Mary Kathryn Nagle in Conversation with Nina De Bettin Padolin and Ilka Saal

Mary Kathryn Nagle is an acclaimed playwright, lawyer, and advocate for Indigenous rights. In court and on stage, she focuses on the many challenges Indigenous nations continue to face in asserting their sovereignty and claiming their civic and human rights. A graduate of Tulane University Law School, Nagle specializes in Federal Indian Law and appellate litigation. She has worked on many cases involving tribal jurisdiction, violence against Indigenous women, and environmental protection. She has published widely on these issues, and her briefs have been cited in Supreme Court arguments. In addition, she has become a leading voice in contemporary American theater and one of the country’s most-produced Indigenous playwrights. Her fifteen plays have been performed at prestigious venues across the country, such as the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, as well as the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Nagle is also an alumna of the 2012 Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater, New York, and she has served as Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, a program designed to support and develop the work of Indigenous artists.

A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Nagle draws in her plays on her cultural heritage to create narratives that thematize the ongoing struggle of Indigenous peoples against settler-colonial violence and abuse and for the recognition of the sovereignty of their nations. In plays such as Manahatta (2013), Sliver of a Full Moon (2013), Fairly Traceable (2013), and Sovereignty (2015), she underscores the manifold ways in which contemporary policies regarding, for instance, the (non-)prosecution of domestic abuse and sexual assault against Indigenous women, insufficient access to health care, or the struggle to preserve Native American languages and cultures remain intricately intertwined with a long history of colonial appropriation, predation, and violence. Combining her legal background with her artistic talents, she creates works that not only educate audiences about the colonial history behind contemporary policy concerning Indigenous nations but also inspire social change.

We invited Mary Kathryn Nagle as an artistic keynote speaker to the thirty-first annual conference of the German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English (CDE), which convened from June 8 to June 11, 2023, in the city of Erfurt. Due to the unfortunate accident that she mentions below, she was unable to attend. She generously agreed to talk with us about her work. The following interview was conducted by e-mail in July 2023.

Ilka Saal and Nina De Bettin Padolin: In April 2023, your latest work, On the Far End, premiered to great acclaim under the direction of Margo Bordelon at the Round House Theater in Washington, D. C. Tracing the life of Muscogee activist Jean Hill Chaudhuri, you share an important story in the history of Indigenous activism. You also share a very personal story since Jean Hill Chaudhuri is your mother-in-law. We gathered that you did not have the opportunity to meet her during her lifetime but learned about her from public and private archives as well as stories shared by colleagues, friends, and family. Could you tell us how you first encountered Jean’s story and about the creative process of transforming the family story into a dramatic narrative for a national audience?

Mary Kathryn Nagle: Yes, I of course encountered her story when I married her son and began to hear all kinds of incredible stories about what she did and accomplished during her lifetime. But the most impactful encounter with her life and legacy was when her husband, my father-in-law, passed away. We began the process of going through his house, and I found piles and piles of her writings. Poems she wrote. Letters to family members. Documents from her various grassroots campaigns. I found notes to herself about her triumphs in life as well as her struggles. And suddenly she felt very close and intimate. I knew then that her story was incredibly powerful and needed to be told on stage.

IS/NDP: In the case of this play, you are not only its author but also its performer. You decided to perform the solo piece at the Round House yourself. What prompted you to do so? And how did you experience performing this highly political and at the same time very personal story yourself?

MKN: We were in a tough spot. We lost our actress and we were just ten days away from the first public performance. Unfortunately, our options were to cancel the show or have me do it as a staged reading. So we decided I would do it as a staged reading.

IS/NDP: In addition to being a playwright, you are also a trained lawyer and expert in Federal Indian Law. As a practicing attorney, you have worked on many cases involving tribal jurisdiction, violence against Indigenous women, and environmental protection. When did you begin to write plays on these issues? And what prompted you to pursue this second track of activism on behalf of Indigenous peoples: playwriting?

MKN: I’m not sure when I “began” to write plays on these issues, as I think all of my plays have connections to tribal sovereignty and tribal jurisdiction and the issues I focus on in my legal career. These are the issues I have always written about because I find them to be incredibly important. Most Americans have little to no understanding of who Tribal Nations are or the fact that our sovereignty predates the United States. I have found that theater is a powerful way to educate Americans on who we are today and encourage them to see us as real humans, instead of the horrific stereotypes we have been made out to be.

IS/NDP: The title of your latest play, On the Far End, takes its cue from Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opening line of the majority opinion in the 2020 Supreme Court case McGirt v. Oklahoma: “On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise.”^[1] The decision affirmed Native American jurisdiction (rather than Oklahoma state jurisdiction) over major crime acts committed on reservations. In other plays, such as Sovereignty, you reference other landmark cases and jurisdictions, such as the 1978 Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe decision which established that violence committed against members of an Indigenous nation by nonmembers could not be persecuted by tribal courts. In Sliver of a Full Moon, you reference the 1994 VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act, which recognizes domestic violence and sexual abuse of women as criminal acts. Fairly Traceable refers to the eponymous doc-trine of 1992 that limits climate-change victims and activists from suing companies and institutions because their injuries are not deemed to be “fairly traceable” to polluters. Could you speak to how your legal activism links up with your creative activism?

MKN: Well, probably since I am a lawyer, I think a lot about the law. And the law shapes our lives in powerful ways. Ways that have life-and-death consequences. And most people aren’t given the opportunity to really investigate the law or the decisions the Supreme Court issues because the practice of law is considered to be rather elite here in the United States. So I like to write plays that feature characters who take on the law and challenge it.

IS/NDP: To follow up on the question of creative activism, we wanted to delve slightly deeper into your multi-layered approach. Both legal argumentation and playwriting involve acts of storytelling. We can see that storytelling plays a big role in your work. How do your creative narratives differ from your legal narratives? From a more activist standpoint, what can the arts, and specifically the performing arts, bring to the table that court narratives cannot?

MKN: The most harmful laws and Supreme Court decisions are the result of factual narratives about Native people that simply are not true. We can of course write briefs that challenge those legal narratives. But it’s very hard to change a law that’s built on false narrative and prejudice or stereotypes if you don’t change the larger societal narrative predicated on this false story or narrative. Until we change the invisibility of Natives in the United States today, we will never be able to change the law. And so I find art and storytelling to be imperative to making progress with the law. The two go hand in hand.

IS/NDP: Your work has a strong connection to your nation and frequently takes on ideas and concepts that are rooted in various Indigenous epistemologies and traditions. Could you more broadly tell us about your process of playwriting and the implementation of Indigenous performance traditions in your plays? When you thematize other Indigenous nations, how are your research and writing processes then rooted in these traditions? Moreover, how do you see Indigenous performance traditions connect with Western traditions, and how do they interlink in your work?

MKN: All of my plays are based on oral histories. Although I do a great deal of research and read historical documents such as treaties, original letters, books, etc., I prioritize talking to elders and direct descendants of the people whose stories I’m telling. If the story is contemporary and of today, I prioritize talking to folks in that community of Tribal Nation today to ensure that the portrayal of their stories is as accurate as possible. Indigenous storytelling is thousands of years old, and it is a form of communal storytelling that differs from non-Indigenous storytelling, where the author of a book or story copyrights that story and makes a profit off of it. So in writing my plays, I try to work closely with Tribal Nations and tribal communities and involve them in every aspect of the process.

IS/NDP: Sovereignty and Manahatta examine how attempted colonial genocide and forced removal processes continue to impact contemporary Indigenous lives. On the Far End addresses how contemporary political and legal decisions, which are rooted in historical ones, continue to destabilize Indigenous communities. These plays unflinchingly take stock of the long history of abuse and appropriation, but they also foster hope and imagine Indigenous futures. What audiences do you have in mind when you write your plays? And what is your hope for what these plays might accomplish – for Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous or settler audiences?

MKN: I write my plays for everyone – which is a challenge. In some ways, I write my plays for Native audiences. There are parts of my plays that only Native audiences will understand. Non-Native theaters have challenged me on whether I should continue to include those aspects of my plays, and I have always pushed back. I am comfortable with non-Native audiences not understanding one hundred percent of my plays because I think it is important for Native people to see themselves on stage. At the same time, I have non-Native audiences in mind because I am hoping to change their hearts and minds and deal with the false information they have been given about Native people. That, again, is the only way we will change the laws in the United States that continue to limit the ability of Tribal Nations to self-govern and protect our own people.

IS/NDP: History, in its variously layered and entangled dimensions – colonial, tribal, personal – plays a huge role in your plays. It often has a direct impact on the protagonists’ attitudes towards and choices in life. In some plays, such as in Sovereignty, Fairly Traceable, and Manahatta, you put past and present alongside each other, linking them through the double casting of characters and in the repetition of certain words and events. We would like to hear your thoughts on the relevance of the past in your plays. In which ways does history influence your writing process? How does time work in your plays? And what significance does the past hold in shaping the narratives you create?

MKN: Time is not linear in my plays. My goal is to show that the past is with us, always. It’s ahead of us, and if we don’t learn the lessons of our past, we are doomed to repeat it. I think all too often the goal of American culture is to erase the past. By putting the past front and center and showing how by ignoring it we are allowing it to continue to control our lives today, I am hoping that more Americans will want to familiarize themselves with the past, value it, and critically analyze it. I think some of our largest problems in the United States today could be solved by critically analyzing our past.

IS/NDP: You are a captivating storyteller and your narratives tend to elicit strong emotional responses in your spectators. In On the Far End, there is a touching moment in which the protagonist Jean organizes a community theater performance aimed at addressing the profound impact of the Trail of Tears. The intensity of the experience overwhelms Jean, leading her to withdraw into a state of grief and ultimately seek medical assistance. In an interview with the online program Osiyo, titled “From the Pen to the Stage,” you talk about your writing process of Sovereignty as rooted in your ancestral lineage and deeply connected to your ancestors. In other plays, you also tackle issues of intergenerational and historical trauma both implicitly and explicitly. Could you elaborate on how these forms of trauma manifest themselves in On the Far End as well as in your work more generally?

MKN: I believe we carry our trauma with us. Many Natives today are still dealing with the traumas of the past, and we, as a community, have not been given the opportunity to heal from the wounds of the past – which is why they continue to haunt us today. Storytelling is medicine, and it is a way to heal the wounds of the past. I believe that very strongly. By creating a safe place to explore and talk about our historical traumas, we will finally be able to heal them. That’s very much what Jean sought to do in her play about the Trail of Tears.

IS/NDP: In your plays, you explore the relevance of Indigenous sovereignty for a broad range of aspects of contemporary Indigenous life, such as language revitalization, land rights, preservation of traditions and cultural practices, political representation, ecological sustainability, and intercultural collaboration. Could you share your insights into how theater and drama serve as vehicles to depict the struggles and triumphs of Indigenous communities in reclaiming their sovereignty and in the re-Indigenization that is being done all over Turtle Island today?

MKN: I think most non-Native Americans don’t realize that actual Native Americans still exist today. They think of us as something from the past, exclusively. Or as a false stereotype. Theater is uniquely powerful because it connects people. While television and film are wonderful, the screen creates a significant distance. In theater, people from drastically different communities share an experience of communal storytelling. That can bridge hundreds of years of separation and prejudice. Theater is powerful. That’s why I love it.

IS/NDP: Community features as a central theme in many of your plays. In Sovereignty, Sarah Ridge Polson, an accomplished lawyer, returns home to the reservation to “serve [her] nation.” Her work on behalf of the Cherokee community increasingly collides with the interests of the settler community in which it is embedded – a clash that comes out most poignantly in her relationship with her fiancé Ben, a non-Indigenous person. At the same time, your play points to profound conflict within the Cherokee community and also features a number of Indigenous and non-Indigenous characters that transcend the binary of Native vs. settler community. What does the term community mean to you? What constitutes community in your plays? Where do you see its possibilities as well as its limits?

MKN: Community is an important term. My community is my Tribal Nation – but Tribal Nation is a political term. Our Tribal Nations predate the United States, and they are sovereigns that exercise sovereignty over people and a geographic territory. As well as culture. But community transcends political lines. Community is more inclusive. Being a part of the larger Native community, both in the theater and in the practice of law, has given me significant support to face some of the biggest challenges in my life. I have tried to portray these communities in my plays. I think the biggest challenge we face in relation to that at the moment is that there is currently disagreement among Native theater artists as to who belongs in that community and who doesn’t. There are a lot of people who claim to be Native who are not Native. Some of these people claim to be Native because they think it will bring them financial gain or special attention. Some claim it because claiming a Native identity absolves their settler guilt. Whatever the reason, false claims of Native identity harm actual, legitimate Native people. And the Native community has responded to these false claims of Native identity in a protective manner. Many actual Native people want to protect Native identity from frauds. And this has resulted in a lot of Natives drawing lines on who can claim to be Native and who cannot claim to be Native that our ancestors for hundreds of years may not have drawn.^[2] There is some disagreement in the community about where exactly the line should be drawn, and it’s an issue we will have to continue to work through.

IS/NDP: On the Far End refers to ancestral burial practices of the Muscogee Nation and addresses the joining of the umbilical cord to the body at the end of life. Additionally, land ownership and the extant legal and political challenges to Indigenous Peoples’ sovereignty over their ancestral lands are also major themes. There is one instance where Jean tells the audience about her challenging battle against the Collier Group who pursued a complex land-swap deal involving the Phoenix Indian School property. They had the resources to influence Congress through lobbying but still, Jean manages to win this prominent case and ensures that the land stays under the control of the Native community. Many of your other plays also center on the struggle against environmental violence and the severe impact it has specifically on Indigenous women, Two Spirit people,^[3] and Indigenous youth. How do you see environmental degradation or exploitation, legal action, and Indigenous and allied activism intertwined? And more concretely, with regard to your artistic practice, what are the challenges of narrating the impact of these massive entangled forces on the individual for the stage?

MKN: Native people face a lot of environmental challenges because our lands contain a lot of resources that, to a lot of corporations, are seen as highly profitable. And so, in order to obtain those resources, our people and our Nations, and our sacred sights are targeted. It’s a never-ending challenge. A lot of the attempts to take our resources from us create significant environmental harm. And the environmental laws that currently exist aren’t sufficient to protect us – or at least, the federal government and courts don’t enforce them. Bringing these stories to the stage is important because the corporations that perpetrate these acts of violence against us don’t want people to know about them. By shedding light on them and sharing the stories, it becomes harder for corporations to continue to perpetrate these wrongs against us. Sharing these stories is very important!

IS/NDP: Are you currently working on any new projects and, if so, could you tell us about them?

MKN: I currently have a commission with Kansas City Rep that I’m working on. Kansas City Rep has requested a Kansas City specific story, and I’m interested in investigating how the Oregon Trail’s origins in Kansas City have impacted Tribal Nations. I’m a bit behind since I was hit in a very bad car accident and lost about three months of work due to a serious concussion and other injuries. But I am getting back into the swing of things and hope to start writing soon!

IS/NDP: We wish you a speedy recovery and much success with the new project! We are very much looking forward to reading and seeing more of your plays soon. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and time with us! We very much appreciate it. All the best to you!

MKN: Thank you!