‘Antíkoni,’ a stunning new Native American interpretation of the ancient Greek play

The stage is set. | Eric A. Gordon/PW

LOS ANGELES — Theatergoers are in for a very special occasion—a revelation, it’s not too excessive to say—if they will expand their horizons a bit and embrace a Native American perspective on view now.

Currently celebrating its 30th anniversary season, Native Voices presents the world premiere of Beth Piatote’s Antíkoni at the historic Southwest Campus of the Autry Museum of the American West, formerly known as the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, deemed the oldest museum in Los Angeles. According to DeLanna Studi, Native Voices Artistic Director, the work “developed during our 2020 Festival of New Plays,” and it “perfectly embodies our spirit and mission.”

Staged in a space that once housed thousands of Native ancestral remains and cultural materials, this timely retelling of Sophocles’ Greek classic, set within a museum full of Indigenous artifacts, centers a Nez Perce family caught between opposing pressures of the modern world and the ancient culture that Indigenous peoples commit to maintain.

The essential conflict of the original Greek play is that between the unquestioned authority of the king and the force of traditional ethical mores. Set in the near future, “when the Nationalists have come to power”—one could say we are on the cusp of entering just a future—“they want only one story,” says Kreon, a Native museum curator who is sufficiently acquiescent in order to hold onto his job, “the story of how they won the war.”

“Kreon crafts his words to please the public that sleeps easily in our lands,” says his niece and antagonist Antíkoni. “He does not disturb the American dream, though it blossoms from the blood of our children.” Piatote’s elevated language is crafted in the style of ancient Greek poetics, and not inconsistent with Native sensitivity.

Interesting how, in the milieu of an American Indian museum, Antíkoni’s very name summons up the word “antique.” In fact, the springboard to the plot is that Kreon has recently, on the black market, acquired some important ancient ancestral remains that had until now been in European hands. If and how he brings them into the museum occasions the profound controversy at the heart of the play.

So if the now reigning Nationalist Party threatens to silence or misinterpret their history, with her uncle Kreon riding the waves of changing politics to submit, Antíkoni feels compelled to defend her people’s eternal truths. A (Greek) chorus of tribal Aunties delivers raucous and wise traditional stories to guide them, many mythical and elliptical without apparent immediacy to the actual crisis. This in itself is a challenge to Western concepts of theater, which on the whole disparages such digressions that are part of the Native ethos in a timeless, but different, form of storytelling. All the while, we observers interrogate what role museums have in caring for the dead, for the integrity and meaning of the past.

The venue is itself part of the significance of the play (though this need not discourage any future presenters from staging it elsewhere). Audiences who have attended Native Voices productions over the past 25 years of the company’s history, have almost always gone to the Autry Museum theater, yet for this play the company returns to its roots at the Southwest. “Formerly known as the Southwest Museum of the American Indian,” says DeLanna Studi, “this site once housed hundreds of ancestral remains that were not properly identified. The Autry is now caring for these remains in the hopes that one day, this will be remedied, and these ancestors will be returned home. When the Autry suggested this venue, we knew Beth’s story cried out to be told in this space to acknowledge its history and reclaim a structure that had once told our stories without us….

“In Beth’s hands, Kreon’s journey is more nuanced and complicated, leading all of us to question how we would react if placed in a similar situation. There are no easy answers, and Beth leans deftly and unapologetically into that dilemma…. This world premiere combines the power of two ancient traditions to affirm and sustain a vision of justice in a deeply unjust world.”

“For many years,” Kreon reflects, “we were cut off from our own belongings, as though we had no hands to hold them. Now that I hold the power, the collection is in our hands. I collect in order to recollect. To remember.”

Antíkoni finds herself in conflict not only with her uncle Kreon, but also with her sister Ismene, who is studying diligently to become a lawyer. “I bind myself to our people, for I, like you, have been blessed to be born in our Native land. Yet his blessing bears a curse—the curse of their law.” She acknowledges that Native law will always have to bend to the greater law of the land.

“I know your heart is true,” Antíkoni answers her. “But when you separate yourself—when you claw like a wolf in law school—I fear you will become like Uncle.”

As with all movements, there are different approaches—conciliatory, reformist, gradualist, radical, revolutionary, feminist, spiritual, territorialist, uncompromising, go-it-alone, and much more.

Director Madeline Sayet (Mohegan) has done a remarkable job of casting and deploying her actors to fulfill all the promise and nuances of Piatote’s work. The dramaturg is Courtney Mohler, and the assistant director is Jennifer Bobiwash.

Antíkoni is played militantly by Erin Xáalnook Tripp (Lingít), and her more pacific sister Ismene by Isabella Madrigal (Cahuilla/Turtle Mountain Ojibwe). Uncle Kreon is the glib Frank Henry Katasse (Lingít). The protagonist’s fiancé Haemon, slated to take over the museum after Kreon, is played by a tolerant Kholan Studi (Cherokee), and the role of a Guard is taken by Maddox Pennington (Cherokee). The three storytelling Aunties are Arigon Starr (Kickapoo), GiGi Buddie (Tongva/Mescalero Apache), and Dawn Lura (Diné). The blind seer Tairasias is Nikcoma Lee Mahkewa (Hopi-Tewa/Mohave/Chemehuevi).

Native Voices is the only Actors’ Equity theatre company in the country devoted to developing new works by Indigenous playwrights, and has become the cornerstone of American theatre in cultivating opportunities for Native playwrights.

Playwright Beth Piatote is a Nez Perce writer and scholar and an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where she specializes in Native American literature, Indigenous language revitalization, and creative writing.

More information about the play, its creatives, actors and their biographies can be found in the playbill here.

Antíkoni plays through Nov. 24, with performances Thurs. and Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m., at the Southwest Museum, 234 Southwest Museum Dr., Los Angeles 90065. Getting to the Southwest Museum by car is a little tricky. See here for precise driving directions into the museum parking lot.

For ticket information, go to the About Native Voices page on the Autry website and click on Calendar.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Eric A. Gordon

Eric A. Gordon, People’s World Cultural Editor, wrote a biography of radical American composer Marc Blitzstein and co-authored composer Earl Robinson’s autobiography. He has received numerous awards for his People's World writing from the International Labor Communications Association. He has translated all nine books of fiction by Manuel Tiago (pseudonym for Álvaro Cunhal) from Portuguese, available from International Publishers NY.