The plays discussed in previous posts, Gunpowder Man, Friendly Fire, and Dust Storm all revolve around conflict between the dominant culture and ethnic groups. As do Corrido de un Sobreviviente, The Stephen Hill Affair, The Great Blight and to some extent the longer Uncle Sam’s Fandango which I’ll discuss in the future. Also, in the future I’ll discuss Women of the Bear which dramatizes the conditions of three women – from three different social classes – dealing with their positions in the chaotic world of the Gold Rush. But social conflict can erupt entirely within a culture. All three Abrahamic… [Continue reading]

Most of my Duende plays are built around some deep conflict within the American soul. For Gunpowder Man it turned out to be the two concepts of American Exceptionalism. Since the Revolution of 1776, Americans have collectively defined themselves as exceptional. The Founders did amazing things: they cast off rule by a king descended from a long line of kings each of whom claimed to rule by Divine Rights. Getting rid of the whole idea of kings having divine sanction was an exceptional thing to do at the time. Having thrown off the monarchy, the Founders sat down and fought… [Continue reading]

When writing Friendly Fire: A Forty-niner’s Life with the Me-Wuk, in 1995, I was acting, and thinking, locally. The impetus had been my indignation when I discovered how completely the story of the genocide of native peoples had been excluded from my education in California’s public schools. Of course I was aware that European people had been laying waste to indigenous cultures for at least 500 years of colonization, but I was only thinking about what had happened in my state, and indeed in my own back yard. This was surely a good thing for the play. I had chosen… [Continue reading]