Rebecca Ostriker Co-Produces

Cambridge Theater Production

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

CAMBRIDGE - Artezani Theater’s "The Awannoa Show" (The Conquest of New England, 1620-1676) is billed as a “creation story for an amnesiac nation." It will be presented Dec. 27 at 8 p.m. at The Zeitgeist Gallery, 1353 Cambridge St., in Inman Square, Cambridge.

Awannoa is a 17th-century Algonquin word meaning “who are you?”. The theater group, based in Cambridge and founded by Ian MacKinnon, comprises a varied slate of area performers geared to each production. “For each show,” he explained, “the actors help create the material through individual and group improvisations, and they typically play multiple parts.”

The Zeitgeist show will feature music and dance as well as acting; MacKinnon said that the songs will cover a wide expanse in both theme and origin. “Songs will include America Arcadia, a suggestive vision of the new land's bounty,” he said. “Others will include Mashpee Ghost Dance, a Native-American chant, Comin' to New England, a Vegas-style takeoff on Neil Diamond's Comin' To America, Ya Gotta Let Bessie Boss Ya, a Puritan cowboy song, Instant Revelation, a fervent gospel-blues about Anne Hutchinson, We're the Christian Army, a pep-rally song, The Plunder of It All, a Sinatra-style swing number about Pequot Indians set to the Foxwoods casino theme, Anonymous Roll Call, an invocation of historical characters, and Diggers, a folk-song call for land redistribution.” Clearly, MacKinnon’s breadth is highly witty, topically relevant and eminently eclectic.

MacKinnon directs, co-produces and acts in the productions; his wife, Rebecca Ostriker, also co-producer, directs the music, sings and plays bass guitar and keyboards. Ostriker is the daughter of Distinguished Visiting Professor of Women’s Studies at Brandeis University and renowned poet and Midrashist Alicia Ostriker, a Rutgers University Professor of English whose work includes Feminist Revision and the Bible (Blackwell, 1992) and The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions (Rutgers University Press, 1994). Rebecca Ostriker, a copy editor at the Boston Globe, sees Midrash in this play as well.

"The Awannoa Show takes up a number of religious issues as it looks, with a satirical and questioning eye, at the turmoil of 17th-century New England,” she said. She sees the early Puritans who settled here as being more engaged with the Old Testament than the New; for example, she notes that they looked to its text for their sense of authenticity and justification.

“They linked their own experience to that of the Jews,” she said. “They saw themselves as leaving behind tyranny, entering the wilderness, and seizing the promised land. The play even has a deathbed scene in which a Puritan settler makes his son promise he'll learn Hebrew. In a way, I guess this play is a kind of Midrash on American history.”

Playing multiple roles in the cast are Nick Wynekin, Marcus Nechay and Randy Mosley. MacKinnon, who will also be celebrating his 40th birthday, plays his own host of roles. Accompanying Ostriker as musicians will be David Grant on drums and guitar and David Cutler on guitar; Suze Designs will provide costume assistance.

“It’s a serious comedy that hints at change,” Ostriker continued. “With masks, dance, and music, including a Puritan cowboy song, You Gotta Let Bessie Boss You, and a drag queen playing America, Artezani Theater breaks through the national amnesia about our origins held in place by Disney, Plymouth Plantation, the Salem Witch Museum, and Thanksgiving pageants.”

A party will follow the play, to also mark the theater’s 10th anniversary. “Films shown will be The Greatest Moments of Artezani on Video,” said Ostriker, “along with P.R.O.T.O.N. (People’s Republic Open Temple of News), a pop-music combo mixing journalism, gospel, trance, and politics.”

MacKinnon’s previous productions include Dionysus in Cambridge, MK Ultra!, The CIA Presents the Reunion of Operation Success Hosted by Allen Dulles, Terrible Swift Song, and MacGuff: Dog Tales of the Drug War.

A $10 donation is suggested. For information, call 617-491-8971. The Zeitgeist Gallery is not wheelchair-accessible.