An award-winning play about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons, presenting the story of an Iñupiaq woman in rural Alaska trying to recover her aunt’s body from an Anchorage morgue, is making its stage debut this week at Perseverance Theatre.
“Cold Case,” by Anchorage-born Iñupiaq Cathy Tagnak Rexford, highlights the struggles that can occur in remote Alaska Native villages as well as big-city bureaucracy. It was the winner of the 2022 National Theatre Conference Barry and Bernice Stavis Playwright’s Award, and Perseverance has featured it at numerous readings and workshops, but its official opening stage performance is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Performances in Juneau are scheduled through Sept. 22, including two shows Sept. 15 and 19 that will be followed by talkback sessions featuring cast members and leaders with the AWARE shelter, with performances in Anchorage scheduled at the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Fine Arts Building Mainstage from Oct. 11-20.
The play features two primary on-stage characters — Aaka Mary, the mother of the missing woman, and her granddaughter, Joanna, the woman looking for her aunt’s body. Other actors largely offstage perform a multitude of “remote” personas with character names in the script such as “voice on the phone,” “airline agent” and “random radio user.”
Dark themes and settings are prevalent in “Cold Case,” a play featuring issues related to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons, which is scheduled to make its stage debut Friday at Perseverance Theatre. (Akiko Nishijima Rotch / Perseverance Theatre)
One of those off-stage performers is Jennifer Quinto, a Juneau artist and child of the Shungukeidi from the L’uxnax.adi clan, who is listed in the program as playing “Alaska Native Female Offstage Characters.” She said before a rehearsal Thursday she has firsthand connections to the issues involved because of “people that I have grown up with that are now missing, and then that is constantly happening in our communities.”
But she said the play is about more than simply the tragedy of the crimes themselves.
“We’ve had so much exposure to stories in terms of like crime shows — it’s about the mystery of the crime, there’s kind of questioning as to why,” she said. “But really the point of this story is that’s what happens with these cases. Everything that they need to solve, the situation is there. And it’s not about the plausibility of solving it or not. It’s that people don’t have interest in solving these cases and that’s what we’re up against, is just the lack of care.”
The play is opening the same week that Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed into law a bill intended to solve more Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons cases. Its provisions include requiring the state to employ two full-time MMIP investigators to pursue cold cases, cultural training for police officers, and establishing a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Review Commission. Alaska Native people have the highest rates of domestic and sexual violence in the nation, according to federal legislation introduced in 2022.
“People know what transpires, but they don’t see the grief, they don’t see the frustration, they don’t see the intensity and tenacity of trying to move through this process, and so this kind of pulls back the curtain on what happens inside the home,” Quinto said.
The play is directed by DeLanna Studi, a Cherokee Nation citizen and artistic director of Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles.
“Many of us are familiar with this or have heard the acronyms before, but most of us never delve deeper past the all too familiar headline of ‘Missing,’” she wrote in a director’s note. “Cathy takes us into the painful aftermath of that one word and forces us to examine how we deal with sorrow, despair, and rage. And then she pushes us to go further as she confines us to a place with all the illusions of safety and access: our own home. Suddenly, the systems in place that make our lives seem more manageable become obstacles to overcome, and the lack of human empathy becomes unbearable.”
The role of Aaka Mary is played by Nutaaq Doreen Simmonds, a Utqiagvik resident who was born in the town, who after retiring as an Inupiat language teacher has emerged as an actor in TV productions including the most recent season of “True Detective” and the upcoming Arctic comedy “North of North” scheduled to debut next March on Netflix.
Returning to Perseverance to play Joanna is Xáalnook Erin Tripp, a Juneau-based actor who has appeared in productions of “Where the Summit Meets the Stars,” “Devilfish” and “Whale Song.” She also was named one the First Peoples Fund’s Artists in Business Leadership Fellows last year.
Other cast members include Bostin Christopher (“Male Offstage Characters”) and Frank Henry Kaash Katasse (“Alaska Native Male Offstage Characters”).
The two shows featuring talkbacks that include cast members and leaders of AWARE, which offers shelter and supportive services for local survivors of domestic or sexual violence, are scheduled to last about 30 to 45 minutes, according to a theater program. AWARE’s Executive Director Mandy Cole is scheduled to participate after the Sept. 15 show, and Legal and Sexual Assault Director Swarupa Toth after the Sept. 19 show.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
Know and Go
What: “Cold Case” stage play by Cathy Tagnak Rexford.
Where: Perseverance Theatre.
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Sept. 21; 4 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 22.
Tickets: ptalaska.org (shows Sept. 8 and 12 are pay-as-you-can at the door).
Other: Performances are also scheduled Oct. 11-20 at the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Fine Arts Building Mainstage.
