JOY HARJO
Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light || A Ceremony
Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light by Joy Harjo (Mvskoke) || Development and Production History
DECEMBER 2007
Public Theater Native
Theater Festival
New York, New York
Workshop and Staged Reading
JUNE 2008
Native Voices at the
Autry Playwrights Retreat
and Festival of New Plays
San Diego and
Los Angeles, California
Workshop and Staged Reading
MARCH 2009
Native Voices at the Autry
Los Angeles, California
Equity World Premiere
JANUARY 2010
Alaska Native Heritage Center
Anchorage, Alaska
Tour
MARCH 2010
Merrimack College
North Andover, Massachusetts
Tour
MAY 2010
Outpost Performance Space
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Tour
JUNE 2010
Native Voices at the Autry Festival
of New Plays
La Jolla, California
Tour
SEPTEMBER 2010
Oklahoma Center for Poets and
Writers, Tulsa Library Trust,
American Indian Resource Center,
and Readers’ Library
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tour
DECEMBER 2010
Native Voices at the Autry with the
Public Theater
New York, New York
Workshop
OCTOBER 2011
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts
Reading
February 2012
First Nations House of Learning
University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Performance
CHARACTERS
REDBIRD, who may also be the SPIRIT HELPER: a Native woman, Mvskoke, somewhere in her later twenties, thirties, forties, or fifties
GUARDIAN MUSICIAN: a guitar player who accompanies Redbird on her journey
GUARDIAN MUSICIAN comes onstage about five minutes before the curtain speech to set up gear and tune as needed. He sits extreme stage right.
OPENING
GUARDIAN MUSICIAN plays funky music. Music accompanies the story throughout.
The kitchen table, stage left center, is the gut around which all action flows. It is a heart, a bed, a bier, a car, a counter at the bar, an altar, and a hiding place.
Lights up on the table.
REDBIRD enters upstage left, lands down center stage. She wears jeans, red shirt, and cowboy boots.
Light bright sunlight.
REDBIRD: I welcome you on behalf of the family, and thank you so much for coming out to help with our ceremony. Important information: The bathrooms are down the hall, and there’s water and coffee in the kitchen. Don’t forget to turn off your cell phones, iPads, cameras … no taping, or texting.
REDBIRD, as REDBIRD’S relative, picks up rattle and shakes it.
REDBIRD: Please keep in mind that the patient Redbird Monahwee is in a delicate and vulnerable state. There is imbalance between dark and light. We need your good thoughts to help see us through.
And here to assist us in our ceremony is Redbird’s protector guardian.
GUARDIAN MUSICIAN plays a flourish on guitar as a way of introduction. He never speaks in the play.
REDBIRD: I’ve been asked to open with a traditional family story and song, so that our minds come together as one.
Mvto, mvto, thank you: for ancestral and all spiritual help.
REDBIRD shakes a rattle to signal the beginning of the story.
SONG: RABBIT IS UP TO TRICKS
In a world long before this one, there was enough for everyone
until somebody got out of line.
We heard it was Rabbit, fooling around with clay and the wind.
Everybody was tired of his tricks and no one would play with him;
he was lonely in this world.
So Rabbit thought to make a person.
And when he blew into the mouth of that crude figure
to see what would happen, the clay man stood up.
Rabbit showed the clay man how to steal a chicken.
The clay man obeyed.
Then Rabbit showed him how to steal corn.
The clay man obeyed.
Then he showed him how to steal someone else’s wife.
The clay man obeyed.
Rabbit felt important and powerful.
The clay man felt important and powerful.
And once that clay man started he could not stop.
Once he took that chicken he wanted all the chickens.
And once he took that corn he wanted all the corn.
And once he took that wife, he wanted all the wives.
He was insatiable.
Then he had a taste of gold and he wanted all the gold.
Then it was land and anything else he saw.
His wanting only made him want more.
Soon it was countries, and then it was trade.
The wanting infected the earth.
We lost track of the purpose and reason for life.
We began to forget our songs, our stories;
we could no longer see or hear our ancestors,
or talk with each other across the kitchen table.
Forests were being mowed down all over the world to make more.
And Rabbit had no place to play.
Rabbit’s trick had backfired.
Rabbit tried to call the clay man back,
But when the clay man wouldn’t listen
Rabbit realized he’d made a clay man with no ears.
SONG: WINDING THROUGH THE MILKY WAY
CEHOTOSAKVTES
CHENAORAKVTES MOMIS KOMET
AWATCHKEN OHAPEYAKARES HVLWEN
REDBIRD: Two beloved women sang this song on the trail of tears. One walked near the front of the people, one near the back. When either began to falter, they would sing the song to hold each other up.
DO NOT GET TIRED.
DON’T BE DISCOURAGED. BE DETERMINED,
TO ALL COME IN. WE WILL GO TO THE HIGHEST PLACE.
WE WILL GO TOGETHER.
Rattle ends the song.
REDBIRD: Now, our ceremony begins.
SCENE 1
Light bright day.
Light up on kitchen table.
REDBIRD: It was at this kitchen table I was forbidden to sing when I was fourteen. I wasn’t the best singer. It wasn’t about that at all.
The man who had made himself keeper of our house stood there with my stack of albums in his hands.
I had bought and paid for them with money from my dishwas...