{"id":1361,"date":"2024-02-23T14:17:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T14:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ventil.rs\/blog\/entertainment\/review-where-mohegan-history-meets-shakespeare\/"},"modified":"2024-02-23T14:17:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T14:17:03","slug":"review-where-mohegan-history-meets-shakespeare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ventil.rs\/blog\/entertainment\/review-where-mohegan-history-meets-shakespeare\/","title":{"rendered":"Review | Where Mohegan history meets Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Most people will never have to contemplate, yet alone confront, the notion of losing touch with their native language. So when Mohegan playwright and performer Madeline Sayet steps on the Folger Theatre stage and relays that experience with wit, warmth and mournful reflection, her articulation of that erasure speaks volumes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Language, Sayet underscores, is the foundation on which generation-spanning connections of culture and community are built. To forget one\u2019s native tongue is to see such spiritual bonds broken down. When cultural genocide is the culprit for such erosion \u2014 the Mohegan language was washed away in waves of imperialist violence and assimilation \u2014 the tragedy is unimaginable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In \u201cWhere We Belong,\u201d an autobiographical solo show produced by the Folger in association with Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Sayet frames centuries of Mohegan history and colonialist oppression within her experience as a theater-maker who traveled to London in 2015 to study Shakespeare. Sayet, it would appear, was predestined for such introspection: She takes her middle name from Fidelia Fielding, the last fluent speaker of the Mohegan language.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Yet it\u2019s Sayet\u2019s Mohegan moniker, Achokayis \u2014 which translates to \u201cblackbird\u201d or \u201cthe dark one who flies apart\u201d \u2014 that informs the show\u2019s more hypnotic flourishes. As Sayet finds parallels between the soaring expectations of that name and the transient nature of her artistic livelihood, production designer Hao Bai illuminates the set in ethereal, cloudlike imagery and composer Erik Schilke floods the space with his serene score.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For the most part, though, director Mei Ann Teo smartly leans on the potency of Sayet\u2019s storytelling prowess. After first performing \u201cWhere We Belong\u201d in 2019 at Shakespeare\u2019s Globe in London, Sayet debuted this staging of the play for a pandemic-era filmed production at Woolly Mammoth<\/a> in 2021. While the shape of the show seems largely unchanged, Sayet\u2019s personable presence deepens its impact as she connects with the audience in the Folger\u2019s intimate Elizabethan Theatre, strolling up and down the aisle and locking onto theatergoers\u2019 eyes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Deploying an endearing brand of nervous energy, Sayet dons myriad accents and personae. Early in the show, she amusingly takes on a Swedish affectation to play a Stockholm border agent quizzing travelers from London on how they voted on the Brexit referendum. Sayet later imagines conversations with Mahomet Weyonomon, the 18th-century Mohegan leader who traveled to England to address the crown about his people\u2019s plight, only to die of smallpox during his months-long wait for an audience and end up in a mass grave. Then there\u2019s her sobering retelling of a trip to the British Museum, where she pressed an English academic on the institution\u2019s reluctance for repatriation and got only condescension in return.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sharp. Witty. Thoughtful. Sign up for the Style Memo newsletter.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Contextualizing her own place among storied ancestry, Sayet also recounts eye-opening parables involving such Mohegan figures as the tribal leader Uncas, the Presbyterian cleric Samson Occom and the medicine woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon (the performer\u2019s great-aunt). Scrutinizing her own love for Shakespeare, Sayet considers the role the Bard\u2019s work played in the assimilation education that valued his prose and verse over the language Mohegans used to pass down their own cherished traditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As Sayet recalls, she once directed a staging of \u201cThe Tempest\u201d in which she presented Prospero and his shipmates as colonizers and the typically monstrous Caliban as an Indigenous character reclaiming his language. But what if her reading of Shakespeare as anti-colonialist was off the mark all along? By interrogating how Shakespeare is interpreted, Sayet taps into larger truths about American and British society\u2019s collective failure to reckon with colonialism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This treatise on how culture is preserved or suppressed resonates all the more in the Elizabethan Theatre, where the stage\u2019s historic oak columns are juxtaposed against a contemporary set featuring striking bars of fluorescent light, cafe lights evoking the stars and swirling mounds of dirt representing the borders Sayet traverses. As presented in an institution dedicated to celebrating Shakespeare\u2019s legacy, the gimlet-eyed perspective of \u201cWhere We Belong\u201d feels right at home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Where We Belong<\/b><\/i>, written and performed by Madeline Sayet. Directed by Mei Ann Teo. Production design, Hao Bai; costumes, Asa Benally; music and sound, Erik Schilke. About 85 minutes. Through March 10 at Folger Theatre, 201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington. <\/i>folger.edu<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Most people will never have to contemplate, yet alone confront, the notion of losing touch with their native language. So when Mohegan playwright and performer Madeline Sayet steps on the Folger Theatre stage and relays that experience with wit, warmth and mournful reflection, her articulation of that erasure speaks volumes. Language, Sayet underscores, is the…<\/p>\n

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