

      other lake. He kept trying to tell that to the

      Jesuit who refused to listen. No, no, the guide

      kept saying in his thick French accent, "that is de

      ot’er lake. De ot’er lake." That is why we are

      known as the Otter Lake Band of the Great

      Ojibway Nation. It only goes to show, Grace, that

      regardless of where the name comes from, it can

      still be a place to be proud of.

      Scene Two

      Lights up on the home of LLOYD and THERESA

      WIRTH, a well-to-do older non-Native couple

      enjoying their retirement. The house, in particular

      the living room, is tastefully and expensively

      decorated with knick-knacks from around the

      world. THERESA enters the room and checks

      herself in the mirror. She is dressed for an evening

      out.

      THERESA

      Darling, did I leave my earrings on the dresser?

      There is silence.

      Darling?

      Annoyed, she opens a small drawer, rustles

      around and pulls out a small device.

      I swear, that man …

      She exits, still muttering. There is a pause, then

      she enters again, putting her earrings in.

      Keep your hearing aid in. I hate talking to

      myself.

      She is followed by LLOYD WIRTH, a mature man

      also set for an evening out.

      LLOYD

      Why? Keeps the plants healthy.

      THERESA

      I’m serious Lloyd, you’ve already lost three of

      those since you got them.

      LLOYD

      Yes dear. You look splendid.

      THERESA

      I look fat.

      LLOYD

      I like women with a little meat on them.

      THERESA gives him a stern look.

      Then again, maybe I don’t.

      THERESA

      At my age, maybe I should stop wearing dresses

      that are so tight. What do you think?

      LLOYD

      It’s questions like this that make me lose my

      hearing aids. Wear whatever you want. Are you

      ready yet?

      THERESA

      Almost.

      LLOYD

      Translation: at least another 20

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