The Buz'Gem Blues

Description

The Buz'Gem Blues is the third play in Drew Hayden Taylor's ongoing zany, outrageous, often farcical examination of both Native and non-Native stereotypes in what is to become what he calls his "Blues Quartet." Marianne has talked her mother, Martha, into attending an Elders conference with her, where she is to be used as a resource person, even though Martha doesn't believe she has anything to offer anyone. Held in a college setting, the keynote paper of the conference is a dissertation on "the courting, love, and sexual habits of contemporary First Nations people as perceived by Western Society," delivered by none other than a "Professor Savage." Just to keep the caricatures in balance, Savage's nemesis throughout the action is a young Native man, replete with dark sunglasses and a Mountie coat, who goes by the name "The Warrior Who Never Sleeps." The Buz'Gem Blues is not a play about cliches with which we have become so familiar that we recognize them as stereotypes instantly, but rather about how our ritualized and institutionalized systems of maintaining and policing those cliches prevent us from recognizing our common humanity within each other.

Drew Hayden Taylor Hailed by the Montreal Gazette as one of Canada's leading Native dramatists, Drew Hayden Taylor writes for the screen as well as the stage and contributes regularly to North American Native periodicals and national newspapers. His plays have garnered many prestigious awards, and his beguiling and perceptive storytelling style has enthralled audiences in Canada, the United States and Germany. One of his most established bodies of work includes what he calls the Blues Quartet, an ongoing, outrageous and often farcical examination of Native and non-Native stereotypes.

"He skewers liberal and native stereotypes, preferring to deal on a more human level."