About
the Play:
Finalist for the 2006 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama
(Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)
In a World Created by a Drunken God is a full-length
comedic drama by Drew Hayden Taylor. The the story of two
half-brothers, one white, living in the U.S., the other a First
Nations man living in Northern Canada. The young men's father needs a
kidney transplant and the American son comes asking his First Nations
brother to be a part of the miracle. In a World Created by a
Drunken God raises powerful questions that transcend issues of
culture, morality and history – they cut to the ethical quick of
what it means to be human in a chaotic world stripped of the
comfortable security of identity politics.
In a World Created by a Drunken God is about two
half-brothers who meet for the first time. Jason Pierce, a
thirty-one-year-old Canadian half-Native man, is packing up his urban
apartment to leave it all behind for his romanticized vision of a
return to life on the reserve where he grew up. As he's leaving, he
is paid an unexpected visit by a thirty-four-year-old American man,
Harry Deiter, who awkwardly introduces himself as Jason's
half-brother. What Harry wants from Jason is bizarre: to be
compatibility-tested for a possible kidney donation to their dying
non-Native father, a man Jason has no memory of ever meeting and who,
after a brief and secret affair, abandoned Jason's mother when he was
two months old. Both Jason and Harry are about to have their most
fundamental and sustaining beliefs shaken to the core by their
respective relationships to the biological father they inadvertently
share. Harry, the naive historical positivist, buoyed up by a
lifetime of relative privilege as a member of the dominant imperial
culture, encounters in Jason the anger and bitter resistance of the
exploited and abandoned colonial, in terms of both Jason's Native and
his Canadian heritage and identity. Embroiled in the irreconcilable
absurdity of their dilemma, Harry is forced to acknowledge that the
father he has loved and respected all his life has concealed from his
American family his capacity for an absent, heartless cruelty. Jason,
on the other hand, must wrestle with the possibility that the man who
so thoughtlessly exploited and abandoned his Canadian Native mother
and their son may in fact have the capacity to be a loving and
present husband and father.
In a World Created by a Drunken God premiered in 2004 at
Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon. Since
then the play has been successfully staged at several professional
theatres across Canada.
Cast: 2 male
What people say:
"In Drew Hayden
Taylor's compelling drama, two half brothers meet for the
first time. Jason is a half-native Canadian. harry is a non-native
American. This well-crafted work pits exploitation and abandonment
against privilege and comfort, in an ethical debate that surmounts
stereotypes of status and culture." — 2006 Governor
General's Literary Awards Jury
"Drew Hayden Taylor
adheres to the dictates of classic, riveting theatre by presenting
stellar characters struggling with hardcore moral questions, while
inviting the audience to continue the dialogue after the curtain has
dropped…. The presentation sure is masterful." — Quill
& Quire
"Taylor… is a dramatist with
a biting sense of humour and a keen eye for irony, particularly in
his ... play, In a World Created by a Drunken God…
a play that is by turns quite sad, touching and thought-provoking….
The play isn't just full of funny faux pas or insults; it is a
powerful story of two men confronted by the sins of their father,
literally…. In a World Created by a Drunken God tackles
the thorny subjects of culture, morality and history to raise the
more basic question of who we really are, apart from convenient
labels and identity politics." — Surrey Now
"Drew Hayden Taylor
has a deft touch for mixing comedy and commentary in an entertaining
and all-Canadian form of social satire. — Vancouver Sun
"Taylor has succeeded in
creating an intriguing and thought-provoking story, with in-depth
characters and mind-wrenching questions." — The
Multicultural Review
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.