|
LA SALLE, THE KAWANKAWANS
AND WHAT WAS IN JIM O’NEIL’S GREAT GRANDFATHER’S
TRUNK
A CIVIC
PERFORMANCE
Drafted by a Frequent Visitor
to IndianOla Texas
for All Calhoumans
(Agnes, called "Achade," by her husband, [i]graduated
from Calhoun County Consolidated High School in 1949. She married Techo Kaal, a young officer
she met at a USO dance in Bay City.
Their first posting was in Frankfurt, Germany.)
Act 1, Scene 1
(in what has been converted into
the Countess Von Arnim’s drawing room in the Von Arnim country ome where American officers whose wives have been allowed to
accompany them are billeted. The
set is minimal. Two folding or
other modest standard chairs, a table with tablecloth and china teaset )
Achade: (drops her tea cup) Oh, and it was Dresden.
Countess: Just a teacup. Not a city.
Achade: How can I ever make it up to you?. My
grandmother treasured her grandmother’s
china from Dresden more
than (pause) me, and I was her favorite. She was born there, my great
great grandmother.
.
Countess: What was her name?
Achade: Oh, I don’t know. We’ve been in Texas 100 years,
Countess: That’s not so very long my dear.. (her eyes brighten) Texas. They were in Texas in
1847? Here. I want to show you
something.
(she rises and disappears in
dark space and returns with a box that looks like it contains precious
papers. She puts it on table and
extracts several documents, one of which is a pre 1846 German map of Texas)
Countess: These were received during the last 10
to 12 years of my great great grandmother
life from a young woman she saved from committing suicide(pause) as her best friend had at
a similar age for a similar reason..
Achade: She was pregnant
Countess: I assumed that too. But that was not all. My great
great great grandmother,
helped her go away, to Texas,
on condition that she write down
stories she heard and send them
back.
Achade: Like the Grimm’s Fairy Tales?
Countess: You read them, in English?
Achade: (nods
of course)
Countess: So are these. My grandmother said I
could learn English by translating them. She gave me a mark for every one
I finished.
Achade: I would love to read them.
Countess: I give you my translations (pause) on one
condition.
Achade: Anything
Countess: Find my great great grandmother’s letters
from Berlin to her Karoline Gunderode
inTexas. .
Achade: I will do it. I promise.
It will hardly make
up for breaking your Dresden cup,
but …
Countess: Oh, my child, if you should, it would be
worth more to me than a whole set
of Dresden, considerably more, and
to you too, for we …(voice trails off,
lights dim to dark)
Act 1 Scene 2
(Achade spent her life as an air force wife
traveling to exotic places. When
Col. Ka Al retired he became a
vice president of a major corporation dependent on contracts with the air
force. The couple traveled to more
exotic places. Left a wealthy widow at 71, she spent the
next ten years cruising to places she no longer found exotic, where the dollar
did not go so far as it had and going for taxis and expensive hotels was a
depressing reminder she was too old and fat to do otherwise.
At 81 she came back to Port
LaVaca to attend her 60th High School reunion, liquidate Main Street
properties she had inherited and left vacant, and fulfill an overdue promise.),
.
This scene opens with E.O.Fhist
(EveryOne’s Favorite High School Teacher) sitting with his cousin, Mrs Imnora
Cistbut, a member of the
school board.
(set minimal)
Imnora: So,
who’s this 81 year old lady you think might leave a fortune to the school
district?
E.O.: Achade Ka Al. She goes to my church,
Imnora: You
Episcopalians attract all the oddballs.
Ka -Al? She some kind of
Arab?
(accent on both a,long a)
E. O.: She says Achade Ka Al means “woman loves
to talk” in Kawankawan,
Imnora: You mean KaRankawan.
E. O.: She says there’s no R in the Karankawan language so it
must be KawanKawan which means “Make Do”
Imnora: How would she know a thing like that?
E. O.: Exactly my reaction, which
she could see.
Gave me a look and said, , “Google
it, son.”
Imnora: Did you?
E.O.: Yeah.
(with a share my exasperation tone), downloaded
a linguistic file from the Peabody
Museum
at Harvard. You want
to see it?
Imnora: No R in
KawanKawan. So they really did
come from Asia. (anticipating judgment,
quickly adds) That’s not a racist quip. It’s the prevailing, tho challenged,
anthropological view.
E.O.: (aside to audience) And AaRaab’s the prevailing
pronunciation of Arab. (Changing subject) I think
it’s a lot of
money. But she has a condition.
Imnora:
What?
E.O.: She
wants to talk to the children, actually
she wants to talk to teenagers.
Imnora:
Fine. They can make her a
class room
helper
E.O.: She’s
not a helper sort of person.
Imnora: She’s bossy?
E.O.:
Well, um hm.
Imnora::
Hmmm. Hall monitor. I liked being that.
E.O.:
Umuh. She’d take a stand
against restricting
free speech.
Imnora:
Then, how ‘bout “She to whom excessive
exercisers of free speech are
sent for Time Out to have to learn
to listen respectfully to old lady
who likes to tell tales so she’ll leave
her fortune to Calhoun County Independent
School District?”
E.O: perfect. We’ll tell her she’s the director
of Time Out for Tall Tales in
Calhoun. By the way, she says the Kawankawan
underground let them
name
it Calhoun in 1846
because it
sounded like Cahum, which means
home.
Imnora: Karankawan
underground? Come on.
E.O. Mrs.
Achade Ka Al says that’s everybody
who
(E.O, softshoes
sign song and dance:;
as everywhere in this script where “sign”
is indicated, exaggerate with whole body
signs adapted from American Sign Language
book unless player and choreographer
come up with a better mime.
Look for Charades to become an Olympic
sport)
Kwas
Kawan Kawan,
Mushata Cahum.
Everyone who “Kwas,
KNOW ; Kawan MAKE
,
Kawan,also means DO
is(rising voice like He…re comes Johnny)
Mushata,
ALWAYS at home
CAHUM”.
(short, rhymes with boom)
And (quick)
she’s
come home to Cahum
to make do
because
if you’re from Calhoun,
that
is to say from Cahum
you
kwas Kawan Kawan.
No
matter what comes, you’ll make do.
(work on and correct for good timing and
meter)
Act 1 Scene3
(From the rear of the
theater, trumpets blast, bass
cymbols gong. A booming voice
announcesJ
Voice: Let the play begin
Achade comes from rear of the theater down one
aisle dressed as a old lady who dresses up like her idea of a Kawankawan with a
bunch young people dressed according to their research and interpretations of
Kawankawan attire (lots of tattoos)
Down the other aisle come
people of all ages and sizes who have researched an immigrant group they’re
descended from or choose to
adopt, costumed according to their
research findings. Make an effort
to have every ethnic group in CCISD and every continent represented.
Encourage all manner of show
off improvisations, do your thing dancing, and variations on the chant. The more diverse musical instruments
the better; played to
accompany their language’s turn to
chant. At a later point in
the play, they all play together
the same song. Sandcrabs’ Fight
Song.
As they come down the aisle,
the KawanKawans chant one line and the others respond first in French, then
Spanish, then English, then German, Czech, Swedish, Vietnamese, Chinese,
Thai, (not necessarily in order of
first from that nationality to settle in Calhoun County. Research competition might be fun if
most recent are made to feel as well honored as earliest.
Maybe the Kawankawan lines should be chanted between each
translation. Maybe not. Experiment. The chanting should go just long enough to get all
participants down the aisles and settled into their places for the rest of the
performance. A few settle around Achade who sits in a comfortable chair in a
front lit corner of the stage.
Those who will act out the tales disappear into darkened stage. Others sit in front rows.
Chant:
Kawans: Baha
techoyou, Baha kaninma, Baha colohs,Baha
kaada
French: Bon hommes, Bonne meres, bon fils, bonne
filles.
Kawans: Baha techoyou, Baha kaninma, Baha Colohs, Baha kaada
Spanish: Buenos hombres, Buenas madres, Buenos
niños, Buenas niñas
Kawans: Baha techoyou, Baha kaninma, Baha Colohs,
Baha kaada
English: Good men, Good mothers, Good boys, Good
girls
Kawans: Baha
techoyou, Baha kaninma, Baha colohs,Baha
kaada
German: ________ ___________ _________ _______
Kawans: Baha
techoyou, Baha kaninma, Baha colohs,Baha
kaada
__________: _______ _______
_______ ________
Etc. through all who have
made Calhoun Cahum (home).
Participants will contribute rest of proper translations. I can only translate the rest of the
processional chant here in English
Kawans: Techo kannimna, techoyou, techo ka- ada,
techo colohs
English: Brave mothers, Brave men, brave girls, brave
boys
Kawans: Ga-as nja.
Kawan ba-ak nja.
English: Come here. Make camp nja.
Kawans: Haitn a akanama
English: Catch and eat
Kawans: Da, Am, Kesesmajlj, yaupon
English: oysters, fish, chili
pequin, tea
As the chant ends, and all
are settled down,
students direct
improvised slightly rude inquiries
about Aunt Ka aal’s true origins and speech such as “where are you really
from? What do you speak? Can you
speak in tongues? Can you
speak African? Can you speak
Asian? Some may come from the front rows.
“Who is that old lady?” Why
does she talk funny?
Improvised lines come from
exercise In rehearsal, or class, in which students are asked to write down
things they’ve been called that hurt, or that they’re afraid of being called by
friends of different ethnic group.
In response to these polite
taunts, Aunt Ka aal comes to center stage and does a sort of I’m-in-a-trance
dance and chants to a drummed
rhythm.
Achade I
am not a Rosetta stone
I am not a Na-armer
stele
I am a woman whose
mother
spoke
French that she
learned
from her mother
who
loved a Talon.
I am a woman who
lived
with
a man who spoke German
whose
mother was named De Leon.
This is opportunity for
another exercise: See how many ethnicities and languages you can connect
yourself to and compose your own verse to follow Achade’s.
Mine would be:
I am a woman whose
mother
spoke English she
learned
from her father
named H. Powhatan.
I am a woman whose
cousin
speaks Spanish and
son is to
marry a girl from
Japan
Improvised compositions that
are contributed can be performed
following Achade’s singing her song again at the end of the play as encores
with audience clapping the rhythm.
As she finishes her dance, one
of the players on stage is lit and comes to escort her back to her chair on the
side stage.
Another stage player is lit.
(light on questioner from
another part of stage)
Question: What does she want to talk about? (light off)
Achade: (Light
on Achade seated. She gestures as whispering
to her escort)
Ka-Aal oudn..
(Light moves to escort who
repeats answers for her)
Answer: (whispering)
Ka-aal
oudn
(light on second
answerer. May be same answerer as
before, same as questioner, or from yet another part of stage
Answer: (signing and singing) Ka-aal oudn
Ka,
I love, Ka, we love.
Aal
oudn, to talk about shootin’
Ka, I love, Ka, we love.
Aal
oudn, to talk about shootin’
Ka-aal oudn.
Question: What’s that? What are you
talking about?
(light off)
Achade: (Light
on Achade seated. She gestures
as whispering)
Ka-aal
am.
(light on third
answerer. May be same answerer as
before, same as questioner, or from yet another part of stage
Answer: (signing and singing)
Ka-aal
am (We love to talk about fishing) Ka, I love, Ka, we love. Aal am,
to talk about fishing. Ka, I love,
Ka,
we love, Aal am, to talk about fishing
Question: Lady,
Do you know where you are. Can
you tell me where you live?
Achade: Cahum.
Answerer: Cahum means Calhoun
is her home.
Cahum!
Achade: Cahum means Calhoun is my home.
(gestures for audience to join in on “Cahum” (while a drum picks up rhythm.)
Cahum!!
Cahum
means Calhoun is your home.(two drums) Cahum!!
Cahum
means Calhoun is our home. (many
drums and gong) CAHUM!!!.
All break out into Sand Crab
Fight Song unless there is another more beloved song particular
to every Calhoun High School
graduate
E. O.
(entering from rear of theater.
Calling Achade and making inquiries of audience as approaches stage)
Achade! Achade!
Have
you seen an elderly lady, behaving
peculiarly? Have you seen an
old lady, dressed up a little weirdly?
Achade! (continues
calling until almost at
stage steps)_
There
you are. (makes irritated shoo- ing
gesture at youth who scoot into the dark
stage and sit immobile)
Achade. You’re making a fool of yourself
and you’re embarrassing me. It was not easy to get the school
district to concoct this Story
Time Out gig for you at the High
School. And I don’t care how much
money you have, people are not going
to tolerate these idiocies. What
did you really come back
here for. Why is Imnora Cistbut
getting calls saying you’re unstable
and shouldn’t be allowed to influence
adolescents.
Achade: That’s
Jim O’Neil. He ’s trying to stop
me from going through and getting
rid of my property in my building
that’s Uncle Abner left me.
E. O. Been vacant so long. I guess it was a pawn
shop. Jim showed up with a Xerox
of an old receipt. Here. It says: Trunk labeled shipped to Sheriff
Roemer from New Orleans following
the death of his father 19__” received in exchange for $5.00
on condition that it not be opened.
Achade: That’s ridiculous, Jim O’Neil made that
up.
E. O. He has a sense of humor, But he
seemed really
het up. He loves oysters. How
bout we invite him for oysters and
you promise to call him if you come
across the trunk.
Achade: Ah, oysters. Da, Ka Da.
E.O:
And dankeshan to you, Achade.
I didn’t
realize you spoke German.
Achade: It’s not German, but now that you mention
it. Have you ever heard of Karoline
Gunderode?...
Fade out.
Act 2 Scene 1
(a few students sitting on
Achade’s side stage)
Student: My grandmother says she’s crazy. She
knew her back when She was crazy
then and now’s around the bend.
Student: Maybe it’s altzheimers.
Student: Even Mr. Fhist says the Karankawans ‘ ve
been extinct since the Texas Revolution
and no body can speak Karankawan
today.
Achade: (starts
talking in the dark space)
I
hear you Time Out for Tall Tale heretics. Clap your hands if you believe Tinker Bell Kawan Kawan.
(Light shifts to hit her as she says Tinker Bell Kawan
Kawan She settles into her chair
and extracts a letter from a large bag.
We’ll have to think up what it looks like)
Achade: Attention please. I have the honor of reading
and you the privilege of hearing
today this letter addressed to
Countess Betina Brentano Von Arnim,
Berlin, 1852. But in exchange for
being the first Americans in 150 years
to hear it, you must promise to
do something for me.
Students: look
skeptical and eager. At each other.
In chorus OK
Achade: write down this name. (She
spells out) Karoline
Gunderode. Ask your parents
and grandparents if they have
ever heard it. She is the author
of the letter.
Students: (chorus)
OK
Achade: (reads)
Esteemed and Generous Countess,
Everyone in the
colony has heard your letter.
I read it in the ___________Lutheran churches in
____________ and ______________and the Association of Free
Thinkers. Dr. Lindheimer was
particularly grateful for your report about the French Swiss Botanist Jean
Louis Berlandier. He and Dr.
Roemer arranged for me to accompany them to visit Dr. Berlandier and his
colleague Rafael Chowell, the Mexican geologist with whom he surveyed Texas for
the Mexican government in 1828. I
send with this letter, many papers Dr. Lindheimer and Roemer persuaded
Dr. Berlandier and Chowell to transmit to you, the one European who sees the
genius of God in each and the
fruits of its cultivation shared by all. Roused from the lethargy of
abandonment by the great men who sent him, Dr. Berlandier promised Dr. Lindheimer he and Sr.
Chowell will compile their notes into a report they are now optimistic will be
accepted as a contribution to the sciences of botony and geology. The papers designated for your attention
are of a literary, historic, and anthropological nature.
Achade (looks up and comments.) We’ll do a
play about
Berlandier next time.
(continues reading)
One is the list of KawanKawan words they recorded while
surveying Texas for Mexico..
In French naval archieves is an earlier list for comparison,
recorded more than 100 years ago by the
Talon brothers who accompanied La Salle.
Most interesting to you will be the letter also more than 100 years old .found in Pueblo. Called a relic de Sor Catarina de San
Juan, who could not read, it is believed to have been written by another nun of
the time under inquisition by the Bishop of Pueblo,
who intercepted the lletter
written by Sor Juana to assist
the sister of the Talons
Student: Who are these Talons?
Achade: Listen to the letter. (she continues)
The Talon children were abandoned by La Salle, adopted by the
KawanKawans, rescued by Spanish soldiers, and taken to Mexico, where the
sister Marie Madeleine was made a
hand maid to the Vice roy’s wife who took her to visit the Mexican nun called
Sor Juana, who then had the
biggest library in the new world and barely escaped the inquisition along with
Sister Katarina. According to Octavio Paz, he won
a nobel prize, Katarina, called La
China Poblana was originally Hindu and Sor Juana’s grandfather a Jew, maybe
Muslim who fled Spain.
.Students: Wow. You’re making that up, Ms. Kaal.
Achade: Google Sor Juana my dear. And google
La China Poblana. I’ll make copies
of Sor Juana’s letter for you. Ah,
But you can’t read (pointedly)Spanish.
Student: Of course we can. Go on with letter to
the Countess. Is it in German?
(pointedly)
Achade: Well no. (embarrassed, then defensively) I mean, it was originally. But, I can’t read German. Somebody translated it for me.
Student: Wonder what they added?
Student(African
Am): Or subtracted
Student(Tejano): Multiplied
Student(Tejano): Or divided (pointedly)
Achade (pshws continues reading) Karoline continues: Sor Juana wrote her friend
Maria Luisa asking her to ask the
Queen of Spain, who was German
to deliver the Karankawan genesis
that Marie Madeleine reproduced
(looks up)
It’s in hieroglyphics. I’ll
show you that
later.
to
a German Jesuit named Athanasius
Kircher.
And
Sor Juana included a play, or part
of a play Maria Luisa had asked her
to write about the Talons. She wrote:
“the courts in Madrid and Vienna
will enjoy the play at the expense
of the French king, as the Viceroy’s
did here in Mexico, but take care it does not get into the packet
reintroducing Marie Madeleine.
to her Aunt Francoise, whom
I pray may be the French king’s
morganatic wife.
Student: the French queen was a moron?
Achade: Morganatic meant it was Christian but don’t
ask don’t tell. She signed a pre-nup.
She wasn’t royal, but loyal - -
to the dead queen, the sister of the
king of spain whom some said was
moronic
That’s
enough of the letter. Blah, Blah,
Blah, signed your Karoline Gunderode
of Texas,
Suffice
it to say, The first act
of the play about the
Talons written for royal audiences in Madrid and Vienna
was performed in the Indianola
Opera House 150 years later,
which was 150 years back from
now. So 300 years before us.
Student: We should stage a new version.
Student: Why would. the Talons give up Paris for
Indianola Texas
Achade: Paris wasn’t quite the same 300 years ago.
Student: Indianola was?
Act 2 Scene 2
Student: Our play begins with Marie Madeleine writing
a letter, she reads as she writes:
Cher Tante Franciose,
La Vice Reina et Sor Juana say I must practice writing French to
you. I am also learning to speak
Spanish to them.
This is a funny play I wrote with Sor Juana about how it came to
pass that we French Talons are now here in Mexico. They say it is not to be seen in France, but I wanted
to tell you. Maman would be proud
I wrote a play, like Oncle Paul, may he rest in peace.
Student: (bearing
a sign that says Parlement de
Paris, January 15, 1648 prelude to le Fronde) Our play
within the play. You know like the
Englishman of that time. This player
will recite the address of Omer
Talon, who happened to be the Advocat
General at the time. You’ll not
find much on line about him. It documents
the actual social conditions,
which of course, we have no
way of knowing. It’s in French, as
it
was in his memoires, published two hundred
years later. But we couldn’t find
it in French. Mr.
Fhist had to translate
what Will and Ariel Durant translated
from French to English, back
to French. So we could give you
the authentic flavor of the time
Advocat general
Omer Talon: (translate back to French. I have only the last part in French
For ten years France has been reduced to ruin. The peasantry must sleep upon straw,
for their effects have been sold to pay taes. To enable certain people to live in luxury in Paris,
countless innocent persons must survive on the meanest bread…owning nothing but
their souls –and that merely because nobody has devised a means to put them up
for sale.
La bienvillance des peoples se diminuendo lorsque les hommes
sont persuades que l’ordre du gouvernement public attire sur eux les miseres
qu’ils ressentent.
(fn: English from The Age of Louis XIV Will
and Ariel Durant p 6. French fromOmer Talon Memoires 4 vols. Vol 2 pp114-121, published 1827-28.
Student reading or just program note describing scene
In
1635 Francoise d’Aubigne’s father,
a Huguenot, was imprisoned by
Cardinal Richelieu. She was
born I n
the prison (omit as much text as possible
if players mime)
Set: some bars
man and
pregnant woman thrown behind
dark
baby cries.
light
Man and no
longer pregnant woman and baby
Dark
Student reads or program note.
Released
from prison, they emigrate
to Martinique, French colony
in Carribean.
4 players with wide black
ribbon, fleur de lis banner,
bamboo collapsible cross and white cheesecloth for sail. Fan blow. Gesture for audience to help blow. Charles Trenet sings LaMer in background
Dark
light
Student: Life is difficult.
Man and woman
and little girl and new baby
Mime all cutting sugar cane. Sweating.
Father splits. (boat
as before. Fans sail. Charles
Trenet sings LaMer)
Dark
Student: As previously noted. Life was difficult
Light
Read or scene description:
Mother
gets children back to France before
she dies.
Boat mime again. Charles
Trenet again. Mom and big girl and little girl
Mom dies
Dark
Sign 1647 Paris. convent
Franoise
and her little sister are put in
a catholic convent.
Francoise
leaves.
Dark
Reader 1651
a respected writer who had become
very crippled.. asks Francoise
to marry him to carry him.
wedding music, Franciose
carries crippled Paul, if
possible. Otherwise pulls on cart.
dark
When
he dies,
Dark
Francoise
becomes the nanny to the children
of Mde Montespon, who is the
king’s mistress.
dark
baby cries
1669 Mde Montespon with baby. Can’t
dance with king and nurse baby.
Francoise enters, takes baby.
Reader:Francoise
gets Isabel a job as the Lully’s
parlor maid. Jean Baptiste Lully
was the King’s musician. They, Lully
and Loius, invented the ballet)
.
Scene 3: Home
of M. and Mde Lully (
Isabelle is dusting in the
parlor of Madame Lully.
Trumpets are heard outside.
Trumpeteers enter on both aisles
They are performing Marie Madeliene Talon’s play for the Vicereina’s
birthday.
Trumpeteer: Fanfare
by Lully, if there is one,
otherwise just a great de de de dum.
Mde Lully: Oh mon dieu, c’est le roi!
Isabelle: El Rey?
Mde Lully: Oui, the king
Isabelle: We the king?
Mde L: Oui, oui. oui, oui
Isabelle: Aqui?
(aside)This king wee wees where’r he please.
Trumpeteers: de de de dum
Enter M. Lully
M.L: Qui est?
Mde L: Quien es? Who do you think?
M.L: C’est le roi?
Mde L: Si el
rey. oui oui.
Isabelle: See the king wee wee? Oh gee,
M. Lully throws open the
door, and bows low. M. Lully
curtsies low, and shoves Isabelle down in a bowlike flop.
M. Lully: Your majesty!
King: First, I wee wee
Isabelle slides out in bow
position, returns with chamber pot.
King Louis turns his back to
the audience and the musicians play tinkling music.
K: Merci. Lully.
(then rhymically as a limerick)
Some
ministuers now call
for sewers
throughout Pari. But Lully
Who built the Gobliens factory?
Lully L’etat
..
King: ..c’est
moi, Louis.
King: Et
pour qui, Madame Lully?
Mde L: for the
wor-kers of Pari.
King: no need to shop in Brussels now
Lully: to buy royal tapestry
King
(work on this. Need singy
songy about freedom from Italian importers of dishes from china
L’etat,
(c’est moi aside) shall pay French
francs to Frenchmen
Mde Lully: and women
King: to make beautiful and porcelain ware, weavesilk and satin,
inlay cabinetry, ,
Mde Lully: cosmetics and lingerie.
Lully: we’ll set the taste. And sell good Frenchmen
back their wares to back their
wars.
Isabel: how so
Colbert: factory efficiency: they labor longer for
their necessities than there is l abor
in their necessities.
Lully: Perchance a necessity is colonists to bring
the raw materiel
Colbert: and make a market, when in France there’s
saity.
King: For French there’s never saity . du’ Luxury pour Factory
a’Eternity
Isabel: I thought it was liberte fraternity equalite
Mde Lully: That’s later
.
King: Oui, mon French artisans, their work is
exquisite,
but
King: their
hygiene stinks. They do it in the streets.
Isabel: :not like our king, who drops in here
to do
his in a pot --it’s left to me to empty
in the street.
King: And that is why: Sigh. I must build Versailles.
L: But what of the music and the ballet?
King: The arts cannot survive
the
stench of poverty in Paris.
Mde L: That’s why he builds Versailles.
Lully: In
the air there, the arts will thrive.
King: So have you my new ballet?
Lully: Yes Sire, I finished it today.
K: Let us rehearse.
Lully gives the music to the
musicians. Lully takes the hand of
Mde Lully. The king stands behind
him to learn the steps. Looks
amiss that he has no partner.
Mde Lully motions for
Isabelle to take the king’s hand.
They
do a little French quadrille, during which the king pinches Isabelle on the
bottom and Isabelle kicks the King in the balls. The king bellows in pain.
King: Off with her head
Isabelle runs away quickly.
Act 2 Scene
4: Mde
Lully and Francoise secrete Isabelle to a ship bound for New Spain under the
Intendente Talon.
Francoise: Give Intendente Talon this paper, my father copied of the speech
Omar Talon that launched the Fronde.
Isabel: What’s the Fronde? (Aside
to audience) not much
from on line on the Fronde.
Lawyers shot slingshots at the King)
Mde Lully: But the king hates the Fronde
Francoise: Scarron says that’s why anyone(pronouce “one” to rhyme with Fronde, Scarron and
Talon) named Talon gets shipped to New
France. They can’t
keep them all in prison(rhyme with
Fronde). They find a way to ship away
le revolutionie
Isabel: but you need to keep it.
Francoise: Better that I not.
(Isabel gets in the boat made
of 2 players with a black ribbon, bamboo cross, muslin sail, and her fan. She urges audience to help her
fan. Charles Trenet La Mer again )
Isabel: This is déjà vu. That’s a French word I knew.
(Francoise and Mde Lully exit through audience passing out words
to the song. Members of cast left
on stage who can play any musical instrument at all try to accompany.)
Francoise: La
mer est plus difficile qu'il n'y paraît
Act II Scene 5
(Isabelle meets Lucien Talon,
a carpenter in Canada, nee New France)
Lucien: je suis Lucien Talon
I: Ah, Je suis une fille de roi. That’s what they called us. Daughters of the King. Wasn’t that a nice way to put it. Ah, le Intendente. I thought it was
Jean Baptiste. The extraordinary
leader of New France.
Lucien: No, not that Talon. I’m just an ordinary man.
I: So you must be the grandson of Omer Talon,
the advocate general whose s peech
launched the Fronde.
Lucien: No, him, neither. I’m just an ordinary
man.
(Isabel and Lucien sing: “I’m just an ordinary man.”We need a musician)
Lucien: I’m just an ordinary man
Isabel: He’s just an ordinary man.
Lucien: Yes,
an ordinary man.
Isabel: And
an ordinary woman I am
I & L:
It’s love that makes what’s ex-traordinary
That two can do who meet and marry
Dark
(Lucien builds a fire. Isabel. stirs a soup. La Salle comes by, warms hands at
fire. Sip soup. Lucien and Isabel bow)
I & L: Bonjour Siuer LaSalle.
LaSalle: (ignores.
Goes on)
Dark
Lucien building a fire and a
house. Isabel stirring a soup and
sewing a shirt and nursing a baby.
La Salle with an Indian comes by, warms hands, gets out of rain, sips
soup, puts on shirt, pats baby.
I & L: Bonjour Siuer LaSalle.
LaSalle:
(ignores. Goes on)
Dark
Lucien building a fire and a
house and canoes. Isabel. stirring
a soup, sewing a shirt, sowing a garden, nursing a baby with one in lap.
LaSalle arrives comes by with 2 Indians, warms hands, goes
into house, sips soup, puts on shirt, picks a tomato, pats baby 1, pats baby 2.
I & L: Bonjour Siuer LaSalle.
LaSalle: (ignores.
Goes on)
Dark
L: etc, etc, and a water wheel, I etc, etc, and weeding the garden, a two year old, a one
year old and a babe at breast.
LaSalle comes by with 3 Indians going the other way, ...etc, etc. pats baby 1, 2,
Repeat until Talons have 4
children and LaSalle 4 Indians.
Talon
child: Ou va Sieur La Salle
Lucien: Down the Mississippi (song)
Talon
child: How will he return.
Lucien: a pied (mimes
treading.) Up the
Mississippi
Not
a fun trippy
Dark
Student: Which brings us to the climax of our show.
Dark
Act 2 Scene 6
(La Salle and 2 canoes. Canoe is same as ship. 2 Indians holding stip of black cloth
and paddling. LaSalle standing up
in canoe. Humming down the
Mississippi)
Meanwhile, the Talons are
packing up and getting
in a ship to sail back to
France.
As LaSalle and 2 Indians
tread back, the Indians carrying the canoe, Humming up the Mississippi,
the Talons raise the sail and
fan the Ship back across the Atlantic.
Sign on left says Canada. 1683
Sign on right says France 1684
Isabel: Déjà vu two.
(La Mer. Trenet recording and cast musicians
have improved their accompaniment).
Dark
Act 3 Scene 1
(cast reenters as in Act
1. Maybe, , depending on how long
this play times out and/or what director and producers choose to cut, this is
performed a second night or the next year)
(Players enter playing
instruments and chanting response to karankawan in languages of different
immigrant ancestors (don’t forget an African language and all Asians in H. S.
community)
Kawans: Techo kannimna, techoyou, techo ka- ada,
techo colohs
English: Brave mothers, Brave men, brave girls, brave
boys
Kawans: Ga-as nja.
Kawan ba-ak nja.
English: Come here. Make camp here.
(Achade and a few children who’ve practiced,
take up position on corner of stage
Chant.First Achade.
Then Students. Then a student gestures for all to repeat. Then a student translates. At least one should mime – sign
language BIG getures, as dancing/charades)
Na Ka Kaana-koko aal ga’s est-day
I love bay say hello sun
Na ka kwan-Koko wana est-day
I love bayou, goodbye sun
Na ka Kaana-koko aal ga’s
a-wil
I love
bay
say hello moon
Na ka Kwan-koko, wana a-wil
I love bayou
good bye moon
(Students take turns
mime/signing the following lines while others act out with same ship, mast,
sail, fanning and blowing as in previous atlantic crossings in previous acts)
Student: 4 canoes, each 4 canoes long
Student: wind
bring in, long big big wind skin (show muslin sail, La Mer played softly)
La Salle: (La Salle stands up in front ship, or maybe just
sticks his head up)
Voici Mississippi
Student:
Kalbases (aside)
That’s Karankawan for People from the wata’
Another student: Ouugta not bring a kid
Another
student: but the Talons did,
(Lucien and Isabel heads up)
Another
student: Right onto our shore
First
student: one two three four (children’s heads pop up one after another
2nd
student: five, one born on board
ship.
Isabel: But in New French territory
Lucien: there were certain (accent on rhymes-with ‘tan’) advantages,
Student; Even
then
Lucien: (to Isabel) Don’t begin your labour
(accent on sounds-like ‘boor’
Til I’ve set in the anchor (rhymes
with ‘boor’)
3rd
student: That was Robert,
Talon child:
Nous mere and nous pere were not new
to new world. They’d come over before.
We
3 other
Talons: were all born in
Canada.
Isabel: except Robert
Another Talon:
New France at that time
Lucien: But politics drove us back to Paree
Isabel: And
Paree’s great for the rich, but not family
Lucien: (As if
singing a wooing song)
Isabel Is a bell Isabel Isa more than a bell, Isabel est tres belle. Isn’t our ship named La Belle
Isabel: And to Hell
it will sink
Student: in Mata
gorda, Spain name kill fatty bay
Student narrating:
It was valentines’ day
when
Isabel’s children climbed down the
ship matting like monkeys. One babe
at her breast,
The rest slipping into the brink. (mime this)
Isabel:
“Tiens tu frere Lucien, Madeleine!
He
can’t swim.
None
of you can!”
Madeliene “We
can stand, Maman,
the
water’s not deep”
Student narrator:
They waded to shore. (excellent miming of wading) La Salle told Lucien,
La Salle: “Talon,
you there,carpenter, where is the wood?”
Student narrator:
The first thing the french carpenter
built in Tejas, the first
thinik he
built, was a fire on our
beach to warm children’s wet
feet
to
dry their wet clothes
and
eat
supper without mosquitoes.
Isabel: (started smiling, then quickly
frowned, and turning on Lucien, said),
“Yet, after all we’ve been through,
you still let him boss you...”
Lucien: “I’d have
built the fire anyway.”
Isabel: Look what
you have brought me to
Lucien: Don’t yell,
Isabel
Isabel: With you,
see what I’ve turned into
Lucien: A shrew is
not you, Isabel, I love you
Isabel: Yes I am a
shrew. I am who your love has made
Lucien: (pauses,
begins humming, maybe picks up
a guitar or accordian)
And
I too, am who your love has made
I
am the person whom you love
Isabel (softening,
this is the second love song; develop as such) You are the
person whom I love
You
are who my love has made
Lucien: You are the
person whom I love
Isabel: I am who your love has made
I
am the person whom you love.
(back
and forth as duet so audience can get the double meaning)
Achade: we fed them oysters
Student: They were so so snotty. They said,
La Salle: Brrph (ripple
lips inFrench typical expression) Pas sur la
demi-coquille?
Karankawan
chorus: brrph,
La Salle: Barbarians, of course, poor things, you
don’t have a knife.
Talon
kids: Nyah nyah nyah nyah,
Don’t you wish
you had a knife. See I can open the
shell. (cuts himself)
Karankawan
student: Put them in
the fire
Another
student: On the beach. Faster than you,
Another: Safer too.
French: hmmm. Tastier too.
Observer: N
John Henry competition here
Aunt: We fed them oysters ( 2 student comes down from stage and pass
basket of oyster crackers along rows
Aunt: and red fish (2 more come and pass gold fish)
Aunt: with chili pequin (2 more pass hot pepper candy)
Observer:
mother of all peppers.
Student: that’s
true and youpan tea
Aunt: tea leaves, not the berries. It’s no wonder European
botonists called it vomitoso. Only vomit if drink too much,
or mix with rum.
Student
Karankawan: Kill any injun
S: another:
Alcoholics Anonymous is an underground
native movement
S another: really?
Aunt: The techonec’s cried
Karankawan
student: (holds a gourd aloft and in a proclaiming voice) Ka awa kwe? Who wishes to drink?
Another
Karankawan student: (aside) they said we drank the blood and ate the flesh of our
enemies.
Another
Karankawan student: who said?
Another
Karankawan : The French said
Another
Karankawan : And the Spanish
Another
Karankawan : And
the American anthropologists. (picks
up copy of Newcomb’s
book) Here it says the women
all froze at the cry
while
the men drank for 3 days and danced
like savages.
Achade: who’s going to unravel the citations back
to find the earliest written record
about Karankawan yaupon tea.
Student: I know it wasn’t the Talon boys.
Student: may have been,
S: I bet it was that Sally, who came with
her daddy
from Boston
Student: (googling
on computer) a gun runner. Captain
Bridges from New Orleans to
Matagorda in 1836.
S: Could have been could have been. When did he come and when did
he go back to Boston.
SKarankawan: He died here, 1848. Sally and her mama went home
to Boston and 50
years later,
Another K
student: on her death bed, she
sang English
nursery rhymes in Karankawan,
an anthropologist named
Gatschet wrote them down.
Students: group
gesture of ‘oh yeah, uh
huh”
Achade: google it google it.
children.
A Karankawan
student: Hey, Aunt Achade, what
were the underwater roots, we’re
supposed to have eaten all fall.
Achade: Anthropologists never identified them’
but said Karankawans waded in the
muck and dug them up with their toes.
(great for miming)
Karankawan
student: anthropologists couldn’t identify
them because they were scared
of gators and snakes, best native
defenders of our bayous and bays
A Karankawan
student who is Asian: They were
Nelumbo lutea. Lotus
Aunt:
Na Mu Myo Ito Ren Ge Kyo
Student
Anglo: What’s that
Aunt : “Put your mind in the
mystery the Lotus
teaches”. The
Lotus Sutra of
Buddha.
Student: is that why the Formosans came to Calhoun? And the Vietnamese, and the
other Chinese, and the Cambodians,
and the Thais, The real cooks.
Another
student:The latest, from Burma the Kirin, They go to our church
Aunt: No, they all came for the same reason your
ancestors did. To make a Cahum,
which means ‘home,’ in Calhoun.
Asian
student: but nobody since the Karankawans appreciated the Nelumbo til we joined this Cahum
Cahum
SingSong: (split up verses among students)
You must kawan kawan that is to say you
must make do
Where ferocious
alligators nip your rattle snake shoe
When you catch
our crabs and red fish
Pat our jelly
fish too
When our
dolphins come to talk to you
They may bring
a friend or two
With sharks and
a bactiterium
We share our
Calhoun home
Student: Our defense against invaders.
Aunt: But who’s the very best defense
Against
rapacious raders
Student: Who
would fill our sacred wetland
With
no regard for crabs of sand
A
Karankawan: the greatest defense
of our bays
and our bayos(pronounce bayou like bayo)
Are
the teeniest menace called the mosquitos
Another: Strangers fear the Texas Rangers?
Chorus: They don’t know the mosquito (make
know and quito rhyme)
Another: Brave Bards sing of National Guards,
Chorus: The don’t know the mos qui to.
Another: We’re protected by Homeland security,
Chorus: You don’t know the mos qui to.
Student: We
welcome all RVs and boaters we give
you our word
Student: Come sun on our beaches and count every
bird
Another: If humidity and hurricaines don’t drive
the French away
Another:Once
they know our mosquito they’ll decide
not to stay
Achade: to Kawan kawan in cahum, to make do in
our home we welcome nettles and grass
burrs,
And
gators and snakes, sharks and jelly
fish,
Mosquitos
and fireants.
Student K: fire ants aren’t native
Another: We
needed the fireants once the invaders
got Deet.
SK We offered
the French, and the rest who came
too, alligator oil
SK no, it was shark oil
Achade: Some say gator, some say
shark.
The point was: we will make you
wrestle our scariest beasts, if
you want
to make cahum your home, for it
is the strength multiplied of the least
that sooths Gilliad’s balm
Achade: So we KawanKawan fed LaSalle and the
Talon’s our best food: oysters and red fish with chili pequin sauce,
Student: Mother of all peppers
Student: yaupon tea and lotus fruit for dessert
(players pass
tea, and lotus candy to audience.)
Act 3 Scene 2
Achade: We warmed them and fed them and what
did they do?
Student K: They stole our canoe!
Another: More than one,
Another: more
than two
Student K: So we slew a few
Achade: First They slew some of you
Student K: We
knew. We knew
Student (not
K): cause you stole their blankets
Student K: Says who? Think.
That couldn’t be true. Why would we want soggy wet blankets
when we had deer skins and goose
feathers, water off back like a
duck
Student: Some of them went back to France
Others: Toodle oo (a ship with sail and
La Mer sails off)
A student: La
Salle went off to find New Orleans
Another: (aside)which didn’t exist
Another: (begins
singing; if we have a sax or
clarinet to pipe in, that would be great) Do you know
what it means,
to miss New Orleans
Another:
(repeats) Which
didn’t exist
Achade: Then, but it did when my great grandfather
came
Student: And Sally Bridges, and others who wrote
down Kawan Kawan words.
Student: Folks been seeking means to reach New
Orleans ever since Indian Ola
Another: Meaning Indian WAVE
Student K: Somebody knew,
Another: Somebody fore sue
StudentK The
KawanKawans knew
The
big wave would come and return Calhoun
to Cahum
Another: And when it didn’t succeed the first time,
Another: It came again
Student: But the Indians were gone when the big
wave hit
Achade: Are you so sure?
Student: You
don’t think…?
Achade: Google the Karankawa name for God?
Student:
Pichini
Another: You mean Puchini. He wrote Italian operas
Achade: That a good god or good guide for our play
An extinct indigeny who wrote Italian
operas now sung at the Met. You
know my young friends, if our ancestors
had been as ignorant and superstitious
as the ones outside Boston,
there’d have been a witch hunt
after the woman who named the
marsh land defiers Indian Ola.
Student: You think she was a witch?
Others: Wooooo
Achade: Ola’s new orlean name is Katrin
Katrin
did not love New Orleans
Student: My preacher says
Katrin
destroyed new Orleans to punish
evil doers
Acade: The evil doing that destroyed their wetlands
Student: And came back to name names.
Another: (aside) Beep Peep
But
those who were punished weren’t
the ones you should blame
Achade: Katrin didn’t know who to blame
Just
that the wetlands were gone, the
levees unmaintained
Student: and the veil between death and life torn
asunder,
Another: (looks
quizzically at Achade)
Achade: the thin skin of shell sanded between
fossils
once living and their descendants
now swimming with every
earth child of her sea.
Karankawan: Pichini warned if your species can’t prevent some
members of your species -- be they invaders or I ndigeny
-- from killing Pachamama, her
poisoned fiery blood will flow from
her wounds and consume all of you. Mother Earth doesn’t know the
difference between sins of commission
and ommision.
Student,
Hispanic: You know of Catrin?
Student: Death dressed as a Dandy throughout
Mexico
Another: Catrina’s the Death Dandy Lady (maybe
here some do the Hispanic dance of Catrin and Catrina)
Student: That’s Catrina with a C. The weatherman
spells it with a K
Achade: Like they put an L before the H and and
O before the U to make Cahum look
like Calhoun.
Student: Who
were they trying to impress?
Achade: Another play another day.
Student: Katrina’s the wife of Catrin. Does that
make her the wife of Colchin?
What’s
that of Colchin
Achade: According to Octavio Paz,…
Dark
Student
narrator: Mexico’s nobel
embajador to Delhi, La China Poblana
Other student: she’s Mexican
Narrator: was a Hindu,
Other: no a Moghul
Narrator: sold
in Cochin
Other: to a Portuguese pirate
Narrator: who sold her in Manila
Other: to a Mexican gentleman
Narrator:who
took her in Pueblo where she’s worshiped
as Caterina de San Juan or
La China Poblana. She wrote poems
and taught the Indians…
Other:
(interrupts) You
mean Sor Juana who wrote
the play in the last act with Marie
Madeleine. Her grandfather was
jew.
Achade: And a muslim too.
Student: what!
Achade: just an opinion. Sor Juana is the brown
pelican was rescued from extinction
like the nun
Student:
soaring, in her brown tunic, brought down
when she dove, like a clown.
Student: Sor Juana never saw the sea
Achade: Well, Santa Catrina sure did.
And
that solves the mystery.
Dark
Act 3 Scene 3
Fhist: What mystery? I thought the mystery was what was in Jim O Neil’s great
grand father’s trunk.
Achade: It is. Besides the letters from the Countess Bettina von
Arnim to Karoline, oops.
(aside to audience) well you
knew that.
Fhist: Jim says you’ve been letting
adolescents raid
and plagurize his great grandmother.
Achade: Ah so he admits everything. If his great
grandmother wrote the letters
sent with the KawanKawan words
and the play the Talon girl wrote
with the Mexican nun; then she
wrote them to the Countess Bettina
in Germany. And they are the
intellectual property of the Countess’s
heir who gave me the translations
on condition, I find the
letters
Bettina wrote back from Germany
to Texas. His great grandmother
is Karoline Gunderode. I
knew it. I knew it.
Fhist: He says “Ha Ha. She’s wrong. That’s just
what Bettina called her, Her Karoline
Gunderode IN TEXAS.
Achade: She committed a scandal but came to Texas
instead of committing suicide.
Fhist: That might be right. But you don’t know her
name. And the play’s almost over
and you haven’t told anything about
the Indians killing everyone LaSalle
left in Fort St. Louis except the
Talons, and about the Talons living
with the Indians
Achade: Where they learned Kawan Kawan
Fhist: And getting rescued by the Spanish.
Achade: The earlier De Leon
Fhist: And going to Mexico to live with the Viceroy
Achade: That’s there. That’s how come Madeleine
wrote the play with Sor Juana
Fhist: but nothing about their going back to Spain
and the French capturing them
at sea and taking the brothers back
to France
Achade: where they gave the list of KawanKawn
words.
Fhist: And came back to help Iberville and St.
Denis
14 years later.
Achade: Well, you just told the whole known history. You have to leave some things
for others to google and write
plays about. To me, the great mystery
– besides why the letters were
so scandalous Jim O’Neil is still denying
them – the great mystery to me
was
What
happened between the time they
disappeared and reappeared in Texas
history? Why were the Talon brothers
in a Portuguese prison.
Act 3 Scene 4
Why were the Talons in a
Portuguese prison.
To discover the China
Poblana? That’s crazy
Begins with Iberville’s
letter. Maybe recited in French by
French class prize winner. Maybe
just printed in translation in the program.
INSERT COPY OF
FRENCH 1704 LETTER HERE
Lettre autogrqphe addressee a l’abbe Cavelier
Vela, Monsieur, l’extret du rapport de Pierre et jean Talon,
Qui sont deux Cannadiens native de Cannada, d’un bour pres
De Quebec, lesquelle sont revenues isy du Mexique, et que je
Eu deux annes au Misisjipy, a la solde du roy, lesquelle en
Sont revenue il v a deux ans. Et qui sont actuellement dans les
Prisons de Portugal..,…..,blah blah blah about others La Salle
Left behind not
known to have survived …
S’est ce que je sertifis veritable.
A la Rochelle, le 3 May 1704
D’iberville
Capitaine des aceacaux? I can’t make that out, what’s navy in French?
Du Roy, chevalie de l’ordre millterre de Saint louis commandant
p;our le Pou dea ola Louisiana
(Achade and
students on side)
Student: So where were they?
Achade: I don’t know. The most I found was I’berville’s
letter to La Salle’s brother
saying they had been back with
the French crossed the Atlantic
again, this time to the real Mississppi,
and then BONK, casually, with
no explanation, actually they’re now
in a Portuguese prison, letter signed
1704. But they pop up in other
histories in 1714 guiding St. Denis
from Louisiana back across Texas
to Mexico and Robert for sure,
ends up back in Mobile.
Student: So you want us to find out?. Why were
they in a Portuguese prison and what
happened in those 10 years.
Student: (very
European nerd) Well, what was happening in the
real world, back home
Another: You’re
Euro-centr…(lets “tric” dribble off)
Student: Louis XIV, the French king, remember
Another: yes the one who goosed Isabel
Student: That’s just play.
Another: But he probably did goose someone like
her.
Student: Anyway, he, Louis was old, can we agree
on that?
Others: nod
(students are now re
searching: googling and/or miming
at once)
Student: and Carlos the second of Spain.
He was
the slightly moronic one.
Student: but he wasn’t really a moron.
Student: just very inbred sickly they said.
Other: His tongue was so big it hung out of
his mouth. He speaks but few understand
Another: He drools, and perhaps from both ends, for everyone
says that he stank..
Student: Louis had sent his niece,
Another: a lovely young girl
Student: to marry poor Carlos.
Another: who so depressed her, she died.
Student: And poor Carlos cried.
Student: They called him the Hexed one.
Student: and the poor King agreed
Another: Thus, Spain’s worst inquisition,we read
Student: Yet he called an inquisition of the inquisition
before he died.
Student: The report was so bad the Grand Inquisitor
advised it should burn.
Student: Like witches the Grand Inquisitor had
inquired.Then they sent Sor Juana’s
friend to Berlin to fetch him a
new wife again.
Achade: That could have been when the play by
Madeleine entered library Von Arnim.
Student: No, No. We already have the Texas Caroline,
whom we now know isnt’ named
Karoline, getting the play from
the French Mexicaine in Matamoros.
Achade: Mata Gorda, Mata Moro, Mata Hari, Matter
where?
Student: What we know is Carlos died in 1700 and
the Bourbons and Habsburgs fought
over the heir. Because they called
it the war of the Spanish Succession
Another: Until 1714 the war went on
That’s
when the tattooed brothers
Talon
Are
noted again by the historian
Because
they could parlay in kawan k awan
Guiding
Frenchmen from Mobile to Nuevo
Leon
Narrator: (this
can be broken up among students or heavily edited if impossibly long)During these 14 years Europeans
believed they were fighting
over which kin should be king,
the Bourbons or Hapsburgs, in
Spain. And who had the say, the Emperor,
the Pope or a king.There were
quite a
few kings and princes galore, dukes,
counts, marquise, and electors, protestants, catholics roman
not Greek. Anyway They didn’t
sayit was over religion. And they
didn’t admit, rather none say any state knew, private contracts with
insiders are with pirates who’re outsiding laws nations state they are
abiding.
Student: I think that means East and West Indies
Companies, British, French, Dutch,
Danish, Norweigen, Swede, Saxony
and Savoy thought it quite fair
to take a share of what the Portuguese
and the Spanish had taken
everywhere.
Student: If they weren’t in the war they were square.
Student: But some changed the side they were fighting
on in the middle of the war.The
Spanish were Hapsburgs and
thus anti French. The Dutch had
just stolen the Portuguese ports,
Student: So Portuguese began in with the French
but they switched,
Student: There were all manner of Germans, princes,
margaves and marquises.
Student: The English of course and the Danes and
the Swedes.
Student: By the
end of the war things were all turned
around. Spaniards spoke French
Dutch wore Portuguese gowns.
(Maybe several parody the
song)
Which side are
you on, Swedes
Which side are
you on, Czechs
Which side
Portuguese, etc.
Achade: And I was so sure . That must have been it. The Talon brothers were on a
French ship to Lisbon when the Portuguese
flipped
Student: and allied with the Protestant traders,
the Dutch,
Another: ‘tho
they’d just run their Jesuits out of
Cohin
Student: (aha) It was a Dutch ship that captured
the French, and to show the
Portuguese they were smart to change
sides,
Student: They presented the Talons who were tattooed,
tied up as a prize.
Student: To the Portuguese Inquisition
Which
was really strong and brutal back
in Goa where the Jesuits fled after
the Dutch took Cochin.
Achade: Back to the question
Student:Why
were the Talons in a Portuguese
prison?
Student: As persons of interest to..
Chorus: … the
Inquisition! (aha! Tone. Be sure the meter between ‘prison’ and
‘quisition’ paces to rhyme)
Student: This
IS a fiction
Student: about the Talons
Student: who WERE not fiction
Student: So don’t speculate wrong.
Achade: If Iberville had said Inquisition instead
of Portuguese prison, I’d have
finished the play on my own.
Student: He couldn’t say Inquisition because he
was writing a priest. L’abbe means
he was a priest. And he had to
uphold the Inquisition or lose his position.
Student: Iberville was answering his inquiry.
Student: Why was he inquiring?
Student: Maybe
he’d heard,
Student: In a confession?
Student: or brothers’ grapevine
Student: about the boys covered with tattoos who
spoke French, and Spanish,
AND
IN tongues none understand.
Student: And he said to himself: Has to be the Talons.
Achade: And the letter from the Capitaine of the
French navy saying they were just
sailors and good guides in the Indies
would prove they were harmless
ideologically
Student: and could be useful financially.
Student: (looking up from googling)
Did
you know the Administrative office of all the Portuguese colonies was called
Office of the Indies even tho it included Ports on all continents and islands all over the world.
Achade: So do we say the Abbe, who with his
brother La Salle had abandoned them as children because the LaVaca River wasn’t
the Mississippi made amends
Student: and peace with his God. The historians themselves speculate
l’abbe inquired because he was
going to die and wanted to clear his conscience.
Student: Let’s just say, ‘he did the right
thing. Vouched they weren’t
heretics and got them on a boat to… where?
Achade: Lamu?
Student
(African American): That’s a nice
place for a vacation. No cars and
centuries of continuous Swahili architecture and art.
Student: (googling) an isle off Mombassa, , hmm,
second largest city in Kenya
Student: where human cultural began.
Student: Mombassa’s perfect.
Student: Why in the world?
Student: It was a Swahili port long before the
Portuguese, or the Arabs, and it is still.
Student: (reading)In 1598 An Italian architect came from Portuguese
Port of Goa (that’s in India remember) to Mombassa, that’s in Kenya to build
the most powerful military base of all time. Fort Jesus, that’s still it’s name. It’s a tourist attraction, you can see
torture instruments and where they kept slaves.
Achade: So what makes that perfect?
Story: For the play. In 1697, just when the Talons were being rescued by the
French from the Spanish ship
Student: kidnapped according to the Spanish
Student: and giving their report about the death
of LaSalle in La Rochelle
Student: and the Karankawan word list
Student: Well that’s when in Mombassa, the
Kenyans, that is the Swahilis, let in the Omanis to help get the Portuguese
out.
Student: Arabs from Oman
Student: Is
that Yemen?
Student: Near, its where Muscatel’s from
Student: So the Portuguese had been there too?
Student: But forced to leave
Student: So they had a win reputation against
Portugal’s nation
Student: But if the Portuguese were out of
Mombassa, they wouldn’t be sailing with the Talons to Fort Jesus.
Student: Except, for this, historians say when
the Portuguese ran out the Omanis they became pirates. Then later generations ran the
Portuguese back out.
Student: And Octavio Paz said La China Poblano
was captured by Portuguese pirates
Student: Who’d become pirates when run out of
Cochin by Dutch. And the
Portuguese did win in Mombassa again for a few years.
Students: So the Talons, who were linguists and
diplomats
Another: ‘Tho they couldn’t read at all and
certainly not maps
Student: .. The Portuguese captain pointed to an
island on the map off Mombassa
Students: The Talons thought Matagorda.
Student: and volunteered to scout on the spot.
Student: They’d been dropped in the wrong spot
before
Student: And that was Lamu
Quick dark,
Quick light
Student(do some
research and wear something authentically Swahili): Nice Tattoo.
Student: And the Talons said,
Dark, light
Student
Talon: Can you show me the way to
Kahum?
Student: So their Swahili put them on a ship to
Kuchun
Student: Which is another pronunciation of
Cochin.
Student: The port the Portuguese had lost to the
Dutch.
Student: Where Octavio Paz said
Another: and he’s a Nobel laurate
Another: from Mexico
Student: Portuguese pirates kidnapped La China
Poblana
Student: No she came from China Cochin
Student: I thought it was Cochina Poblana,
because she combined Mexican chocolate with Indian curry and invented mole
Student: CochinChina is South Vietnam
Student: and this is just when the Lords Nguyhen
was fighting the the King of Siam and Cambodian men.
Student: Can we put the Talons in Vietnam?
Student: The French certainly went, but much
later on.
Student: We
haven’t mentioned the Chinese.
Surely Portuguese ships went to China
Student: Portuguese Jesuits had already come,
and at first were made very welcome.
The emperor proclaimed An Edict of Tolerance to preach in the name of
Jesus his teachings..
Students: The Jesuits had helped him make guns to
stop the Russians, and reconquer Taiwan.
Students: that was Nixon.
Students: This was 1705 Time of Louis, Pope Clement and theTalons.
Student: When the Pope said the Chinese couldn’t
be Christians if they honored thy
father and thy mother in estilo chinois,
Student: As Confuscius had taught.
Student: but they hadn’t confused confuscious with Jesus.
Student: Confuscius wasn’t God.
Student: He was just a bureaucrat.
Student: So the Tolerant Chinese emperor,
Kangxi responded, in effect, Then
you can’t preach your religion here.
Another
student: No the Great Khan of
tolerance was the Indian one
Another: That one was gone by the time of the
Talons. But China Poblana said she
was descended from him. He was a
Muslim who studied Hindu.
Student: Anyway, The Talons had lots of battles
by land and by sea and China
Poblana came back with them to Mexico She went to Pueblo
Student:And
like Sor Juana. barely escaped the Inquisition.
Chorus: Kawan Kawan
Student: They managed to “make do.”
Student: Because Sor Juana and China Poblana
taught tolerance, and speaking
lots of languages and Free Thinking and Free Speech
Student: The underground of Karankawan adoptees
everywhere protected them.
Student: like they did the Talons, whom they put
on the underground RR (It never ran just one way) back to Cahum
Student: our Calhou
Student:Marie
Madeleine married in France and went back to Quebec
Student: .Robert went back to Alabama – that’s
established historic fact
Student: That leaves 3 Talon boys, of whom
there’s not enough fact to prevent fiction you can’t prove is wrong:
What is your
song, Aunt Ka aal
I am not a
Rosetta stone
I am not a
Na-armer stele
I am a woman
whose mother
spoke French that she
learned from her mother
who loved a Talon.
I am a woman
who lived
with a man who spoke German
whose mother was named De Leon.
I’m adopted
Karankan
whose hom is
Cahum
Students
compose variations
I (peggy) whose mother spoke English learned from her mother, grand child d’
Powhatan. Who lived with a man who spoke Swedish
whose son’s
wife’s mother came here from Japan
And what about
Mde Talon’s friend.
Act 3, last
scene
Imnora: Well, that’s all very well and good
about why the Talons were in a Portuguese prison. Did they make all that up out of the letters the German lady
gave Achade from Texas.
Fhist: The internet helps a lot
Imnora: All I want to know is what the heck was
in Jim O’Neil’s great grand father’s trunk. What did that have to do with the Talons?
Fhist: Because the letters back to Germany
about the Talons, the Karankawans and LaSalle were sent to the Baroness’s great
grandmother Bettina Von Arnim, who is now very famous. She wasn’t in the 1850s when she wrote
the letters, except to the people who named the town that flopped for her. And she wasn’t in the 1950s when Achade
was suppose to have found the letters she wrote from Germany to the Texans
she’d inspired. But now people
write dissertations and books about her, and there could be a great movie.
Imnora: So what does that have to do with Jim O
Neil’s trunk
Fhist: The letters were in it. He got curious and looked.That’s how he
knew the writer wasn’t Karoline Gunderode. Bettina’s letters were addressed to Baroness Agnes von Beust
von Douai who didn’t have an
affair with a married man and commit suicide like Karoline, but ran off with an
ex-convict who taught piano – among other things that got their family – of 10
children --run out of Germany and Texas.
Imnora: I thought what was in the trunk was the
clue to what Jim’s great grand did that was so scandalous he had to leave and
live in New Orleans.
Fhist: It was.
Imnora: It was high heels and feather boas?
Fhist: shakes head
Imnora: a nazi
uniform
Fhist: shakes
head
Imnora: WHAT then?
Fhist: I’m going to do some geneology research
on my own to see if one of Agnes’s children married one of Heinrich Backofen’s who brought to the town
named Bettina “a whole chest of instruments” which probably included …(pause
for dramatic effect)
Fhist: an accordian.
Imnora: That’s a scandal?
Fhist: It was back then. He was always sneaking off to play
his accordian with a Mexican
Mariachi band.
What made
Tejano conjunto different from other Mexican music was learning the accordian
from Germans.
And what makes Texas country musicians
different from Nashville was
learning the acoustic guitar
from Mexicans
FINIS
[i] In
kawankawan Achade means woman, Ka means old, and Aal means people
|