Sovereignty unfolds over two parallel timelines. In present-day
Oklahoma, a young Cherokee lawyer, Sarah Ridge Polson, and her colleague
Jim Ross defend the inherent jurisdiction of Cherokee Nation in the U.S.
Supreme Court when a non-Indian defendant challenges the Nation's
authority to prosecute non-Indian perpetrators of domestic violence.
Their collaboration is juxtaposed with scenes from 1835, when Cherokee
Nation was eight hundred miles to the east in the southern Appalachians.
That year, Sarah's and Jim's ancestors, historic Cherokee rivals, were
bitterly divided over a proposed treaty with the administration of
Andrew Jackson, the Treaty of New Echota, which led to the nation's
removal to Oklahoma on the infamous Trail of Tears.
A direct descendant of nineteenth-century Cherokee leaders John Ridge
and Major Ridge, Mary Kathryn Nagle has penned a play that twists and
turns from violent outbursts to healing monologues, illuminating a
provocative double meaning for the sovereignty of both tribal territory
and women's bodies. Taking as its point of departure the story of one
lawyer's passionate defense of the rights of her people to prosecute
non-natives who commit crimes on reservations, Sovereignty opens up
into an expansive exploration of the circular continuity of history,
human memory, and the power of human relationships.
