INTERVIEW: Blackfeet traditions debated in new Native Voices play, ‘Lying With Badgers’
Photo: From left, Robert Vestal (Cherokee descent) plays Badger 1, and Rainy Fields (Muskogee [Creek]/Cherokee) plays Badger 2 in Lying With Badgers. Photo courtesy of © 2020 Craig Schwartz Photography / Provided by Native Voices with permission.
Jason Grasl, a Blackfeet playwright and actor, has crafted a new show that looks at Native American traditions and how they sometimes feel challenged in the 21st century. He achieves this powerful and engaging theme by utilizing puppets of spirit animals to tell his often-comedic tale.
Lying With Badgers is being presented as part of the Native Voices theatrical program at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. Performances run through March 15, and artistic director Randy Reinholz (Choctaw) is in the director’s chair.
“I’m really excited,” Grasl said in a recent phone interview.
In the show, a spiritual world comes to life with the help of “wise-cracking spirit animals,” and at the same time, two estranged brothers of the Blackfeet Nation are pitted against each other in a fierce debate over economic and personal issues, according to press notes. The main question they need to answer: Should the tribe exploit mineral rights, or continue to honor their land as sacred?
“I was actually doing another show in Cherokee, North Carolina, late summer of 2015, and it was a staged reading,” the playwright said. “It’s a staged reading because there’s some real-life domestic violence survivors that are a part of the show, telling their own story, but there’s professional actors mixed with them. Myself and another actress, who is also Blackfeet, they provided a huge spread of food for us before the performance, and down in Cherokee they eat bear. So there’s a spread of elk meatloaf, venison and bear, and I had never had bear before. So I was about to grab a piece, and the other Blackfeet actress, who had grown up more so in the culture than I did, was like, ‘You’re not going to touch that, are you? We can’t eat bear.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, of course not.’ So I looked up the origin of that, and we actually made a deal a long time ago with bears. And so we don’t harm them. We don’t kill hibernating bears, and in exchange they don’t come among us and kill us.”
This encounter around the buffet table got Grasl thinking about the different traditions, expectations and rules that are part of the Blackfeet culture. He became entranced by the rituals and spiritual beliefs of the nation, and this led to him creating Lying With Badgers.
“I wrote that first draft in probably two-and-a-half weeks and turned it in for a deadline,” he said. “We did a week-long workshop in 2016 and 2017, which included Native Voices and La Jolla Playhouse. We then did a reading up in Oregon Shakespeare Festival in fall of ’18, and then got a student production at [San Diego State University], which helped out because of the extra cost involved because of our puppets in this play. SDSU has a really talented design team with puppets, so they built the puppets that now Native Voices is renting for the world premiere.”
The puppets are truly magical to behold. They are intricately designed with a variety of colors and textures, and each one is operated by a performer on the stage. To help Grasl shape these spirit animals as characters, he has relied on the directing help of Reinholz, who co-founded Native Voices with Jean Bruce Scott.
“There are very interesting additions that I’ve made to the script based on his suggestions of things I hadn’t thought of,” Grasl said. “I’m also part of the ensemble, and I’ve acted on stage for Native Voices. And so when I writing it, I was kind of thinking of that space, but at the same time, he’s able to point out, like, ‘We can add some really comedic, interesting elements here that we actually need practically because we can’t ever go to full black, unless it’s intermission or the end of the play because of just the way the space works.’ So it provided an opportunity to expand the role of the puppets, not just their arc, but just how they interact with the audience.”
This type of development and shepherding is unique to Native Voices, a theatrical company that provides opportunities to native artists, both playwrights and actors. Over more than 25 years, the organization has presented numerous productions, readings and events centered on the artistic and cultural contributions of native communities. Grasl is one of the beneficiaries of their expansive mission.
“I’ve been associated with Native Voices for a really long time, more than 12 years, and I almost immediately started referring to it as my artistic home,” he said. “What Randy and Jean have created has been overwhelmingly special. It’s changing in certain ways how North American theater at least is viewing native storytelling within the professional theater, and that’s just a huge honor and pleasure and learning experience.”
Perhaps most importantly, the process of writing, developing and now acting in Lying With Badgers has given Grasl the opportunity to connect with his Blackfeet heritage.
“It does help,” Grasl said. “I happen to be in a situation where I was adopted and raised by a white family, so I did not grow up with the reservation experience. So it’s through the art that I can further explore that and get further in touch with it.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Native Voices presents Lying With Badgers, written by Jason Grasl (Blackfeet) and directed by Randy Reinholz (Choctaw). Performances run through March 15 at the Autry Museum of the American West. Click here for more information and tickets.
