Walker and The Ghost Dance Plays

by Walcott, Derek

• ISBN13: 9780374528140
• ISBN10: 0374528144
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-08-15
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

Dazzling dramas on American themes from the Nobel laureate On a cold winter's day on the Dakota plains, Catherine Weldon receives a caller, Kicking Bear, bringing news of Indian rebellion. In the fort nearby, a tiny community splinters apart over how to react. InGhost Dance, first performed in 1989, Walcott turns a story with a foregone conclusion -- Sitting Bull and his Sioux followers will die at the hands of the Army and Indian agents -- into a portrait of life at a crossroads of American history. InWalker, an opera first performed in 1992 and revised for its revival in 2001, Walcott shifts his attention east, taking for his subject David Walker, the nineteenth-century black abolitionist. In Walcott 's hands Walker becomes a classical hero for his people: a leader who is also a poet. Derek Walcottwas born in St. Lucia, the West Indies, in 1930. HisCollected Poems: 1948-1984was published in 1986, and his subsequent works include a book-length poem,Omeros(1990); a collection of verse,The Bounty(1997); and, in an edition illustrated with his own paintings, the long poemTiepolo's Hound(2000). His most recent collections of plays areThe Haitian Trilogy(2001) andWalker and The Ghost Dance(2002). Walcott received the Queen's Medal for Poetry in 1988 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992. He has also been given the 2004 Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. "And what about our tribe? Speak in me, what? Tell me the voice that lives inside me, what will happen? They will know the rapture of exaltation, the feathers in their hair will make them eagles over the broken mountains, the lakes will enter and prickle their cold skins like the fishes, they will tire like the salmon of a ladder of stones, and not only the Sioux, not only the Sioux, the Arapahos, the Cheyennes, the Brules, the Ogalalas, to the drum in the heart, before the wide silence." fromThe Ghost Dance The Ghost Dancetakes place on a cold winter's day on the Dakota plains, when Kicking Bear brings news of a rebellion to a white widow named Catherine Weldon; when the alarm seeps into the tiny fort nearby, its mixed company splinters apart in the face of the perceived threat. First performed in 1989, it is a parable of American life at a crossroads, drawn from a story with a historical conclusion: Sitting Bull and his Sioux followers will die at the hands of the Army and Indian agents. Walker,first performed as an opera in 1992 and revived (in a revised version) in 2001, is named for David Walker, the nineteenth-century black abolitionist from Boston who advocated violent revolt against slavery and galvanized his generation. In Walcott's hands he is a classic hero, a political leader who is also a poet. In bothWalkerandThe Ghost Dance, Walcott brings to life the broken communities whose charismatic leaders would change American history. "These two verse dramas show 1992 Nobel Prize winner Walcott at the top of his form. They are lean, focused, and powerful . . . These are history plays at their most energetic. Highly recommended."Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts,Library Journal(starred review) "These are history plays at their most energetic. Highly recommended . . . These two verse dramas show 1992 Nobel Prize winner Walcott at the top of his form. They are lean, focused, and powerful. The first,Walker,is a recent revision of an opera, first performed in 1992, which has become a play with music. Centering on the last day in the life of black abolitionist David Walker, in Boston on Thanksgiving Day in 1830, it has a small cast, one set, a limited time frame, and swift movement. When

Author Biography

Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia in 1930. His Collected Poems: 1948-1984 was published in 1986; his recent works are The Bounty and Tiepolo's Hound, illustrated with his own paintings. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. vii
Walker	p. 1
The Ghost Dance	p. 115
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

 

SCENE ONE

Brattle Street. Walker's house. Thanksgiving. Early snow. A FIGURE in a long black coat waits under a streetlamp . GARRISON is going towards the house .

FIGURE

Sir! Forgive me.

GARRISON

Yes?

FIGURE

Is that David Walker's house?

GARRISON

It is.

( The FIGURE walks up to the window, then returns to

GARRISON.)

FIGURE

And that machine is the press?

GARRISON

Yes.

FIGURE

That now does the work of the devil. Keep the niggers from printing machines. Deliver us from that evil.

GARRISON

I don't quite know what that means.

FIGURE

Sir, I stand here swaying with hunger because of my brotherhood's vow. I won't eat until I see that nigger spread-eagled in the snow. I'm as starved as a crow in winter cawing on a field-fence, keeping its keen yellow eye on all who leave and enter. I've learnt to wait quietly until what must happen, happens.

( The FIGURE waits in the shadows ; GARRISON approaches it .)

GARRISON

Come into the light, this damned street's cold and dark.

FIGURE

No. The light is too late. Too late to do business.

GARRISON

What business? What business?

FIGURE

You're asking me a lot. The pamphlet must not be printed.

GARRISON

Whom do you represent, sir?

(Pause)

Sir, whom do you represent?

FIGURE

You insist on an answer? I go where I am sent. Unless you want him dead, the pamphlet must not be printed.

GARRISON

You've got a Southern accent. Are you from where, Georgia?

FIGURE

Mr. Garrison, I can change my accent if it'd make you happier.

GARRISON

You know damned well why I ask.

FIGURE

Why?

GARRISON

There're certain men from Georgia who're out to skin his hide, who've put out a reward, sir, to capture or have him killed. If you're not their representative who want him dead or alive out here in this freezing cold, leave the darkness, for the light. Come with me, come inside. Don't stand there like a raven in the afternoon snow, or a black crow in the cotton. Come into his house, now.

FIGURE

And, you, don't come any closer; don't leave the light you're in. I've got a pistol, a revolver that could send you spinning right here in the fresh snow. I am not from a Southern state, sir, I represent a state. The fact is, I'm a senator and my republic is ...

GARRISON

What?

FIGURE

Death.

GARRISON

I'm going to call the police.

FIGURE

What is the charge?

GARRISON

Loitering with intent. To murder. You are an assassin.

FIGURE

Necessity is my only sin. I am as white as the snow, sir, and, Mr. Garrison, as innocent. I'll be gone when it stops snowing.

GARRISON

Nevertheless I'm going.

(The FIGURE stumbles, staggers, collapses to his knees on the snow.)

What's wrong?

(The FIGURE draws his pistol.)

FIGURE

Stay back! It'll pass; it'll pass. It was the smell of food. The smell of Thanksgiving.

GARRISON

Do you need help? Do you need to lie down?

FIGURE

No. No. It goes. It comes in waves. I have not eaten for four days. When he dies, my fast will be broken. Then I can resume living.

(He rises to his feet, swaying.)

GARRISON

I'm going to have you arrested. Arrested, sir! Do you hear?

FIGURE

Go! I know how to disappear. You call the police, sir.

(He puts the pistol away, walks backwards into the dark. As he exits)

By the time they get here, I'll be invisible. I'll be white air.

(GARRISON runs into the dark alley, searching and shouting.)

GARRISON

You can't stop us! If you come back, the police!

(He runs towards the house, pounds on the door. The door is locked tight. He rattles the doorknob, looks at the upstairs window.)

David! David! Open up! David, it's William Garrison.

(To himself)

There's a lamp in the upstairs window. Eliza! Are you in there? I'm out here in the damned snow. Listen. I've gone to fetch the ...

(To himself)

No. Better if they didn't know. If you can hear me, Eliza, don't open to anyone else. I have to go to the police about a certain business. Keep this door locked now. Tell David I have some news.

(He hurries across the street through the piled drifts. Behind the curtains we see a lamp descend the stairs and come to a downstairs window. A woman, ELIZA, parts the curtains and looks out. The FIGURE is there, under the streetlamp; then the FIGURE steps back into the alley. We enter the parlour of the house. It is also the store where WALKER sells used clothes from racks. There is a small counter and a hand-operated printing press with a table with paper and typefaces. ELIZA enters with a lamp.)

ELIZA (To herself)

Oh, David, David, come inside. (WALKER enters, carrying kindling; he places it the hearth.) Where were you? Where've you been?

WALKER

In the back yard to fetch some kindling.

ELIZA

Good. To light the fire in the hearth as well as our hearts, David. Today is Thanksgiving.

WALKER

What are we giving thanks for?

ELIZA

For being alive. For freedom. For being able to see our breath still. (She returns to the window.)

WALKER

What you keep on looking out for? Is there something you scared of?

ELIZA

Today carries a terrible fear. I thought I saw something move. Am I seeing things? I don't know. I thought I saw something just now, like a raven walking in the snow. Like a black crow hopping in the cotton; but it goes every time I turn. I can't see his colour, his face, but it been walking round and round like a buzzard, circling this place, and the snow don't make no sound.

WALKER

This ain't the South, Liza, please.

ELIZA

Is he still there? Can you see him?

(WALKER goes to the window. Sees him. Lies.)

WALKER

No.

ELIZA

He walks with that slow rhythm of a crow walking carefully.

WALKER

I'm sick of this thing. I see only snow blowing, white air. It's a blizzard, not a buzzard out there; it's snowing and the street is dim, and you see strange shadows in winter. Come on, you just had a bad dream.

ELIZA

I see you lying on the white ground. That's the dream I have, David.

WALKER

And you go be my Bathsheba?

ELIZA

No, I'm Eliza, your wife. But, David, I know what the name mean, and the name go fit your life.

WALKER

Boy-killer of Goliath, David. And you ain't go be my Bathsheba?

ELIZA

David, I'm Eliza, your wife!

WALKER

David, the harp-player. David, the king!

ELIZA

Whose harp got only one string and who got to keep harping, harping that what ain't right is wrong.

WALKER

David, the giant-slayer. Liza, my head's getting grayer. I'm not no stripling no more. Maybe I'm David, the nay-sayer, but possession is nine-tenths of the law, and the law can't prevent our dreams.

ELIZA

I been here since dawn whitened the window and wondering where you were just now, what you was dreaming, and I get so frighten of today, Lord, I don't know. You got to tell me your dream.

Excerpted from WALKER AND THE GHOST DANCE by DEREK WALCOTT Copyright © 2002 by Derek Walcott
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.