When I’m thinking of my future in terms of career, I consider things like my past job experience, my education, my connections, etc…and maybe I’ll even think positive thoughts ala The Secret.
But never do I really consider things like my parents’ experiences, or their parents’ experiences, and I definitely never consider things like how the struggles of my ancestors might be affecting me today.
I’ll tell people I’m German and Irish, but in my mind, that just explains why I like beer so much. I never consider whether my life would be different if the Irish Potato Famine had never happened—or maybe more significantly, what specific qualities of mine are, in fact, directly impacted by the Irish Potato Famine.
I acknowledge with great gratitude that the actions of women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eleanor Roosevelt, Shirley Chisholm, Paulette Barnes, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, and SO MANY OTHERS have affected my rights as a woman in immeasurable ways…so why doesn’t it click that other events—events not recorded in history or law—could have affected me in equally profound ways?
Enter “The Heritage Series” at the Phoenix Theatre
Photo Credit: Visit Indy
“The Heritage Series” is a series of three plays exploring the history, mythology, and cultural inheritance of people of different races and cultural backgrounds.The plays in “The Heritage Series” do what I’ve been subconsciously avoiding most of my life—they confront the future by considering the past.
The three part series includes River City by Diana Grisanti, Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea by Nathan Alan Davis, and a new play with music based on Mexican folk tales, to be developed by the Phoenix and presented in English and Spanish in November of 2015.
River City ran at the Phoenix from January 8-February 1, 2015. The play follows Mary, a mixed raced woman in an interracial marriage, who is pregnant with her first child. She’s grappling with how cultural barriers have affected her, and will affect her own soon-to-be-born child.
After the death of her orphan father, who had long been secretive about his own background, Mary decides to get some answers and sets out on a journey to uncover three generations’ worth of family secrets buried in the West End of Louisville.
Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea follows 18-year-old Dontrell Jones III. The play begins with Dontrell recalling a dream where he witnesses a captive African—who has the face of his father—jumping off of a slave ship into the ocean below.
Dontrell decides that it is his duty and destiny to venture into the Atlantic Ocean in search of this ancestor lost during the Middle Passage. But his family is not at all ready to abandon its prized son to the waters of a mysterious and haunting past. Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea blends poetry, humor, wordplay and ritual in its storytelling of a present-day hero’s quest exploring the lengths and depths we must go to redeem history’s wrongs.
Here’s what these two plays have in common:
- They’re both brand-spanking new—written in the last couple of years, and are Rolling World Premiere Productions.
- They both, in totally different ways, explore how our past affects our present.
- While they ask really important questions, neither of them feel like a lecture. They’re as entertaining as any film you’d see—but better, because the action is playing out right in front of you.
Here’s what I think a really good play will do
A really good play will ask important questions, and it will provide many possible answers. Or better yet, the play will inspire you to ask your own questions and look for your own answers. Here’s what I think a really good new play will do: it will ask important questions that the rest of the world is asking, too…not 50 years ago, but NOW.
That’s why this series is so exciting to me—the fact that these plays were written at separate times in separate states by people from totally different backgrounds confirms that a lot of people are starting to question the impact of heritage. And the fact that this series is happening in a time where our beloved city, and our country, are trying to move forward from a pretty shameful past feels really significant, too.
I, for one, am excited about what the future holds for myself, for Indianapolis, for the country—but the more I think about it, the more I believe we HAVE to look to our past in order to build any sort of future. Marcus Garvey sums it up better than I ever could: “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” Let’s keep looking forward to the future, but maybe we need to find our roots first.
If you think the idea of cultural inheritance is a conversation worth having, consider seeing the performance of Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea on Thursday, April 9, and stay after the show for part two of “Awkward Conversations” co-hosted by IndyHub, Mosaic City, and the Phoenix Theatre.
“Awkward Conversations” was initiated by IndyHub and Mosaic City as part of the 2014 Spirit and Place Festival, because the two organizations saw a need to have uncensored conversations exploring race and difference and the many ways that these elements can simultaneously enhance and complicate our worlds. Part two of the ongoing series will explore how art, specifically Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea, can be a catalyst for these conversations. Click here to learn more.
