The play, set on an eastern Montana reservation, is the story of the Robe family. They are, in the derogatory words of some of the others in their community, "breeds." The family is considered "too black to be native" and must wrestle with prejudice on the reservation. Their grandfather was a Buffalo Soldier -- a term that, according to the Trinity Rep Education Department in Providence, "was given to black soldiers conscripted by the U.S. Army after the Civil War to fight Natives in the west."
Slaves and black soldiers, who could not read or write, had no idea of the frequent genocidal intent of the U.S. government toward Native Americans. Even free blacks generally did not have access to unbiased information on the relationship between the U.S. government and Native Americans. With few general employment opportunities open to blacks at this time, many African-Americans decided that being part of the military service was a wise alternative to frequent civilian unemployment. The buffalo soldiers were thus puppets of the United States' policy of manifest destiny.
Acclaimed playwright William S. Yellow Robe Jr. is a member of the Assiniboine Nation, located on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana, and is part Native-American and part African-American. With his new play, Robe, a guest faculty member at Brown University, challenges the idea of our "melting pot" nation, asking many difficult questions such as, "If a person's blood can be quantified into a representational numerical fraction, can a person's identity, humanity and spirit be as easily measured?"
While dealing with racial prejudices between two proud and historically oppressed groups, the play transcends these groups and extends a message to all humanity. It is somewhat ironic that these two groups, who were wronged by European Americans from the beginning of American history, turn against each other. The European Americans function as an invisible hand, dividing Native Americans and blacks in the name of white supremacy.
The questions of racism -- a mess, the play acknowledges, that cannot easily be cleaned up -- serve as a backdrop for the deeper issues of family and sibling conflict. Even though racism provides the major source of friction in the play, the fire that ultimately erupts in "Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers" is a result of inter-family tension -- a topic that everyone, regardless of race, can relate to.
Yellow Robe's investigation of many long-standing issues, such as the relation between African Americans and Native Americans, in many ways have never really been addressed before. In fact, Yellow Robe commented that, after seeing the play, "African Americans who knew they had some Native blood in them were interested in seeking out more information [on their family history]."
Director Lou Bellamy keeps the focus on the very real human drama by keeping the staging fairly simple. The drama, however, does not focus on any one theme.
The play has generally been received very favorably thus far. As Yellow Robe mentioned in an interview, "one of the people at Trinity Rep volunteers at the Salvation Army in South Providence and had a family come up to him crying because they liked the play so much."
In a review of the play for backstage.com, however, Bill Gale comments on problems with the script and direction.
"[The play's] attempt to find a dramatic center shifts from the acceptance-of-the-other problem to sibling rivalry to white and Native American relations to generational change. We yearn for focus, but Bellamy's direction allows the cast, led by James Craven's uneven Craig, to flail about, too quick to anger, too late for modulation."
On the other hand, Yellow Robe himself was very impressed with Bellamy's adaptation of the play. "Lou has been a phenomenal director," he said. "He does not have the dogma or arrogance of professional director. Instead, he rolled up his sleeves and went to the heart of the issues in the play." Yellow Robe also mentioned that the cast has been wonderful to work with.
The staging of "Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers" will take place tonight at Spaulding Auditorium in the Hopkins Center at 7:00 p.m. There will be a post-performance discussion with playwright William Yellow Robe Jr. and cast members in Spaulding Auditorium.
The cast and crew are moving on to Burlington and then to the National Museum of American Indian in Washington, D.C., for future performances.
