Erin Kelley, local actress and director and Managing Artistic Director of the Avalon Theatre Company, has white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. She's also one-fourth Cherokee and Shawnee, and that's the part of her heritage she discusses in her one-woman show, "Portrait of My People," which opened last night as an Avalon production at its theater in Crestwood Court's art space. It runs through Oct. 4.
Designed to present at school and community groups, and available to go "on the road" starting in November, the one-hour playlet, which Kelley wrote and co-directed with John Contini, is a sincere look at a life marked by its Native American component. Kelley's mother is half-Native American, her father is Irish. Her grandmother, called "Mugga" with childhood affection and pronunciation, was Shawnee and Cherokee, and obviously had a great influence on Kelly.
With a slide show accompaniment that desperately needs adjustment, and personal jewelry, dresses and moccasins that are family heirlooms, she explains some of the problems caused by her looks, talks a little about Native American culture, reads a passage from Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" as the perfect description of poverty.
Kelley relates a lovely fable about the Great Spirit's problems of finding something to oversee the Earth when she is away. She decides upon a tree, because its leaves, serving as eyes, can watch over the Earth, and she then narrows it to evergreens, because their eyes work all year long, not turning color and falling off in the autumn.
She also discusses the U. S. government and some of its treatment of her people. After centuries of pushing Native Americans into reservations that have often been little more than prisons or concentration camps, it was decided to pay reparations to the people and their descendants. Kelley got a check for $52.10. One moment in the otherwise charming production needs further explanation, however. Kelley talks about Native American religions, language and customs being taken away in reservation schools, then uses sign language as a recording of the Lord's Prayer is sung. It's a jarring note, almost as if she is showing an example of this high-handed attitude, but Larry Mabrey, Kelley's husband, told me later that her family adopted Christianity many generations ago. A comment to this effect is needed to avoid confusion.
Kelley, born in Tulsa, spent most of her early life in Nashville, Ill. She's both passionate and charming, and so sincere that being able to share in her childhood and knowledge makes the listener feel like the recipient of a gift.
An Avalon Theatre Company production at the Crestwood Art Center through Oct. 4
–Joe