Sovereignty by Mary Kathryn Nagle, and: Jefferson’s Garden by Timberlake Wertenbaker

Abstract

Reviewed by: Sovereignty by Mary Kathryn Nagle, and: Jefferson’s Garden by Timberlake Wertenbaker Shirley A. Huston-Findley SOVEREIGNTY. By Mary Kathryn Nagle. Directed by Molly Smith. Arena Stage, Washington, D.C. January 17, 2018. JEFFERSON’S GARDEN. By Timberlake Wertenbaker. Directed by Nataki Garrett. Ford’s Theatre, Washington, D.C. January 20, 2018. Despite the city’s rather significant number of female led/women-centric theatres, issues of gender parity remain throughout the thriving theatre community in and around our nation’s capital. To combat the inequality, the Women’s Voices Theater Festival, now in its second iteration, offered twenty-four plays throughout the D.C. area during the first few months of 2018. I was fortunate to witness thirteen of those productions, all of which demonstrated a thriving and provocative world of theatre by—and often about—women, including the world-premiere of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Sovereignty and the American-premiere of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Jefferson’s Garden. Both productions offered up historical and cultural lessons regarding freedom in America, a topic as relevant today as it has been in our nation’s past. Sovereignty, part of Arena Stage’s Power Plays commissioning cycle, revolves in part around the importance and breakage of treaties between Native Americans and the US Government. As we are transported between President Andrew Jackson’s 1830s and our not too distant 2020, we are reminded that these hollow promises for freedom were never meant to be kept. In Nagle’s play, the lack of sovereignty consists of an inability to enforce laws on native lands, specifically the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). VAWA serves as the center of Sarah Polson’s (Kyla Garcia) legal agenda. Polson is a direct descendent, like the playwright, of Major Ridge (Andrew Roa) and his son, the Cherokee Nation leader John Ridge (Kalani Queypo), who were both instrumental in winning the 1832 Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia regarding tribal sovereignty. As our history lessons remind us, despite Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall’s ruling, Jackson failed to enforce the decision. Polson—a lawyer also like the playwright—convinces John Ross (Jake Waid) to assist her in arguing for VAWA at the Supreme Court level, hoping to increase the nation’s jurisdiction over non-natives on Native land, thereby reducing the level of violence against Native women, which has continued to increase since that jurisdiction was removed in 1978. Significant here is the heritage that both Polson and Ross bring with them in their mutual cause. Polson’s ancestor, Major Ridge, leader of the Ridge Party, signed the 1835 Treaty of Echota that removed the Cherokee from their land in the southeast (Georgia), sending them to what we now know as Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. In opposition, Ross’s family lineage can be traced back to the Chief of the Cherokee National Party, John Ross, who, along with the National Council, rebuffed the treaty. While this historically accurate sort of “Hatfield versus McCoy” plays out from the past, Ross introduces Polson to the fictional Ben (Joseph Carlson), a non-Native with whom she falls in love, marries, has a child, and experiences physical/sexual abuse, sending her back to her nation and tribal family. Ultimately, VAWA is passed, but the damage done to her nation and self can never truly be repaired. The sovereignty of her body—women’s bodies—is placed on the same level of importance as the sovereignty of the nation, a parallel the playwright draws quite beautifully throughout the work. Nagle weaves the threads between past and present most skillfully through the use of multi-role casting, reinforcing the continued lack of real sovereignty given to Native nations. Perhaps most notable was Joseph Carlson as both Jackson and Ben—each the “white devil” in their own time periods. Carlson truly shone as President Jackson, carrying a swagger and demeanor that efficiently characterized [End Page 91] him as someone not to be trusted, but within whom all of the power resided. Therefore when Carlson emerged onstage as Ben, a clear connection was made between past white male privilege and its present versions. In an interesting twist, Nagle managed to create in...