Inuit a theatre work in progress

 

Alexander Onassis Foundation 2007

International Distinction Prize Playwrighting

 

Plays Index

 

 

Great Plains Theatre Conference

2008 PlayLab

summary

1911. Sinnisiak and Uluksuk, two Inuit hunters on the Arctic Ocean, kill two priests. The missionaries are the first white men they have seen and the Inuit are threaten; according to custom they eat the livers to avoid being haunted by the spirits of the dead.

The “cannibals” are tracked by the Mounties and readily confess.

Brought to trial in Edmonton, the “stone age” men create a sensation, are changed forever, and acquitted.

The Canadian Government needs a conviction to establish sovereignty; they are tried again in Calgary and convicted.

The story is a microcosm of the colonizing process—the changing of other into ‘us.