Summary
A three-woman mosaic about facing family. Tammy, a lifelong couch-surfer and radical environmentalist, takes her conventional sister Tabitha to a kiva in Mesa Verde National Park to confront her about the slow death of their mother and her refusal to let anyone in. Skipping through memory, two sisters have it out and find that their perspectives have been tainted by grief. Narrated by a Goddess who plays the sisters’ mother and other figures, the play pulls together the violent history of the land with a tale of private loss.
‘Mesa Verde’ is Bennett’s most complex and eloquent play to date.
From the script:
TABITHA
You think I’m her.TAMARA
I think you’re on your way.TABITHA
And you think you so get her, too.TAMARA
Please. Hopelessness isn’t hard to get. It’s everywhere.GODDESS
Oh is it?TAMARA
And not least in the manicured wasteland where we grew up.TABITHA
So suburbia killed her? You’re a joke, Tammy.TAMARA
Am I?TABITHA
I hope they catch you, whatever you did. I pray they catch you and put you in a plain white prison in the middle of a golf course and feed you peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Wonder Bread.
