Urban life has long drawn young people out of rural Alaska. Now art is imitating Alaska life in a first-time Juneau playwright’s new play “They Don’t Talk Back.” The debut work has caught the eye of a well-known Native American theater company, and drawn the homegrown playwright to Los Angeles.
Frank Katasse says his writings often explore the sometimes confusing differences between his Tlingit heritage and contemporary society. When inspiration hits he will compose a monologue, a soliloquy or a poem; this is his first full-length play and is composed of several years of these writings that ride on a central theme.
Not expecting much, Katasse submitted his play to a leading Native American theater company Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles. The theater chose Katasse’s play amid numerous submissions as one of three major works to present at this year’s 17th Annual Festival of New Plays.
“He’s an amazing first-time playwright,” says Native Voices Producing Executive Director Jean Bruce Scott. “The fact that this is his first full-length play is telling in terms of his natural talent.”
Scott says the play is unique: “He’s using what we’re currently calling interludes that bracket the individual scenes that are happening in the play. And the interludes, each one of them is different. One may be Tlingit drumming and singing. One may be a poem. He’s using spoken word.”
He’s also using what Scott calls a beatbox-like rhythmic language.
“And then he’s telling a very important story in Indian country, and that is the connection between culture and history, and the present day, and how do Native people hang onto their children.”
Katasse will be in Los Angeles through the end of May for the Playwrights’ Retreat. A full company of nationally recognized directors, dramaturges, producers, designers and Native American actors will read and critique “They Don’t Talk Back.”
Katasse is excited, but says playwriting is different from his usual role as an actor.
“It hasn’t even started yet and I’m nervous, which is very odd,” Katasse says. “I don’t get nervous very often going on stage. But already I’m feeling like it’s something that is out of my control and I just have to trust the ensemble which other playwrights have obviously done with me.”
It’s ironic that Katasse is leaving Juneau himself, but that irony is not lost on him. He plans to bring back all that he learns and share it with aspiring playwrights in Juneau.
