A long American tradition of not getting it

“The History of Asking the Wrong Question,” a theatrical work merged with video, has its world premiere next weekend at the N4th Theater.

“The core of this piece is Native culture within American society,” said Ain Gordon, the Obie Award-winning writer and director of the work.

The title of the work actually refers to more than a single question about the relationship Native people have to the dominant culture. The piece could actually apply to any culture looking at another “on questions of translation, of permission, of respect, of appropriateness,” Gordon said.

	If you go WHAT: “The History of Asking the Wrong Question” WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16, and Saturday, Nov. 17 WHERE: N4th Theater, 4904 Fourth NW HOW MUCH: $15 general public, $10 students and seniors at www.vsartsnm.org. For reservations call 344-4542

He said the production involves the use of actors and multiple ways of incorporating video.

“Sometimes the actors are speaking live into a mike while watching a film interview without sound. We also have live video,” Gordon said.

And there are imagined interviews with people who didn’t live into the age of video, he said. There is an imagined interview with a Francis E. Leupp, an early 20th-century commissioner of Indian Affairs who wrote about Native culture and history.

There is another imagined interview with ethnologist Matilda Stevenson, who wrote extensively about tribes of the Southwest, specifically the pueblos and “who interviewed them about their role in historizing Native culture, for better or for worse,” Gordon said.

The work has three actors portraying many characters including themselves, he said. The actors are Joe Cross, Derek Lucci and Stacey Sargeant.

On stage with the actors are two stage technicians “who are running the show in full sight of the audience,” Gordon said.

Albuquerque filmmakers Kelly Byars and Ramona Emerson collaborated with Gordon in helping him do research for the piece.

Emerson, who is Navajo, said she and her husband haven’t seen the production since their research.

“We’ re very curious as to how he does this,” she said.

Byars, who is Choctaw-Chickasaw, addressed the issue of non-Native people asking him questions.

“I’ve had some pretty degrading questions about my Native culture that were asked in a very derogatory way. After a while you get a hard shell from that,” he said.

“The reality of being asked the wrong question is something we all face at some point in our lives from somebody who doesn’t know any better – my culture, Soviet culture. We all get asked silly questions. After a while you accept it.”