Synopsis
Black Elk Speaks
Christopher Sergel from John Neihardt
Published by Dramatic Publishing
Large Mixed Cast
This uniquely colorful and entirely authentic play has had highly successful productions at the Denver Center Theatre and the Mark Taper Forum
At every performance, without exception, it received a standing ovation
One critic described it as "A shattering evocation of the American Plains Indians. It tells in passionate, mystic poetry how their West was lost!"
The New York Daily News critic wrote that it is "...a play with a very rich texture that becomes far more than just another cry for justice from the Indian point of view"
No one who sees this play will ever forget it
The power of the play is not simply that it's superbly written drama but that it's all true
The play has color, flair, flamboyance
It has at other times an almost insufferable grief and fear
This is the death and destruction of the original Americans, and it hurts to watch
They are a people with a rich past and absolutely no future
This play is harnessed dynamite
Black Elk lived the experience of the Native American people from the moment before white people entered his world through the end of Indian independence at the massacre of Wounded Knee
His unique eloquence and that of his cousin Crazy Horse make this play a very special event
The play moves quickly and with mounting excitement through this history and through a vision of life as it once was for the Indian, and as it could be for all people