The Berlin Blues
A consortium of German developers shows up on the fictional Otter Lake Reserve with a seemingly irresistible offer to improve the local economy: the creation of “OjibwayWorld,” a Native theme park designed to attract European tourists to this new destination resort, causing hilarious personal and political divisions within the local community.
The Berlin Blues concludes Drew Hayden Taylor’s Blues quartet, showcasing contemporary stereotypes of First Nations people, including a fair number of these that originate from Indigenous communities themselves, to the often outraged delight of his international audiences.
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Reviews
“This play displays a healthy sense of humor … If one needs an innocuous night of theatre, this can be taken as a series of funny events. Those hoping for something deeper can find allegories and metaphors pointing through history.”
“Taylor … gives his characters a lot of smart, witty lines seldom heard from the mouths of Natives. These jokes and asides ring true. Even if you didn’t know Taylor’s Ojibway background, you’d believe he knows people like these.”
Native American theatre can be funny. It can be very funny. The best example of this that I have seen is currently running at the Autry National Center… {THE BERLIN BLUES] displays a healthy sense of humor and involves a buffalo stampede (or is it bison? Wait, it’s tatanka), a musical revue of Dances With Wolves, and a 44-meter laser-beam dream catcher. Playwright Drew Hayden Taylor is a connection to real-life native people for thousands around the world. A member of the Ojibway Nation and resident of Ontario’s Curve Lake Reserve, he has lectured in 16 countries including Germany and Austria. For all the fun he pokes at Germany, “That’s part of the irony of the play,” he says, “I’ll be doing my sixth lecture tour of Germany.”
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