Indigenous Summer Theater performance brings Dixon storyteller’s play to life

ARLEE — For playwright, poet and spiritual leader Victor Charlo, life inspires creativity. Charlo’s voice has helped to shape his generation here on the Flathead Reservation, and now, the stories he’s created will influence generations to come.

Charlo’s play “Moon Over Mission Dam” was just the first of many performances to hit the stage in the ongoing Indigenous Summer Theater lineup. On Thursday and Friday at the Arlee powwow grounds and again on Sunday in Pablo, a cast of 12 native and non-native actors brought “Moon” to life.

“It’s our water play,” Charlo said of his second script, which he wrote alongside former St. Ignatius resident Zan Agzigian. “Water is everything. Water is power. Water is life. It’s fiction, but it’s all real life.”

An emotionally-rich tale threaded with historical perspective, “Moon” calls attention to the issue of water rights, the building of Kerr Dam and how it affected native people. Set in 1973, the play follows its main character, Woody, as he tries to make sense of the chaos surrounding the collapse of his town’s poorly-constructed dam. As anger and mistrust sweep across the fictitious Buffalo Hat Reservation, Woody and his friend Jessa Firesong search for a peaceful resolution.

“Our nation, washed up by the great river… all I see is brothers fighting brothers,” Jessa says in an early scene. “These dams are destroying us.”

According to Julie Cajune, Director of the HeartLines Project at SKC, one of the production’s sponsors, the story is not political, it’s personal.

“I believe in our stories and I believe they have something to teach us,” she said before the opening scene Thursday night. “It’s a great way to explore tribal history, and it is more accessible to people than sitting through a lecture. There are very few indian playwrights in the United States and for indian people to do stories of their people, I think that is really unique.”

Together, Charlo and Agzigian have co-written, directed, produced and toured three contemporary Native American plays, starting with “Trickster at Dirty Corner,” which opened in Missoula and later received rave reviews after its performances at the Met in Spokane and the Myrna Loy Center in Helena.

“We wanted to be the “really” off-Broadway players,” Agzigian said.

The pair called it “Gorilla theater” — working on a shoestring budget, they spent too much on hotel rooms and lost money on T-shirts that first production.

“Multi-cultural was a buzz-word then,” Agzigian said. “People were interested in what we were doing and what we were doing wasn’t easy.”

After an intensive workshop at a week-long theater conference called the Bigfork Gathering, Agzigian earned a fellowship from Artist Trust in 1994 to produce and premiere “Moon” in Seattle.

“Moon” came out of us sitting down and Vic telling stories about how it was,” she said. “I would lay on the couch with a clipboard, setting him up, and handwriting these lines. It was really a dynamic thing — this play has evolved.”

Agzigian moved to Spokane in 1995, and in the winter of 1996, did a live reading of the play at the Met. Then, she said, it was put to rest.

Thanks to a collaboration between Npustin (an indigenous arts organization based on the Flathead Reservation) the Arlee Community Development Corporation, HeartLines (SKC) and the Montana Arts Council, it’s been resurrected.

The show represents the first sprout of an idea that took root with a theater camp for native children in 2001, director Linda Grinde wrote in the play’s official program. The dream of live theater on the powwow grounds is part of the legacy left by the late Thomas “Bearhead” Swaney, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Councilman and fervent advocate against additional dam proposals along the Lower Flathead River.

“Most everyone on stage has never been on the stage before, and so, part of it is learning what it takes to put something like this on,” Grinde said. “The play itself is so powerful and so appropriate right now, we’re hoping it starts a dialogue, and that people start talking about the issues.”

A true community effort, “Moon Over Mission Dam” was, at its essence, a positive statement.

“It’s about choosing not to be violent, but to find another way,” Grinde said. “It’s an account of a perspective that I think hasn’t been heard before. It’s been an awakening.”

And hopefully, this is just the beginning.

“This is just the first one — we’ve got other plays we want them to see too,” Charlo said. “But what I’m more interested in is seeing them write their own plays and see them through.”