THE REZ SISTERS by Tomson High

The Rez Sisters is a play by Canadian playwright Tomson Highway. First performed in 1986,
the play is centered on seven Native women who live on a fictional reserve called
Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario. It is the first play in an
unfinished cycle of seven plays that Highway calls The Rez Septology. Other plays included
in this septology include Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.

The play features an ensemble of women all with their respective dreams of a better life.
Their ticket to a better life is winning an epic game of bingo, and each of them faces different
challenges along the road to an event in Toronto billed as "THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE
WORLD." The play is a comedy, but it incorporates many dramatic and tragic subjects and
mixes realistic scenes with more mystical, surrealistic moments and moments that take their
aesthetic cues from Aboriginal spirituality.

The play received acclaim upon its premiere, winning the Dora Mavor Moore Award for
Outstanding New Play and the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award.

SUMMARY

The play begins with Pelajia working on her roof, hammering shingles to it. She tells her
sister Philomena about her desire to leave the reserve. Annie, their half-sister, comes in
speedily, and they mention that she hasn't slowed down since the day she lost her husband
to another woman (her sister, Marie-Adele). Annie is on her way to the post office to get what
she believes is a record sent from her daughter. We also learn that bingo is of great interest
to all of the women on the reserve, and they each have different dream purchases that they
would make with their winnings. We also meet Marie-Adele and learn that she has cervical
cancer. We also meet Veronique and her adopted daughter, Zhabooginan, a mentally
disabled young woman who recounts her brutal rape by two white boys with a screwdriver
years prior.

The women learn of "THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD," an event in Toronto where
there is a grand prize of $500,000. They all want to go, but do not have enough money to
travel so far. They try to get the Chief to support their trip, promising to pave the roads with
the bingo winnings, but he refuses. After a giant fundraising effort—collecting empty bottles,
cleaning windows, doing laundry, etc.—the women raise enough money to set out in a van
for Toronto.

On the trip we learn that Emily, a tough Rez Sister, was once in a motorcycle crew in San
Francisco and was in love with the leader, who was suicidal. She tells the story of seeing her
lover kill herself by driving her motorcycle into an oncoming car. On the way, the van gets a
flat tire and they have to change it. Once they arrive in Toronto, they attend THE BIGGEST
BINGO IN THE WORLD, which is a phantasmagoric circus-like event.

At the climactic moment in the play, Marie-Adele dies from her cancer and the play jumps
back to the reserve. We learn Philomena won $600 at the bingo in Toronto and bought a
new toilet with the money. Life continues on the reserve.
CHARACTER LIST

Pelajia
Pelajia is a 53-year-old woman who lives on the reserve and is sister to Philomena and
half-sister to Marie-Adele, Annie, and Emily. She is proficient with a hammer as she works as
a contractor, and uses it all the time. She wants to leave the reservation, as her sons and
husband live and work in other cities, but feels trapped there. She is serious and grounded,
and wants what is best for herself and her community.

Philomena
Philomena is Pelajia's sister, and is much more feminine that Pelajia, dressing in skirts and
heels. She was once in love with her boss in Toronto and he got her pregnant during an
extramarital affair. Unlike Pelajia, she is more content with life on the reserve, and does not
dream of an urban existence. She wins $600 in Toronto playing bingo and purchases a new
toilet with the money.

Marie-Adele
Marie-Adele is Annie's sister, but steals Annie's boyfriend, Eugene, from her. Marie-Adele
has fourteen kids with him, but has developed cervical cancer and can no longer have
sexual intercourse. She is afraid to die, as she fears her kids will have to go into the foster
care system if her husband's drinking worsens.

Annie
Annie is another woman on the reserve. She is very proud of her daughter, Ellen, who has a
white, French boyfriend named Raymond. She was in love with Eugene once but
Marie-Adele ended up marrying him. She loves music and singing, and eventually gets work
singing backup to Fritz, a country-rock singer with whom she is in love.

Emily
Emily is Annie's sister and the toughest of the women. She was in an abusive marriage
many years ago, but she left her husband and joined a women's motorcycle gang in San
Francisco. Then her lover committed suicide in front of her, which prompted her to return to
the reservation. She is tough and somewhat cynical, but loving and loyal.

Veronique
Veronique is sister-in-law to all of the above women. She has adopted Zhaboonigan as her
daughter. She loves to cook and wants to buy a new stove with her bingo winnings, so that
she can write a cookbook.

Zhaboonigan
Zhaboonigan is the adopted daughter of Veronique. She is mentally disabled, and was
brutally raped by two white boys with a screwdriver in the past. She sees Nanabush, the
trickster spirit, more clearly than the others in the play, and becomes very close with Emily
during the trip to Toronto.

THEMES
Family
Family, in all its iterations, is a central theme in Highway's play. The sisters all have
relationships that vary in complexity based on their past experiences with one another and
the circumstances of life on the reserve. Highway puts all of the characters together in a
single van chasing after the dream of a big payday from bingo, and in the confines of this
van, new relationships are formed, while old ones are renewed and deepened.

The play looks at the nature of families, whether they are biological families or families that
sprout up out of necessity and shared experience. This is shown in the title itself, Rez
Sisters, which links all of the women together in sisterhood.

Trauma
Each of the women has gone through some kind of trauma. Pelajia lives far from her family
members; Philomena lost a child and a lover in the big city; Zhaboonigan is mentally
disabled, orphaned, and a survivor of rape; Emily lost her lover to suicide; Marie-Adele faces
an unsure cancer diagnosis; and Annie had her lover stolen by her own sister. Furthermore,
life on the reserve, in its economic precariousness and monotonousness, is its own kind of
hardship.

These traumas haunt the characters and define how they interact with one another, as well
as make them stronger in their lives, better able to meet the challenges that they now face.
Thus, trauma—and its effect on a person—is a central theme in the play. Highway also
looks, more indirectly, at the effects of cultural trauma, the ways that life on the reserve is
hard, and many Indigenous people have been forced into poverty and driven to substance
abuse that has arisen as a result of historic genocide and structural oppression.

Nanabush
Nanabush is a mythological character in the Native world that teaches people about the
nature and meaning of existence on Earth. Nanabush is seen watching throughout most of
the play and intercedes to dance for Zhaboonigan after her speech and with Marie-Adele
when she is dying. He is a trickster that takes the form of a bird in the play, and can be seen
as a connection between the Indigenous traditions of the past, and the contemporary
situations that the characters find themselves in. He disrupts the world of the play and
disorients reality, which keeps the characters in touch with the absurdities and
inconsistencies of life, the chaotic twists and turns of events.

Outside or Inside
Another theme in the play is the question of whether the characters want to be on the
reserve or out in the world. Each of the characters grapple with their respective relationships
to this question. Pelajia and Philomena talk about it at the start of the play, with Pelajia
dreaming of getting away to be with her husband and sons and Philomena discussing her
own desire to stay on the reserve. Later, it comes out that Philomena lived in the big city at
one point, and had a traumatic experience with a married man, which drove her back to the
reserve. Other characters grapple with the world outside the reserve and whether they can
handle it. Emily lived in San Francisco, but returned after seeing her lover commit suicide.
Annie dreams of life as a musician in the big city.
THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD represents all of the feelings shared by the women
about the big city. It is something that they want to get to, in hopes that winning the bingo will
bring them the means to improve reserve life, but it is also a big unknown—a potentially
hostile environment. Thus we see that questions of staying on the reserve versus going into
the outside world are central to the thematic fabric of the play.

Hope
The characters all have hope that they can have a better life. Much of this sense of
hopefulness or possibility is wrapped up in an investment in THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE
WORLD, the winnings from which could change all of their lives for the better. Each of the
women hopes for something that could change their lives. Philomena wants a new toilet,
Annie wants a singing career, Marie-Adele wants a good diagnosis, and Veronique wants a
stove. These material desires all represent the hope that the women have for improvements
in their lives, their modest desires for a better life.

Death
Death comes up mostly indirectly in the beginning of the play. We hear about characters who
have died or people who have lost loved ones. It is not until the women go to Toronto, and
Marie-Adele abruptly dies of cervical cancer, that we are faced directly with the theme of
death. It is staged in a larger-than-life and absurd way, a more spiritually complex
representation of death than perhaps a more traditionally realistic play might stage. The
bingo game is a kind of fever dream, and Marie-Adele ends up dancing in the arms of the
man running the bingo, before he whispers "bingo" in her ear, prompting her death. This
moment conflates bingo with death, and suggests that the desire to "win big" is analogous to
some kind of expiration. The play does not address the question of death very explicitly, but
Marie-Adele's untimely one is a centerpiece within the plot, an unexpected twist in the
women's trip to Toronto.

Playfulness
The play is an incredibly playful story, tonally. Even when the women are beating each other
up or facing great hardship, Highway stages the action with a playful wink. The sisters love
to jostle one another and give each other a hard time, and even scenes that are heartfelt and
dramatic are quickly diffused with a playful or humorous line. Both the writing itself and the
characters are markedly playful, which serves as a way of celebrating them and the various
forms of low-level chaos that break out in the plot.

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF PART 1

Summary

Act 1 takes place on a morning in August at the Wasaychigan Hill Indian Reserve on
Manitoulin Island, Ontario. We see Pelajia Patchnose on the roof of her house, nailing
shingles. Pelajia tells her sister, Philomena, that she wants to go to Toronto, that she feels
stifled in their community. Philomena Moosetail, her well-dressed sister, comes in with a
ladder. "But you were born here," Philomena says, "All your poop's on this reserve." She
teases Pelajia for wanting to go, saying that she will stay there for the 30 or 40 remaining
years of her life.
Philomena tickles Pelajia, saying, "People change, places change, time changes things. You
expect to be young and gorgeous forever?" Pelajia complains that she was woken up at 4:30
AM by Andrew and Matthew Starblanket's drunkenness, and heard them fighting with a
baseball bat. Phiomena says she likes it there and is going to play bingo every night until
she wins big and can afford the toilet of her dreams.

Suddenly, after climbing the ladder, Philomena falls from it, screaming. Pelajia scolds her for
not wearing pants to do a "man's job" and talks about the fact that now Philomena's skirt is
ripped so it will look like she came from "Big Joey's house." Philomena goes back up the
ladder and defies the rumors about her, while Pelajia talks about how her sons and husband
have to travel far, to places like Toronto, to get work. Pelajia then complains that they only
have dirt roads, even though the leaders have been talking about paving the roads for years.

Annie Cook, who lost Eugene, her betrothed, to another woman 19 years earlier at church,
wanders towards them. She perkily climbs the ladder to talk to the women, and Philomena
scolds her for not coming to bingo with her. Annie tells Philomena that she went somewhere
with a woman named Emily Dictionary to hear music, a country-rock band from Toronto
called Fritz the Katz. They gossip about how Gazelle Nataways is going to go to Toronto with
Big Joey, before Annie tells them she has to go to the post office because she has a
package that is shaped like a record waiting for her. They talk about Annie's daughter, Ellen,
who lives with a white, French man who is a garage mechanic.

Pelajia proposes that they stage a revolution, burn down the church, scare the priest, and go
to Espanola, where the bingos are even better. Annie leaves to go to the post office. When
Philomena seems dejected, Pelajia tells her she bought her hammer with bingo money, for
$24.95. Philomena remembers the good old days, with someone named Bingo Betty, who
would go to every bingo game.

As Pelajia climbs down the ladder, Philomena continues talking about Betty and nearly falls
off the roof. She recovers her balance and climbs down the ladder.

The scene shifts to Marie-Adele Starblanket standing in her yard near her white picket fence.
There is a seagull nearby who is "the dancer in white feathers." Highway writes, "Through
this whole section, Nanabush (i.e. Nanabush in the guise of the seagull), Marie-Adele, and
Zhaboonigan play 'games' with each other. Only she and Zhaboonigan Peterson can see the
spirit inside the bird and can sort of (though not quite) recognize him for who he is."

Marie-Adele tries to shoo away the seagull, as Nanabush tries to coax her into flying away
with him. Veronique St. Pierre, passing by with Zhaboonigan Peterson, her adopted
daughter, asks Marie-Adele if she is talking to the birds. The gossip a bit, and talk about the
fact that Marie-Adele has 14 children, all with Eugene, Annie (her sister's) ex. Veronique
asks Marie-Adele who will take care of the children when she goes to the hospital, implying
that Marie-Adele is ill.

Zhaboonigan asks Marie-Adele where Nicky is, and she tells her he's at the beach. In
Zhaboonigan's interaction with Marie-Adele, we can see that she is mentally disabled in
some way.
Analysis

The beginning of the play introduces us to Pelajia, an Indigenous woman who longs to
escape from her life on the reserve. She dreams of traveling to Toronto, of going farther than
the eye can see. Meanwhile, her sister Philomena insists that she will never leave. The two
sisters have contrasting perspectives on their lot in life. While Pelajia sees the reserve as a
place from which to escape and strike out on a new journey, Philomena sees an ordinary life
on the reserve as their destiny.

While Pelajia has dreams of the wider world, Philomena insists that life on the reserve is just
enough of a life. She believes that they will both stay there for the rest of their lives, and has
no problem with that prospect. Instead of worrying about the darker sides of living on the
reserve, Philomena sets her sights on practical dreams, such as winning enough money at
bingo that she can afford a new toilet, "big and wide and very white." The two sisters differ in
multiple ways. Where Pelajia is tomboyish, Philomena is more feminine. Where Pelajia is a
dreamer, seeking new horizons and places to go, Philomena is more than content to stay
where she is and play by the rules of the reserve.

A lot of the fantasies that the women have center around the promise of bingo. Trapped in
the economic systems of the reserve, the women have no choice but to try their luck
gambling, and it is only through gambling that they can imagine accumulating money to
improve their quality of life. This structure only makes them more prone to dreaming and
yearning for a better life. Different though each of the women may be in their philosophies,
they all share the dream of improved conditions and more opportunity.

Contrasting with the earthly and material ambitions of the characters is the spiritual and
metaphysical world on the reserve. In the next scene, we meet a seagull, who is the
manifestation of "Nanabush," a trickster spirit in the First Nations mythologies. Whereas the
previous scene concerned the social and personal lives of Philomena and Pelajia, this scene
interweaves the mystical with the everyday, staging the spiritual world that watches over and
plays around with the reserve.

While the dialogue in the play is often spirited small-talk, it is clear that each of the women
on the reserve struggles with their own issues. The gossip that the women engage in
conceals some difficult and dramatic truths. Pelajia has dreams of a better life and her
husband and sons are in other places, Marie-Adele took her sister's fiancé and seems to be
suffering from an illness, Annie lost her husband to her sister, and Zhaboonigan was
orphaned and is mentally disabled. Each of the characters struggles with different tragedies,
in spite of whatever social veneer they use in their conversations with one another.

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF PART 2

Summary

Zhaboonigan tries to tie her shoelaces, but becomes frustrated and screams. She then bites
her hand, hurting herself, and Veronique and Marie-Adele try to calm her down. In an effort
to calm her down, Marie-Adele names all of her children for Zhaboonigan, who counts them,
and giggles. Veronique delivers a monologue about how she gets sick of the reserve, since
people make fun of her and her second husband, Pierre, for not having any children. She
says that she was the only person who would take Zhaboonigan in after her parents died in
a car crash in 1964. She then talks about how she wants a new stove, but Pierre spends all
of their money on alcohol.

Veronique says that Zhaboonigan wanted to go for a swim, as Marie-Adele throws a pebble
at the nearby seagull. Continuing with her monologue, Veronique says that she saw Gazelle
Nataways at Big Joey's shack that morning, and Big Joey told her that "THE BIGGEST
BINGO IN THE WORLD" is coming to Toronto. Veronique and Marie-Adele strategize about
how to figure out if the rumor is true, with Marie-Adele suggesting they take Eugene's van.
Veronique tells Zhaboonigan to go out of earshot, and tells Marie-Adele that her younger
sister, Emily Dictionary, was seen coming out of Big Joey's house recently.

Marie-Adele does not care to hear this gossip, and they are interrupted by the entrance of
Annie Cook, as Zhaboonigan asks Marie-Adele about her cancer, before running away
giggling. Annie calls into the house for someone named Simon, but Marie-Adele tells her he
is in Espanola with Eugene. Annie tells Veronique that Marie-Adele is expecting a letter from
her doctor soon, and they begin gossiping about the big bingo event. Marie-Adele wants to
go ask Gazelle Nataways, but thinks Veronique is too afraid of Gazelle.

Suddenly, they realize that Zhaboonigan is gone and Veronique begins calling for her. They
go off to the store, and Nanabush, in the guise of a seagull, follows, mimicking their
movements. The stage direction reads, "The three women appear each in her own spot of
light at widely divergent points on the stage area." Annie delivers a monologue about
winning the BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD. She says that she will buy all of Patsy
Cline's records with the winnings and go to taverns and nightclubs, and she will bring her
daughter Ellen and Ellen's white boyfriend. She dreams of becoming a singer for Fritz the
Katz.

Then, Marie-Adele speaks about how when she wins the bingo, she will buy an island in the
North Channel and live there with Eugene and her 12 sons and 2 daughters. Veronique says
that when she wins bingo, she will buy a big new stove, and cook for all the children on the
reserve and adopt all of Marie-Adele's children. "And Pierre St. Pierre can drink himself to
death for all I care. Because I'll be the best cook on all of Manitoulin Island!" She wants to
become a great cook, travel to Paris, and write a cookbook.

The scene shifts to the store, where Annie, Marie-Adele, Veronique, and Zhaboonigan have
all traveled. Emily Dictionary comes on with a bag of flour, and Highway describes her as
"one tough lady, wearing cowboy boots, tight blue jeans, a black leather jacket" and with a
black eye. Emily asks Zhaboonigan what she's doing hanging out with these "dizzy dames."
Emily wants to know if Gazelle is going away to Toronto with Big Joey, and Veronique says
that she saw her leaving Big Joey's place a few nights ago. Veronique tries to figure out who
hit Emily, but Emily ignores her, calling to Zhaboonigan.

Veronique speaks up, annoyed that Emily called Zhaboonigan a pagan, and when she
insults Emily's name, Emily throws her across the room into Pelajia, just as Pelajia is
entering the store. Philomena then comes on and goes straight to the bathroom. Annie
warns Pelajia not to get on the wrong side of Veronique, who is liable to spread rumors
about her if crossed.

Annie tells Emily that Veronique is mad at her for not telling her about what happened at Big
Joey's, and that she is jealous of Gazelle for winning bingo. She also says that Veronique
thinks Emily is the only woman brave enough to stand up to Gazelle.

As the women begin to fight, Philomena peeks her head out of the bathroom and tells Emily
that she has no right to be so haughty after being away from the reserve for so many years.
Pelajia raises her hammer to hit Veronique, and "a full-scale riot breaks out, during which the
women throw every conceivable insult at each other." All of the women yell at each other,
angrily.

Analysis

A great deal of the story revolves around each of the characters' sense of yearning. They all
dream of the world becoming easier for themselves, and this is represented primarily by the
promise of winning at bingo. Each of the characters holds out hope that bingo winnings will
be the thing to pull them out of their respective financial slumps and help them live the life
they want to live. Veronique tells Marie-Adele that she heard a rumor that the biggest bingo
is coming to Toronto, and they marvel at the possibilities that that entails. The characters'
happiness is completely dependent on their ability to win at a game of chance, which
represents the ways that they are at the whim of an economic system that is completely out
of their control.

In spite of their gossip and their betrayals of one another, the women all maintain a strong
bond. Marie-Adele stole her sister Annie's husband from her, but there is no clear sign of
animosity between them. Additionally, Marie-Adele's illness is not a major topic of
conversation, in spite of the fact that her life is at stake. Throughout their interactions in the
first and beginning of this section of the play, the characters remain discreet and subtle,
revealing details of their personal lives and emotional responses slowly and intentionally.

The play is not a realistic play, as evidenced by the introduction of the mythical character
Nanabush who appears in the guise of a seagull, and the various moments that characters
deliver monologues that are not directly aimed at fellow characters, but at the audience. For
instance, in this section, Nanabush follows the women to the store and mimics their hand
and mouth movements. This kind of display is impossible to imagine a real seagull doing, so
the reader must envision a different kind of theatrical space, in which the seagull is some
kind of stage representation of a seagull. Then, the stage directions tell us that the women
appear in different spots of light around the stage, and each deliver different monologues
about what they want. Here, Highway uses a theatrical tableau to reveal the subjective
feelings and desires of his characters.

In spite of some of the dark undertones in the plot, the play is primarily a comedy. Often, the
characters have absurd relationships to one another, defined by the silliness and warmth of
intimacy. Even in moments when a darker subtext is revealed, it often comes out in an
absurd way. For instance, Veronique's husband is an alcoholic, but rather than bemoan this
fact as a tragedy, Veronique uses it as fodder for a joke about her own desires and dreams.
In her monologue about what she would do with the winnings from THE BIGGEST BINGO
IN THE WORLD, she tells the audience, "...Pierre St. Pierre can drink himself to death for all
I care. Because I'll be the best cook on all of Manitoulin Island!"

Even the fighting and violence, while intense, is humorous. When a "full-scale riot" breaks
out at the store, Highway writes individual monologues for each of the women, detailing their
gripes with one another. He stages a huge brawl, with verbal and physical assaults being
flung in a huge chaotic cacophony. This violence is so exaggerated and hateful as to
become absurd; while it tells us about the women's resentments of one another, it also tells
us about the intensity of the social entanglements within the reserve at large.

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF PART 3

Summary

As Marie-Adele grabs Veronique's throat, everyone freezes, and a light comes up on

Zhaboonigan, who ran out of the store in fear. She delivers a monologue about how she was
sexually assaulted by two white boys, suggesting that they put a screwdriver inside her. She
says it was quite bloody and the boys left her in a bush, before revealing that her name
Zhaboonigan means "needle," or "going-through-thing." As she delivers this monologue,
Nanabush, the seagull, "goes through agonizing contortions."

The lights go back up on the store, as Marie-Adele accuses Veronique of adopting

Zhaboonigan so that she can collect her disability check. With that, Annie, Marie-Adele, and
Emily all push Veronique until she is almost crying. As Marie-Adele goes to punch
Veronique, she becomes overwhelmed by fatigue because of her illness.

ssaulted by two white boys, suggesting that they put a screwdriver inside her. She says it
was quite bloody and the boys left her in a bush, before revealing that her name
Zhaboonigan means "needle," or "going-through-thing." As she delivers this monologue,
Nanabush, the seagull, "goes through agonising contortions."

The lights go back up on the store, as Marie-Adele accuses Veronique of adopting

Zhaboonigan so that she can collect her disability check. With that, Annie, Marie-Adele, and
Emily all push Veronique until she is almost crying. As Marie-Adele goes to punch
Veronique, she becomes overwhelmed by fatigue because of her illness.

Philomena comes out and tells Emily that her toilet will not flush, as the other women run to
Marie-Adele's side. As Marie-Adele screams at everyone for trying to help her, Annie goes
offstage to the back part of the store where the post office is. Philomena asks Emily who
gave her a black eye, and Veronique says that it was Big Joey. Emily talks about the fact that
she walked out on Henry Dadzinanare, her former lover, as well as her kids, one night when
he threatened her with an axe.

"And she took the bus to San Francisco," Annie yells from offstage. Emily lists all of her
sisters from the motorcycle gang she joined, then tells the girls that the black eye came from
a fight that broke out between her, Big Joey, and Gazelle. The punch was intended for
Gazelle. Veronique leaves the stage abruptly to look for Zhaboonigan.
Annie comes back in with her parcel and two letters. There's a Patsy Cline record in the
parcel, and she hands the other envelope to Marie-Adele. Annie then reads her letter from
her daughter, which mentions THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD, with a jackpot of
$500,000, that is happening in Toronto on September 8th.

Everyone becomes incredibly excited about the bingo, while Marie-Adele looks at her letter,
which says her tests will take place in Toronto on September 10th, two days after the bingo.
"I wanna go," says Marie-Adele about the bingo. Emily is skeptical about how they are going
to get to Toronto, but Veronique suggests that they can pool their money and rent a car.
When Emily insults Philomena, they begin to wrestle, but Pelajia hits the counter with her
hammer to get everyone's attention.

Veronique signals to the other women that Pelajia has money, and they surround her as she
makes a speech. Pelajia says that they should go to the Band Council to ask for a loan so
that they can go to the bingo. "I know how to handle that tired old chief. He and I have been
arguing about paved roads for years now. I'll tell him we'll build paved roads all over the
reserve with our prize money. I'll tell him the people will stop drinking themselves to death
because they'll have paved roads to walk on. I'll tell him there'll be more jobs because the
people will have paved roads to drive to work on." She then says that if the chief still says
no, she will hit him in the head with her hammer and they will steal the money.

The women march off to the office, led by Pelajia. Nanabush follows them, and the "invisible"
chief speaks to them, clearly refusing their request. A stage direction reads, "Pelajia raises
her hammer to hit the 'invisble' chief, Nanabush shrugs a 'don't ask me, I don't know,' Emily
fingers a 'fuck you, man.' Blackout."

Act 2. The women hold a meeting in Pelajia's basement, with some women drinking tea and
Emily and Annie drinking beer. Emily bangs Pelajia's hammer throughout the meeting. Annie
tells the group that it takes four hours to get to Toronto, but Philomena thinks it's more like
eight. Marie-Adele, on the other hand, says that Eugene drove there in six. On the question
of how to get there, Annie thinks they ought to borrow Big Joey's van, but they cannot agree
about when to leave. They decide that Veronique will cook, and that everyone can contribute
$20 a person. They also try and estimate gas money, and figure they have 10 days to find it.

Analysis

This section begins with a rather startling revelation from Zhaboonigan. Having stepped
away from the violent outbursts of the other women, she tells the audience that she was
sexually assaulted by two white boys with a screwdriver in the past. Because of her mental
disability, Zhaboonigan does not relate information in the typical fashion and delivers this
disturbing news in a meandering, almost musical monologue. As she delivers this speech,
Nanabush, in the form of a seagull, "goes through agonizing contortions," reflecting the
horror of what Zhaboonigan is relating.

There is a push and pull between ferocity and vulnerability in the play. For example, just as
Marie-Adele is about to punch a weeping Veronique in the face, having already gotten ahold
of her neck, she becomes incredibly weak, doubled over from her illness. The moment of
violence is heightened and horrifying—how could she possibly punch her friend in the
face?—but just as quickly as she winds up for the punch, Marie-Adele is overwhelmed with
exhaustion and cannot hit her friend, becoming a vulnerable shell of herself. Each of the
women has something inside them, psychological or physical, that renders them vulnerable
and afraid, in spite of their extremely aggressive public-facing personas.

All of the personal dramas and conflicts that divided the women up until this point are
diffused by the news from Annie's daughter about THE BIGGEST BINGO IN THE WORLD.
As soon as Annie reads the letter, the women erupt into excitement, talking about the
promise that the bingo holds, the fact that they might be able to purchase some of their
dream items. The promise of economic autonomy and prosperity removes all of the
interpersonal conflicts that have overwhelmed them, and they can share in a group vision of
deliverance and wealth.

The image of wealth and abundance that the women imagine for themselves and the tribe is
not defined only by personal wealth, as represented by the speech that Pelajia makes. She
says that she will tell the chief that, with the bingo winnings, they will build paved roads,
which will sustain and raise up the community from poverty. In an impassioned monologue,
she describes that the paved roads will take away all of the alcohol abuse in the community,
that it will create more jobs for members of the community, that it will bring the spirit of
Nanabush back to the community and redistribute money to all of the tribe members. In this,
we see that the promise of bingo is not simply some empty promise of personal
accumulation, but a dream of a better life for the entire tribe.

The road to the bingo game is not a simple one, as the women of the tribe continually fight
about how they will get there and how they will accumulate the money they require for the
game itself and for provisions along the way. Nearly every group scene is a chaotic one, and
this moment of planning is no exception. Each of the women disagrees about the prices of
things, about what they should drive, where they should stay, and who should be in charge
of particular things. While they are united in their vision of attending the bingo, they are
hardly united in the journey itself.

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF PART 4

Summary

Suddenly, Zhaboonigan screams because Nanabush has pushed her off her stool. The
women laugh, as Emily takes a pencil to calculate the expenses for the trip, which she
determines to be $1,400, meaning everyone will need to contribute $200. As a musician
begins to play a driving beat, the women begin fundraising. The women sell all of the things
in Pelajia's basement at a yard sale, as Emily rings them up. Pelajia hammers at the roof
while Emily mans the register.

They continue, with Philomena bringing in baskets full of beer bottles, with two babies
attached to her. Marie-Adele strings laundry, as Veronique brings in seven apple pies. In the
next beat, Philomena then has three babies attached to her, Annie and Emily sing their song
in bad harmony, and Veronique brings in freshly baked bread. In the next beat, Zhaboonigan
washes windows and cries, Emily and Philomena fill beer cases, Philomena has four babies
attached to her, Annie enters with a black and white television, and Marie-Adele strings more
laundry. Philomena eventually hangs a sign advertising "World's Biggest Bottle Drive," with
five babies attached to her. Veronique puts up a sign that says "World's Biggest Bake Sale,"
Annie puts one up for "World's Biggest Garage Sale," and Marie Adele advertises
blueberries and laundry while customers are waiting. The music stops and the women
collapse.

Pelajia gives a speech about the money raised, a grand total of $1233.65. Suddenly, we are
transported to the Anchor Inn, where Emily and Annie are performing. Emily introduces a
song as something she wrote in memory of Rosabella Baez, "a Rez Sister from way back."
The song is called "I'm Thinkin' of You" and it's a country song. During the song, the women
put their belongings in a van to travel to Toronto and hit the road.

Emily asks how much money she and Annie made from singing, and Pelajia says they
brought in $330. Annie drives, and Emily sits next to her listening to a Walkman. Marie-Adele
asks Annie if she's ever considered getting married again, and Annie says she hasn't.
Marie-Adele tries to tell Annie that she did not steal Eugene, and begins talking about what
Annie should do if she dies, but Annie does not want to talk about it.

Pelajia and Philomena talk, and Philomena asks if Pelajia knows the significance of
September 8th. Pelajia thinks that maybe it's when their mother died, but Pelajia clarifies that
it's the birthday of the child she had to give up after having an affair with a married man while
working as a secretary in Toronto. The child would be 28 years old now, and Philomena
fantasizes about getting a lawyer and finding the child.

Annie and Emily begin singing, "I'm a little Indian who loves fry bread" and drink whiskey out
of Annie's purse. Annie wants to sing at a bar in Toronto, and possibly have sex, as Emily
begins to sing Patsy Cline's song "Crazy." Emily talks about Big Joey's body—his large rear
end and "a dick that's bigger than a goddamn breadbox," before asking Annie about Fritz the
Katz. Annie tells her that Fritz is Jewish and fantasizes about being his wife because "white
guys" are "nicer to their women." Emily tells her to keep her eyes on the highway.

Suddenly, they get a flat tire, and the stage is plunged into darkness. Zhaboonigan keeps
saying "pee pee," to denote that she has to urinate, and they try and find the spare tire.
Marie-Adele and Zhaboonigan go to find a place for Zhaboonigan to urinate, while the others
lift the van to replace the tire. Suddenly, Nanabush appears as a nighthawk with dark
feathers and begins attacking Marie-Adele. Zhaboonigan tries to help, but the bird knocks
her down, and as Marie-Adele screams, Zhaboonigan sobs and counts to herself, until the
other women come running to help.

Analysis

Playwright Tomson Highway often creates a theatrical world that goes beyond realism in
order to show more atmospheric or spiritual dimensions to scenes. For instance, after the
women decide that they need to raise a great deal of money for their trip to Toronto, he
stages a flurry of activity to denote their fundraising efforts, with a musician playing an
insistent drumbeat to signal the urgency of their activities. The stage direction reads, "The
movement of the women covers the entire stage area, and like the music, gets wilder and
wilder, until by the end it is as if we are looking at an insane eight-ring circus, eight-ring
because through all this, Nanabush, as the seagull, has a holiday, particularly with
Marie-Adele's lines of laundry, as Marie-Adele madly strings one line of laundry after another
all over the set, from Pelajia's roof to Emily's store, etc."

This theatrical flurry, in which the women are doing all number of activities in anticipation of
their trip, lasts a long time. It is an extensive and tightly choreographed series of events, and
its length shows us the extent to which the women must work for their money to travel to
Toronto. Their movements and tasks become almost mechanized, between hammering and
bringing on loads of bottles and stringing laundry, showing the monotony of labor and the
ways that the mundane tasks of the women's lives are repetitive and demanding.

In the van to Toronto, the women begin to talk about some of the important things that are
going on in their lives, and the more difficult topics of conversation. Marie-Adele tries to talk
to her sister Annie both about the fact that she ended up with Annie's husband, and what to
do in the event of her illness, but Annie does not want to talk about it. Meanwhile, Pelajia
and Philomena talk about the fact that their mother fell ill and died. Philomena discusses the
fact that she had a good job in Toronto and had a child with a married man, but had to give
up the child and knows nothing about its life. The van ride becomes a suspended place in
which the women can talk about their fears and sadness from the past.

The trip seems to be going perfectly until they get a flat tire and the whole stage is plunged
into darkness. After a blackout, we can just hear the voices of the women as they strategize
and bicker about what to do next. This theatricalization of their difficulty, the fact that they are
suddenly literally "in the dark," shows us that the trip to Toronto is not going to be as smooth
as planned, and will in fact be even more difficult than they initially thought.

Matters only get worse when Nanabush, having transformed into a nighthawk, begins to
attack the already sick Marie-Adele. While she stands there looking calmly at the bird for a
moment, it begins to attack her, which only makes Marie-Adele hysterical. Nanabush is a
meddling and disruptive presence in the play, an entity that shakes up the characters and
brings out their stronger and less organized emotions. Here, Marie-Adele's hysteria builds
gradually, crescendoing into complete panic and dismay.

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS OF PART 5

Summary

Marie-Adele asks the women what time it is, and Pelajia tells her it's 4:20. Annie notes that
they are 2 hours behind schedule, and they get back in the van, Marie-Adele now sitting in
the front with Emily, with Zhaboonigan between them. Emily tells Zhaboonigan that she
scared her.

Marie-Adele gives a monologue about how Eugene does not tell her when he is sad,
shutting her out and disappearing for the night. "I can't even have him inside me anymore.
It's still growing there. The cancer," she says. Pelajia tells a story about a couple she knew in
which one member of the couple was dying and the other member was mad at them for
dying. "There's only so much Eugene can understand, Marie-Adele. He's only human," she
says.

Emily delivers a monologue and talks about her affair with Rosabella Baez, leader of the Rez
Sisters. She says, "She was always thinkin' real deep. And talkin' about bein' a woman. An
Indian woman. And suicide. And alcohol and despair and how fuckin' hard it is to be an
Indian in this country." Emily talks about how Rosabella was into drugs and drove straight
into an 18-wheeler. After seeing that, Emily drove to Salt Lake City then found a way back to
Canada. Emily begins to cry.

Emily listens to her Walkman while she drives, and sings along to "Blue Kentucky Girl" by
Emmylou Harris, as Marie-Adele falls asleep. Zhaboonigan wakes up and sings along with
the song, and starts playing "slap" with Emily. When Emily calls "Zhaboonigan" a "retard,"
Zhaboonigan hits her in the stomach, which upsets Emily, but they both apologize.

"You gonna have kids someday, Zha?" Emily asks, and tells Zhaboonigan to drive the van.
Suddenly, Emily says "Bingo!!!" and the house lights come up to reveal that they are at the
big bingo event. The Bingo Master, whom Highway describes as "the most beautiful man in
the world" begins speaking. He speaks at length about the beauty of bingo, building
climactically to the invocation of the grand jackpot: "A HALF MILLION SMACKEROOS!!!"

The game begins, as the women from the reserve take their seats. Suddenly, the house
lights go out and "the only lights now are on the bingo balls bouncing around in the bingo
machine—an eery, surreal sort of glow—and on the seven women who are now playing
bingo with a vengeance on centerstage, behind the Bingo Master, where a long bingo table
has magically appeared with Zhaboonigan at the table's center banging a crucifix Veronique
has brought along for good look. The scene is lit so that it looks like 'The Last Supper.'"

A theatrical dance of sorts takes place, with the women taking control of the bingo machine,
grabbing the machine and running out of the theater with it. "Bingo cards are flying like
confetti," the stage direction reads. Suddenly we see Marie-Adele dancing with the Bingo
Master, as he says "Bingo" in her ear. Suddenly, he turns into Nanabush in dark feathers,
and the stage transforms into Marie-Adele's porch on the reserve.

Marie-Adele delivers a monologue in Cree, as Nanabush escorts her into the spirit world.
Zhaboonigan tries to go with her, but Emily brings her back at the last moment. The other
women sing the Ojibway funeral song. Marie-Adele has died and the women gather around
her grave.

Pelajia speaks directly to Marie-Adele, and about how it is important to live life to the fullest.
"See you when that big bird finally comes for me," she says. The scene shifts to the store,
where Emily shows Zhaboonigan how to stock the shelves with Carnation milk. Abruptly,
Zhaboonigan hugs Emily, as Annie enters. "There's obviously something wrong with her," the
stage direction reads. They discuss the fact that Philomena won $600, which she plans to
use to buy a toilet, but no one else won.
Annie announces that she is singing back-up for Fritz the Katz for $25 a gig. Emily calls her
a whore, but Annie insists that she loves Fritz. When Annie leaves, Emily tells Zhaboonigan
in confidence that she is pregnant with Big Joey's baby.

The scene shifts to Veronique at Eugene's, cradling a doll as if it were a child. Annie enters
and wonders what Veronique is doing there. Veronique tells her that she is cooking for
Eugene for the four days since Marie-Adele's funeral. She brags about the wonderful meals
she has cooked, and tells Annie that Eugene is not home, but Annie wants to know if Simon
has a new record. Veronique speaks condescendingly about Annie's habit of performing at
the nightclub. The women exchange words, and Annie leaves.

Pelajia works on her roof, calling to Philomena. Philomena tells Pelajia that she will never be
the chief, since she is a woman, but Pelajia figures that the tribe would be much better off if
women were in charge. Suddenly, Annie pops up at the top of the ladder, and tells
Philomena she is borrowing her record player to practice a song for that night. Philomena
tells her it isn't working very well, but she can borrow it for the night. When Annie mentions
that there's a bingo in Espanola next week, Pelajia and Philomena tell her they want to come
along. Annie leaves.

Philomena asks Pelajia if she is still thinking about going to Toronto, and Pelajia says her
son is telling her not to play so much bingo. Philomena brags about her beautiful bathroom,
and particularly the toilet bowl itself. Pelajia becomes annoyed with her as she discusses her
toilet, in a kind of reverie. Eventually, Philomena goes, leaving Pelajia on the roof to hammer.
As she hammers, Nanabush appears as a seagull on the roof, and dances to the beat of the
hammer.

Analysis

The women continue on their journey, getting in the van and driving towards Toronto. After
Marie-Adele's run-in with Nanabush, she is more contemplative about her situation, and
shares that she and Eugene are not getting along very well ever since her diagnosis. In a
tender and vulnerable monologue, she reveals that her cancer affects her sexual organs,
which prevents them from having sex. Emily tells a story of her former lover, Rosabella
Baez, and how they shared a sense of "how fuckin' hard it is to be an Indian in this country."
The van ride in between the reserve and Toronto becomes a space in which the women can
finally process some of their most vulnerable and difficult feelings.

Emily, a markedly tough character, shows her vulnerability in this final section of the play.
She describes her relationship with the complicated Rosabella Baez, who killed herself in
front of her. In recounting the experience, Emily begins to cry and admits, "I loved that
woman, Marie-Adele, I loved her like no man's ever loved a woman." This is the first time
she explicitly addresses her queer relationship with Rosabella, and while she has grief about
Rosabella's fate, she carries no shame about the nature of their relationship.

The more contemplative moments in the van are interrupted, rather suddenly, by a theatrical
shift to denote that the women make it to the bingo game in Toronto. On Emily's prompting,
the house lights come up and the Bingo Master appears, representing their arrival in the city.
The Bingo Master is described as "the most beautiful man in the world" and speaks in a
highly charismatic way about the bingo game. The dream of bingo, which the audience has
only heard about secondhand from the characters, comes to life on the stage.

The bingo game is less of a realistic scene than another larger-than-life montage that
represents the emotional and spiritual trajectory of the women's time in Toronto. As the bingo
game begins, the stage completely transforms, and the lighting reflects something like "The
Last Supper." When the bingo is not going the women's way, they storm the stage and
remove the machine from the room. Meanwhile, bingo cards fly through the air "like confetti"
and the music reflects the mayhem of the moment. As the Bingo Master, waltzing with
Marie-Adele, tells her that she has won bingo, he immediately turns into Nanabush, the
trickster, and they are transported, just as quickly as they arrived, back to the reserve, where
Marie-Adele dies. This scene, which the play has been building towards, is a poetic fever
dream, an over-the-top representation of the group's time in Toronto, leading towards
Marie-Adele's untimely death.

The play ends on a bittersweet and ambiguous note. The bingo, which held such promise for
the women, does not become the life-changing experience that they had imagined. Instead,
it became the site of Marie-Adele's untimely death and the place where only Philomena
makes off with any winnings—$600, which she uses to purchase a new toilet. Annie is
unable to get along with any of the women, Veronique moves in on Eugene, Marie-Adele's
widower, and Pelajia gets back to working on her roof. The end of the play lands the
characters in more or less the same place where they started. While we as the audience are
privy to the ways their lives have changed, life goes on on the reserve.