ASMA KHALID, HOST:
On Tuesday night at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., playwright Larissa FastHorse was adding the final touches to her latest production.
LARISSA FASTHORSE: New lines, friends.
(Reading) Wynona - River, let's work out cat custody details. Mark - that's the Fake River?
KHALID: Her show is called "Fake It Until You Make It." It's a comedy that follows the intensifying rivalry between the heads of two nonprofits - Wynona, the Native American head of N.O.B.U.S.H., and River, the white leader of a group called Indigenous Nations Soaring.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) I'm simply asking for you to help me take out one white woman, just one - not to kill her, but to help me get her endless privilege so that I don't lose my mind.
KHALID: The show leans into farce, complete with mistaken identities...
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Oh, no.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) Federal agents.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) I can explain.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) There is no explaining. You just disappeared.
KHALID: ...And slamming doors.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, screaming).
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR SLAMMING)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) No. Wait. Hey.
KHALID: And though the form may be classic, the style is proudly Indigenous, from the vibrant set to the music used to transition between scenes.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing in non-English language).
FASTHORSE: We are not just indigenizing the ideas on the stage and the actors, but that the whole space feels like you're entering a different world, which is my world.
KHALID: I spoke with Larissa FastHorse the morning after we sat in on rehearsals. She told me working in the nonprofit world inspired the play.
FASTHORSE: Indigenous-serving organizations run by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are afforded very different levels of funding, very different levels of trust, very different levels of access, and seeing that in real life, made me say, ooh, that's actually really natural for farce in the way that it gets really kind of ridiculous.
KHALID: You mentioned this word farce. You were keen to make this play a farce. What does that mean in the world of theater?
FASTHORSE: For me, I think what's exciting about it and what's been fun about learning the form is that it lets you heighten everything.
KHALID: OK.
FASTHORSE: So everything can be a little ridiculous, a little more. And so it makes it easier to have the kind of social commentary that I like to include with my comedy and with the laughs. You know, for me, it's very important that you laugh and you have a good time at the theater, but then you also think a little bit. And farce is really made for that. And I did a lot of research through a lot of older plays, and it was so interesting to see how certain parts of the genre, like any genre piece - right? - haven't changed, you know? A door is a door.
KHALID: Yeah.
FASTHORSE: And opening a door and slamming a door - all those things are still funny, but they also are obvious social commentary, right? And they lend themselves immediately to metaphor and to symbolism and to the ways that, you know, we look at who gets to go through those doors and who gets to open them and who doesn't.
KHALID: You know, this play is a satire. It was funny.
FASTHORSE: Yeah.
KHALID: And I will say, in the rehearsal we saw, there were moments when I was laughing out loud.
FASTHORSE: Great (ph).
KHALID: But I also feel like underneath, you are exploring these heavy ideas about Native American identity and race-shifting. What did you want to work through or say about these ideas?
FASTHORSE: Yeah, it's interesting because I think the idea of indigenous identity has been incredibly complicated for us Native people for a very long time that - since, you know, America's colonized this area. We're political systems, right? So we're independent sovereign nations existing within the United States. I'm a dual citizen of the United States and of the Sicangu Lakota Nation. And I think most folks in this country haven't fully understood that and are only starting to because it's both - it can be a race; it can be a culture. But it's also political, and it's inherently political because we are independent nations. So trying to explore that in theater can get very heady and boring and weird and dull. And I think, you know, using this format of satire and farce to explore it, one, just makes it fun, makes it palatable, makes it interesting. But also, it does allow me to open up the absurdity of what we're dealing with - right? - because we are independent nations within this larger nation, and it is an absurd thing.
KHALID: So this is the second stop for your play. It debuted in California, and you are now coming to Washington at a moment when there are so many political debates in this town about reshaping culture. President Trump has tried to take control of certain cultural institutions and wants to eliminate what his administration sees as woke ideology. I've got to ask, how does it feel to bring this show, your show, to D.C. at this particular moment?
FASTHORSE: Yeah. I mean, we were really excited (laughter) to come to D.C. right now. I mean, because it's a show about, you know, identity. It's a show about race. It's a show about politics. It's a show about Native American representation. It's also a show about two-spirit representation, which is very important to us to have.
KHALID: Two-spirit - what does that mean?
FASTHORSE: It means that you are in possession of multiple spirits that are related to perhaps sexual orientation and gender.
KHALID: OK.
FASTHORSE: It's interesting because living in Los Angeles, where I - we started this show, it can feel a little echo chambery (ph). And it's been really exciting, actually, to be in D.C., where just walking around the streets these few days, I've run into people with so many different ways of looking at the world. And to me, that's the best thing theater can do - right? - is create a welcoming space where people can come. They can have fun. They can laugh. They can enjoy their neighbor that may think differently than them, that may laugh at different things than them and start to think about that and wonder why. You know, as a playwright, I always say, it's not important to me that you agree with me. Like, that, to me, is not interesting. What's interesting is to create plays and pieces of art that, first, are fun and, first, get you out there with humanity and then, second, make you have to wonder why you think things or why you agree and disagree with things, as opposed to just agreeing or disagreeing with what I say. I leave a lot of questions open.
KHALID: You know, a number of characters in this play are written as Native people. So I am curious what happens with this play after D.C. then.
FASTHORSE: Yeah. I mean, my hope is that people will continue to do it. You know, other folks have been a little more successful than I have in getting larger Native cast plays. I think of Mary Kathryn Nagle, who has been at Arena Stage before me. For some reason, I seem to really struggle with getting people to do that. We do have four Native actors in this show. I would be unbelievably thrilled to have this show be on Broadway with all these - this incredible Native cast. I don't know if we've ever seen any Broadway play with this many Native actors. That would be really incredible, an amazing milestone to cross.
KHALID: Larissa FastHorse - her new play, "Fake It Until You Make It," is at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Thank you so much for talking to us.
FASTHORSE: Oh, it's been really fun. Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF JESSA CALDERON AND TANAYA WINDER SONG, "RISE AND SHINE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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