Sophocles wrote “Antigone” almost 2,500 years ago, but the themes in the story are timeless. Nez Perce scholar and author Beth Piatote was inspired to write an Indigenous version of “Antigone,” featuring a young woman torn between a moral duty to her family and ancestors and the will of the state. Playwright Beth Piatote joins us, along with Nathan Woodworth, one of the actors in a new production from the Native Performing Arts Network and Bag and Baggage Productions in Beaverton. We are also joined by Jeanette Harrison, Creative Director of the Native Performing Arts Network.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Sophocles wrote the Greek tragedy “Antigone” almost 2,500 years ago, but the themes in the story are timeless. That inspired the Nez Perce scholar and author Beth Piatote to write an Indigenous version of the play. It features a young woman torn between a moral duty to her family and her ancestors, and the will of the state.
It’s up now through June 21 at the Vault Theater in Hillsboro. It’s a partnership between the Native Performing Arts Network and Bag and Baggage Productions. Piatote is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She joins us now, along with Nathan Woodworth, one of the actors in the new production, and the director of the play, Jeanette Harrison.
She is the creative director of the Native Performing Arts Network. It’s great to have all three of you on the show.
Jeanette Harrison: Thanks for having us, Dave.
Beth Piatote: Qe’ciyéw’yew’.
Nathan Woodworth: Yôotva.
Miller: Beth, to start with you – for people who are not familiar with the original play, can you give us just the basics that are helpful to have in mind as we hear about and talk about your reimagining?
Piatote: Oh, thank you. Yes, in the original Sophocles, a young woman is standing up against her uncle who is the head of the state, in a conflict over the fate of honoring one of her brothers. So there has been an uprising against Creon, the uncle. Both the brothers have been killed, one fighting for Creon and one against him. And Antigone wants to honor the brother who fought against, saying like, we owe these spiritual laws, we owe proper rights to all of our dead, while Creon wants his body to just lie out under the sun and be pecked by birds.
So the central conflict is between Antigone defending the spiritual laws, the eternal laws, and Creon using his power as a political leader to decree who should receive proper burial and who should not.
Miller: When did you first start thinking about rewriting or a retelling of this story?
Piatote: Well, I thought about the connection of our situation as Native people to the themes in the play in 1996, when the remains of the ancient one or Kennewick Man were pulled out of the Columbia River. Right away, those ancestral remains were taken into state control. As Native people, we’re saying he’s one of ours, we want to bury him, we want him returned to our homelands. And that is a battle that I’m sure all your listeners are aware lasted more than two decades.
In listening on the radio to that news in 1996, I thought, what is wrong with these people? Don’t they read their own literature? And I was thinking specifically of Antigone at that point, and I didn’t really create something that made that conversation until 2017. It was much later that I actually wrote the play, but that first idea came from listening to the news on the radio.
Miller: How did you know it was time 21 years later?
Piatote: Well, in that time, I had taken up my ancestral language of Nez Perce and read a lot of traditional stories. I did a PhD at Stanford, I took a job at UC Berkeley, and I walked past the Hearst Museum almost every day at work. The Hearst Museum of Anthropology holds a very significant number of ancestral remains. And eventually, [I had] the idea that I could rewrite the play as a play, set it in a museum, and recast all of these elements, and really try to implicate Western culture in its own terms. And in doing that, I also then was able to replace the Greek chorus with a chorus of aunties telling these traditional stories that I’ve been studying and translating from my language.
I do want to point out that I thought of this play as an adaptation, but also as a conversation between two ancient literatures, the Greeks and the Nez Perce, although I really need to underscore the fact that our stories are older than theirs.
Miller: Right, 2,500 years for the Greeks – a blink of time as opposed to, who knows, 5,000, 6,000, 10,000 years or more.
Nathan, a lot of the action happens in a museum, as Beth just mentioned. Can you describe the central tension of the new play?
Woodworth: Yeah, the central tension is a young woman who’s an activist, who is enough with this system, let’s subvert it. Let’s take action now. Let’s reclaim our ancestors. And then the very pragmatic approach of Kreon, who’s a director of the Smithsonian…
Miller: And her uncle.
Woodworth: Her uncle, yeah, exactly. And it’s this kind of generational battle and personal battle of like, let’s work from within the system. Let’s do what we can little by little. And my character, Haemon, is literally caught in the middle. I’m in love with Antíkoni, I’m the protege of Kreon, and intellectually, I understand both of their arguments. They’re both correct. And that is the real tension: neither is right and both are right. And how do you go forward? I think that’s the real question of the play and where the tension lies.
Miller: Jeanette, I understand that you and Beth have known each other for a while and have worked together in the past. Why did you want to mount a production of this play here now?
Harrison: Well, why here now is that it’s a Nez Perce story, and we are literally on the traditional lands that the Nez Perce would travel on their way to distant water, the Pacific Ocean. So it’s a beautiful bringing home of this story, I think.
I’ve been really shocked and a little dismayed at how little people in the Portland metro area know about the traditional people of this land. And everybody’s got these land acknowledgments. They’re all excited and proud about that. But when we say that Portland was a convergence, it really was. There were so many Native people who came through this area for many reasons.
For me, this play really is rooted in this land. It’s a story of this land. And it’s been really eye-opening to me personally too, being Onondaga from the Northeast. So this is not my homelands, and you grow up and you’re like, “I want to learn more about more Native people,” and you look at the map and you look at all of the tribes in the Pacific Northwest, and you’re like, “Yeah, I don’t live there. I don’t need to learn about that.”
So there’s so much that I don’t know. And this play has been really a gateway and an opening for me as well. And I hope it will be for the audience who come to see it as well.
Miller: Can you describe the way you approached practical questions like set, costume design, sound, projections to make this as Nez Perce a production as possible?
Harrison: Well, first of all, I hired Nez Perce people.
Miller: Step one.
Harrison: Yes! There we go. [Laughter]
Miller: And was that the most important decision you made?
Harrison: I wouldn’t say that that’s the most important decision because, of course, storytelling is also important. But I think that what a lot of Western theater makers don’t realize is how rich storytelling is of a tradition in our cultures. And, every Native tribal nation has their own culture, their own storytelling traditions. But being able to tap into that is really powerful.
So, for example, Kellen, who is our costume designer, had never designed costumes before for a theatrical production. However, he’s worked in film. He’s worked in television. He’s a traditional artist. He’s an award winner from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation as a traditional textile artist. So, putting all of those skills together, he created one of the most complex original designs that I have ever had the greatest pleasure to work on. Every single character’s story, their own arc in the story is being told through their clothing and how it changes over the course of the play. And we never would have had that level of detail if we had not had a Nez Perce artist. And Kellen Trenal, they are truly one of the best costume designers I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with.
Woodworth: Absolutely agree, 1,000%.
Miller: Beth, I want to turn more squarely to the question of the chorus or the aunties and the Nez Perce stories that you wove into your play. How did you approach that broadly? And then we can dig into some of the details.
Piatote: Well, when I was thinking about writing an adaptation, I would sort of look at Sophocles and be like, OK, so what’s our version of that? And, our version of giving or receiving advice usually involves telling a story in which the person who’s listening, it’s up to them to understand who they are in the story and to interpret the message of that advice by thinking about the story, and thinking about the dynamics of the story, and figuring out who they are in the story.
Miller: I’m so glad you put it that way because that was one of the things that most struck me about the stories – and they’re sprinkled throughout. They’re moments of humor, of bawdiness, of all kinds of different versions of emotion. But for my experience as an audience member, it was the slipperiness of the stories and the lack of an obvious hit-you-over-the-head moral that really stood out. It wasn’t clear to me, and I guess even at times it wasn’t clear to the characters. Wait, I’m like, I thought you’re going to give me advice. Wait, what am I supposed to do with this? And you’re saying that’s built into the stories themselves over thousands of years.
Piatote: Exactly. That’s the epistemological force of the stories is that you may be one character one day and you may be a different character on a different day, given the situation. One of the structural … So there aren’t really protagonists, antagonists in the clear, like, here’s the hero, everyone is always identifying with the hero or the anti-hero kind of thing. These stories are episodic and have a set of events that then culminate in a result. You’re supposed to tune into how they’re commenting on the action at the moment. And these stories always contain … and they’re very much like the Greek stories too. Things are going along, they get a little weird, then they go off the rails. [Laughter] So there’s always this tipping point.
Miller: Yeah, well, that sounds like life.
Piatote: They are. That’s why they’re so rich and instructive. And I do think listening to the stories, you are kind of like, “ha ha,” and “this is charming,” or “funny,” or “grotesque,” or whatever. And then the next day you’re like, “oh my gosh, that’s so deep.”
But this tipping point; the aunties are warning the characters how close they are to the tipping point where things are going to go in a way that they do not want them to go.
Miller: There’s one line that stands out to me now. I wrote it down. I don’t have it in front of me, but Kreon, the uncle, says something like, why are you telling me these stories? I’m not a kid. And it’s one of the few moments where I feel like you’re tipping your hand, and as an audience member, even though he is sympathetic overall, and as Nathan was saying, they’re right and they’re wrong, that was a case where I thought, no, we know he’s wrong.[Laughter] Stories are for everybody and they’re not just for kids.
Nathan, my understanding is that you’ve done something similar to what Beth was describing in your own world for your master’s thesis, weaving together Karuk stories and Shakespeare. What did you learn from that?
Woodworth: What I learned from that is similar to … Well, first of all, Beth’s work was my inspiration in many ways. Her book, “Beadworkers,” contained her first version of “Antíkoni.” And I was just blown away at how she was able to weave together classical storytelling structure in order to tell the stories of her people. And I have been wanting to dramatize my people’s creation stories to make them easily accessible for contemporary Karuk people and non-Karuk people, because I think there’s so much wisdom, there’s so much humor…
Miller: Could I stop you there? Was that necessary, that for contemporary Karuk people, it was up to you to make them accessible?
Woodworth: I felt that and I talked with my language leader about that. We only have four living speakers of the Karuk language. I’m an apprentice under one of our four master speakers. And without the historical context, it can be difficult for contemporary Karuk people to really connect with our stories the way we would have had context 1,000 years ago.
But everybody knows Shakespeare. Everybody’s familiar with the idea of these star-crossed lovers who are separated. And we have a creation story where a girl dies and goes to the boneless land, and her love is trying to get to her. I’m like, oh, these two lovers separated and trying to get back to each other. What does that remind me of? And then, I’m reading “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” about Oberon and Titania and Puck, and I’m like, oh, that’s a lot like Coyote.
So I was able to kind of find these resonances between Shakespearean archetypes and Karuk stories, and basically use the classical structure as the tree with the Karuk stories, as the branches and the leaves.
Miller: Beth, I want to go back to the museum piece of this. You mentioned working on this, not far from the Hearst Museum at Berkeley, where the remains of Indigenous peoples had been housed in Western scientific ways. You actually did a version of this play there. And then the full-scale theatrical premiere just a couple of years ago was at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles – also a major holding place, Western holding place for Native remains. What was it like to put on this play in those places?
Piatote: Yeah, I think one of the things about this play that’s interesting is the places that it chooses to go. And I also think it’s very cool now we’re in the vault. So we’re in a bank, right? So again, like the holding of capital, this sense of wealth, of accumulated wealth that’s of the West and of colonial enterprises.
I do think that this play is able to go into these spaces and speak into them. And I’ve even heard from professors who will take their classes into museum spaces to read. And I’m very excited because this is a beautiful use of storytelling and of theater, to be in formal theater spaces but also to be in these informal spaces, and to speak into these spaces and change the vibrational energy, and to imagine new kinds of life emerging in these places. So that’s been a joy.
Miller: Did you feel like these productions in those museums in particular were a form of protest?
Piatote: Yes, definitely [Laughs]. But in the very first stage reading we did at UC Berkeley, I have joked about this, just to use another Greek term like Trojan horse. We were able to do it inside the museum. Our audience was sitting in the gallery and we were literally speaking above the holdings of these ancestors. And that was something that we had to think about and think about our own spiritual existence, and how to take care of ourselves to be in that level of proximity with the dead.
We did set up smudging stations, and we tried to take good care of ourselves and the audience for doing that. But we really thought of those ancestors as a critical and even central part of our audience, that we were reaching out to them. But then the chancellor and other administrators came, and we were able to put some internal pressure on the university, along with a lot of external pressure from California tribes to deal with their violations of NAGPRA [Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act]...
Harrison: Passed in 1990, but only 30% of museums have actually fully complied with it.
Miller: And Beth, am I right that you’re on the NAGPRA committee at Berkeley?
Piatote: Well, they let me on the committee for a few years and then I was taken off. So, that is one of the ways that they’re able to maintain their controls by not allowing Native people to serve. But also, there is this incredible backward toe on our lives to serve on these committees, too. And I think one of the lines in the play is “what is done to the dead is done to the living.” We are tied up with them, whether we want to be or not.
Miller: That line reminds me of something I was hoping to ask you to do anyway, which is to read a poem from your new book of poetry. The collection is called “Distant Water,” and the poem is called “Nine Places Where You Can Still See Wheel Tracks from the Oregon Trail.” Do you mind reading it for us?
Piatote: Oh, thank you for that invitation. Yes.
“Nine Places Where You Can Still See Wheel Tracks from the Oregon Trail.”
[Reading her poem]
On my right metatarsus
you can see the swale caused by wet wagon wheelscoming out of the Big Blue River, heavingtheir sodden burdens over the topof my arched foot, crackingthe delicate bones below.
On my skin you see their names
carved with sharp knives, markingthe springs that offeredfresh water. They took long drinks and leftwhite scars.
The climb up my right calf
was so steep that heavy wagonsmade deep rutsstill visible today. This gradewas the first major acclivityand likely to givethe faint-hearted doubt.
A bare road runs
the length of my thigh,sharp double lines billedas pristine trail rutsas though my body did not existfor itself:háawtnin’perfectsacredholy.
My lower belly, made of sandstone
yielded to the roll of the wheelso soft was the sandstonethat it wore awayunder each creaking load –this patient erosionhewed tracksfive feet deep,tracks deep enoughto swallow a child.
To avoid the winter
they raced to reachmy left hipboneby the fourth of July. Tocelebratethey etched whitenamesin the jutting darkgranite of my hip,calling itIndependence Rock.
The climb up my glutes
was so long and steepthat the descent was even more dangerousas testifiedby ruts like claw markson both sides,a reminderof what it meansto rut,to mounta body muscled and soft.
In the wide-open plain of my back
single tracks spreadto doubles and triples –so vast and invitingwas my backas it shreddedunder the gyreof passing lanes.
Across the sharp edge
of my cheekbone,on the cliff faceis planted the historical signthat indicates the finalset of tracksand providesan impressive viewof the Columbia Riveras it rollsto the sea.
[Reading ends]
Miller: That was Beth Piatote reading from her new poetry collection, “Distant Water.” She’ll be reading with Joan Kane at Powell’s this coming Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Jeanette, the play that we’ve been talking about, it’s a mashup of a Greek story from 2,500 years ago and Nez Perce stories from much further back, filtered through Beth’s 20th and 21st century mind. I’m curious – you have a minute-and-a-half to answer this question, but what this should tell all of us about the universality of storytelling?
Harrison: Oh, that’s a great question. I hope I have a good answer for you in a minute-and-a-half. I think that one of the things that draws me to stories is that we find ourselves in them. And it doesn’t matter who we are, we can still identify with what’s going on. And in “Antigone” and “Antíkoni,” it’s a story about standing up to power, finding your own voice, finding your own beliefs and living according to your own values in the best way that you can, even when the world around you feels impossible. And I honestly could not think of a better story to be telling right now, at this particular moment in time.
Miller: Jeanette Harrison, Nathan Woodworth and Beth Piatote, thanks very much.
Piatote: Qe’ciyéw’yew’. Thank you.
Harrison: ’ayóo wée.
Woodworth: Thank you.
Miller: Jeanette Harrison is the creative director of the Native Performing Arts Network. They partnered with Bag and Baggage Productions on this new play, “Antíkoni.” It is up now through June 21 at the Vault Theater in Hillsboro. Nathan Woodworth plays Haemon in the production. It was written by Beth Piatote. She is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley.
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