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.
