The tales told in Penobscot Theatre Company’s newest play, “My Story is Gluskabe,” were first put on stage at the Bangor Opera House by the company’s youth program in 2016 as a compilation of performances.
But the stories themselves are ancient — ancient like the peaks of Katahdin or the old growth forests that once spanned the wilds from the St. Croix River to the Androscoggin.
Gluskabe, a culture hero for the Wabanaki people, is the central character of the play, which is adapted from 13 traditional Penobscot stories translated and compiled by Penobscot Nation language keeper Carol Dana and University of Maine English professor Margo Lukens.
Through a mixture of word, music, light, sound, choreography and puppetry, the cast and crew bring to life the transformative deeds of Gluskabe, who, with the guiding wisdom of his grandmother, shapes the world and brings balance to existence.
“This production has a lot of moving elements, literally. It is a big lift. But it is one that we are all growing from,” said PTC artistic director Jonathan Berry. “It is one of our fundamental goals to make sure we have Indigenous representation both on and off the stage. This has been a really incredible experience, to bring this to life.”
For Dana, who has dedicated most of her life to ensuring the Penobscot language and the stories of its people are kept safe for generations to come, it comes with mixed emotions to see the tales of Gluskabe transformed once again, into something for the greater world to see.
“A lot of Native people, I think they’ve always been made to feel separate. So it’s a big step, to have these stories on stage and out in the world,” Dana said. “It’s a complicated feeling, for me, because it is so important to our people. I feel a little protective about it. But I also know that we have spent so long being separate that it is good to put ourselves out there.”
Six cast members are Indigenous, and so are many crew members, including New York-based director Jorden Charley-Whatley, a member of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.
“Even if we’re coming from tribes that are very far apart from one another geographically, there are certain things that are understood across Indigenous groups across the country,” Charley-Whatley said. “There are huge differences, but also similarities. It is really rewarding to work with other Indigenous people. It just feels familiar.”
Among the local Penobscot artists working on the show are Jason Brown and Donna Decontie Brown. Brown, known across Maine as the multimedia performance artist Firefly, designed the sound installations that give “Gluskabe” its sonic landscape, while Decontie Brown, alongside Danielle Barrett, choreographed the show, which also features a chorus of young actors from PTC’s Dramatic Academy.
Costumes by Grace Wylie and Emmett Sockalexis, sets by Nathan Ynacay, projections by Arturo Camacho and custom designed puppets by Gwen Elise Higgins further illuminate the stories. Higgins’ puppets range from the tiny chickadee Gluskabe communicates with, to the monster moose he hunts, whose body later becomes part of the land.
The resulting production, which opened Thursday and runs through March 17, is immersive in nearly every way — visually, sonically, and emotionally. For the show’s 90-minute run time, you are swept into a world where time stops, and humanity is brought into balance with nature.
Though most of the performances will be at the Bangor Opera House, PTC will bring two performances to Indian Island on March 7, which Carol Dana plans to attend.
“I hope general audiences learn to appreciate our way of life and our culture,” she said. “But the most important thing to me is that our children know these stories, because that’s how we keep going.”
Correction: An earlier version of the story misspelled Arturo Camacho’s first name.