HowlRound Theatre Commons: The HomePlanet is the story a Native family of three generations of women: a mother, who is a US astronaut, who must decide if she can commit to being part of Apollo’s Moon to Mars mission; her daughter, a climate activist; and a grandmother, who navigates the conflict between them by reminding them both of the story of Sky Woman, the Indigenous creation story the grandmother had learned from her elders. The play moves back and forth between home place, outer space, and the astronaut training facility in Houston, Texas. The words of international astronauts are woven throughout, providing a vast spatial and historical/temporal landscape. But, ultimately, it’s a play about coming home, about our collective responsibility, and the concerns of young people whose futures are at risk.
1 comment:
Theresa May brings up a fantastic point about how can we go to space but not care or work toward saving our planet and my simplistic answer is because it is too much effort. Capitalism that dominates our world doesn’t advocate usually for the ethical or humane answer. As many grass-root movements that exist, without a corporate agreement to be greener, the climate change will have even more irreversible damage but enough with my theory on how to fix climate change. May’s play intrigues me a lot because of the ties to space and the environment, which I have never thought of before. It is so interesting to read about the general themes and storyline of this play and even more interesting to read about the author’s background. She is writing from a lot of perspectives that she doesn’t have first-person experiences from so I wonder what kinds of research she is doing to be truthful and be a good ally. It would be very interesting to read or see this play. Lastly, I am very intrigued by the youth movement aspect and how timely this is right now with so many youth movements getting national attention/legislation changes.
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