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Dead White Writer on the Floor
Dead White Writer on the Floor
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Author: Drew Hayden Taylor Publisher: Talonbooks (cover image may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 112 Pub. Date: 2011 ISBN-10: 889226636 ISBN-13: 9780889226630 Cast Size: 1 female, 4 male
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About
the Play:
Dead White Writer on the Floor is a full-length comedy by
Drew Hayden Taylor. The play
uses two literary conventions – theatre of the absurd and
mystery novels – to create one of the funniest and
thought-provoking plays ever about identity politics. While the
literary allusions to Pirandello and Agatha Christie are obvious, the
side-splitting comedy is vintage Drew Hayden Taylor.
Dead White Writer on the Floor focuses on six familiar
Indigenous stereotypes – all created by non- Indigenous writers –
who wander across the stage pondering the point of their creation:
Tonto (from the Lone Ranger radio and television series that began in
1933), Injun Joe (from Mark Twain's novel, Tom Sawyer), Billy Jack
(from the 1971 movie of the same name), Old Lodgeskins (from the
movie Little Big Man), Pocahontas (a two-dimensional cartoon), and
Kills Many Enemies (a warrior created by Drew Hayden Taylor to
represent all warrior types), whose lives have been created in
literary form. They come to life and find themselves in a room with
the dead white writer who created their adventures. They set out on a
journey together to shed their literary personas to follow their
dreams of taking their place in the real world.
In Act One, six "savages"; noble, innocent, ignorant,
fearless, wise and gay, respectively; find themselves in a locked
room with the body of a dead white writer, which they stash in a
closet. None of them can figure out how he died or which of them
might have killed him. They realize as they point fingers at each
other, however, that they are all profoundly unhappy with their lives
as they've been constructed over the past four hundred years: Old
Lodge Skins wants to know what it feels like to be a young man; Billy
Jack wonders what spreading healing rather than pain would feel like;
Injun Joe is desperate for an education; Kills Many Enemies is
exhausted by his deadly seriousness and yearns for a sense of humour;
Pocahontas seeks to feel respected as a woman rather than lusted
after as a child sex object; and Tonto wants to "come out of the
canyon" and be the one wearing the mask for a change. Gradually,
they figure out that the latest iteration of Gutenberg's invention
buzzing like a beehive on the dead writer's desk is actually a
dream-catcher, which they can use to rewrite their lives in the image
of their own inner beings.
Imagine their surprise when they reappear in the same locked room
in Act Two as Mike, Jim, Bill, John, Sally and Fred – attending an
A.A. meeting and bickering among themselves about reserve politics,
unmanageable family relationships and whether Bingo has a place in
their new air-conditioned casino – and realize the white writer
must still be very much alive in their community; his body in the
closet is still warm!
Dead White Writer on the Floor
premiered in 2010 at Magnus
Theatre in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Cast: 1 female, 4 male
What people say:
"Abstract theatre is not
generally associated with comedy … but judging by the laughter
issuing from the packed house at Magnus' opening night of the show,
it is also drop-dead hilarious." — The Argus
"Taylor is a writer and a
humourist, and the play moves along nicely ... I especially liked the
transformation of the characters from the old stereotypes in the
first act, to the new modern stereotypes that the people created for
themselves in the second act. The surprise that the Dead White Writer
has somehow resurrected himself and can now be blamed for the
unhappiness of the characters is not surprising." — Lake
Superior News
About the Playwright:
Drew Hayden Taylor one of Canada's best known and most
prolific Indigenous writers. An Ojibway born on Curve Lake First
Nation near Peterborough, Ontario, he has worn many hats in his
literary career, from performing stand-up comedy at the Kennedy
Center in Washington D.C., to being Artistic Director of Canada's
premiere Aboriginal theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts. He
has been an award-winning playwright (with productions of his work in
Canada, the US, and Europe), a journalist/columnist (appearing
regularly in several Canadian newspapers and magazines), short-story
writer, novelist, television scriptwriter, and documentary filmmaker.
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