Ernestine Shuswap gets her trout : a "string quartet" for four female actors

93 Pages·2013·18.407 MB·English

by  Tomson Highway

T O M S O X H i G H WAY
rnestine fiuswap Qets cKer Trout
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
3 1858 052 373 572
Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout
a "string quartet" for four female actors
Tomson Highway
Talonbooks
Vancouver
Copyright © 2005 Tomson Highwayand the Secwepemc Cultural
Education Society
Talonbooks
P.O. Box 2076, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6B 3S3
www.talonbooks.com
Typeset in New Baskerville and printed and bound in Canada.
First Printing: 2005
No part of this book, covered by the copyright hereon, may be repro­
duced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or
mechanical-—without prior permission of the publisher, except for
excerpts in a review. Any request for photocopying of any part of this
book shall be directed in writing to Access Copyright (The Canadian
Copyright Licensing Agency), 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada M5E 1E5; Tel.: [phone]; Fax: [phone].
Rights to produce Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout, in whole or in part, in
any medium by any group, amateur or professional, are retained by the
author. Interested persons are requested to apply to his agent: Suzanne
DePoe, Creative Technique Inc., CTI Artists Mangemenl, 483 Euclid Ave.,
Toronto, Ontario M6G 2T1; Tel.: [phone]; Fax: [phone];
E-mail: [email protected].
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Highway, Tomson
Ernestine Shuswap gets her trout / Tomson Highway.
A play.
ISBN 0-88922-525-7
1. Indians of North America-—British Columbia—Government
relations—Drama. I. Title.
PS8565.I433E75 2005 C812’.54 C2005-902462-3
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the
Canada Council for the Ai ts; the Government of Canada through the
Book Publishing Industry Development Program; and the Province of
British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council for our
publishing activities.
BRITISH
COLUMBIA Canada
Canada Council Conseil des Arts
ARTS COUNCIL
for the Arts du Canada
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The author dedicates this story and this play
to the Shuswap Nation from whom it came.
I
Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout was commissioned by the
Secwepemc Cultural Education Society (of the Kamloops
Indian Reserve) together with the Western Canada Theatre (of
Kamloops, British Columbia). It had its world premiere at the
Sagebrush Theatre, Western Canada Theatre, Kamloops, British
Columbia on Saturday, January 24, 2004, with the following
cast and production personnel, everyone of whom the author
thanks from the bottom of his heart:
ISABEL THOMPSON Lisa Dahling
DELILAH ROSE JOHNSON Cheri Maracle
ERNESTINE SHUSWAP Janet Michael
ANNABELLE OKANAGAN Lisa C. Ravensbergen
Director: David Ross
Scenic & Costume Design: Kim Nielsen
Lighting Design: Gerald King
Movement Coach: Mary Ellen MacLean
Stage Manager: Kelly Manson
Apprentice Stage Manager: Trent Scherer
READINGS AND WORKSHOP ARTISTS:
Western Canada Theatre would like to acknowledge the
contributions of the following artists who participated in
developmental workshops and/or public readings of the script
in process: Layla Alizada, Marie Clements, Lisa Dahling, Margo
Kane, Lanni Mclnnes, Cheri Maracle, Lori Marchand, Jody-Kay
Marklew, Janet Michael, Renae Morriseau, Lisa C. Ravensbergen,
Lori Ravensborg, Yvonne Wallace, Val Pearson, Jennie Young,
Gay Hauser, Budge Schacte and Del Surjik.
B e University of Iowa Libraries
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Author's Note
On August 25, 1910, then-Prime Minister of Canada, Sir
Wilfrid Laurier, came to Kamloops, British Columbia to meet
with the Chiefs of the Thompson River Valley. The list of
grievances these chiefs presented to him at that, historic meeting
has since come to be known as “The Laurier Memorial.”
Cast of Characters
ERNESTINE SHUSWAP, 53 years old, strong-faced and handsome, one
of those women who has weathered much in life but has weathered it
with grace, with wise intelligence, and with humour.
ISABEL THOMPSON, 43 years old, one of those people with a huge axe
to giind and that axe, in her case, is religion. She is, that is to say, the
world’s most “generous,” most saintly, most perfect woman... in her
mind.
ANNABELLE OKANAGAN, 32 years old, moody to a fault, either, a) she
is one of those people bom with a dark cloud hanging over her, b)
something unresolved is chafing at her conscience and/or, c) that
“something” is costing her her sleep which, of course, is what makes her
so darn grouchy.
DELILAIT ROSE JOHNSON, 27 years old, beautiful, and three months
pregnant. A high-strung girl to begin with, something about her bird-
like physicalily suggests a split personality, or something just as
unsettling.
TIME: Thursday, August 25, 1910
THE SET: There is none. Rather, at centre-stage-middle and six feet in
the air “hangs” a cowboy hat, seemingly suspended from the middle of
the shy, as if a ghost were wearing it. Tour styrofoam cubes—to be used
as chairs, rocks, other “objects ” as the need will arise—sit scattered at
random. An ancient gramophone (ca. 1900) sits open on the floor by
one of these “chairs. ” Last, a plain white backdrop hangs slashed by a
line, curved, horizontal: the land in silhouette. The rest is lights,
sound, music.
NOTE: The language spoken by the women in this play, it must be
stressed, is not English. Simply put, the Native people of the Thompson
River Valley at the time here depicted (the early twentieth century) did
not know the tongue. Rather, they spoke Shuswap, Okanagan,
Thompson (or Couteau, as the latter “Nation” is otherwise known),
and other Native languages. In this play, they speak Shuswap, a
tongue that works according to principles, and impulses, different
entirely from those that underlie, that “motor, ” the English language.
For instance, because the principle that “motors” the Shuswap
language is, in essence, a “laughing deity ” (i.e. the Trickster), it is
hysterical, comic to the point where its “spill-over” into horrifying
tragedy is a thing quite normal, utterly organic. That is to say, as in
most languages of Native North America (that I know of anyway), the
“laughinggod” becomes a “crying god” becomes a “laughinggod, ” all
in one swift impulse.