alterNatives

very liberal contemporary couple - Angel, an urban Native science fiction
writer and Colleen, a “non-practicing” Jewish intellectual who teaches Native
literature - have a dinner party

The guests at this little “sitcom” soirée are couples that represent what by now have become the clichéd extremes of both societies - Angel’s former radical Native activist buddies and Colleen’s environmentally concerned vegetarian/veterinarian friends

The menu is, of course, the hosts’ respectful attempt at shorthand for the irreconcilable cultural differences about to come to a head during the evening: moose roast and vegetarian lasagna

Both the diametrically opposed vehemence (one anonymous caller to the Firehall Theatre uttered bomb threats after labeling it “senseless white bashing”); and the inappropriateness (the Vancouver Sun theatre critic said, “It’s all too Earnest for me.”); of the responses of the amateur and professional critics to the Vancouver performances are testimony to the power of the pain, frustration and alienation alterNatives manages to create

Like all of Drew Hayden Taylor’s work, alterNatives manages to say things about “Whites and Indians” that one is not supposed to talk about - it digs up the carefully buried raw, pulsing nerve-endings of the unspeakable and exposes them to the hot bright lights of the stage

That he does so with a humour that the politically correct among his audiences continue to miss entirely beneath the sound and fury of their own self-righteous indignation is a measure of his immense talent as a dramatist

In the end, the play is not about cultural differences at all, but instead constitutes a full frontal attack on the personal qualities the Sitcom holds most dear and pushes hardest at its audiences - Taylor asserts that neither “attitude” nor “sincerity” are enough to address basic human issues, no matter which side of the cultural fence the characters are on
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