THREE RIVERS MEETING

Written and performed by Jim Stowell
Produced by The History Theater
Directed by Ron Peluso

“The linchpin of the play is encountering racism in Red Wing. But, there’s nothing preachy about Stowell’s style. He merely sets a set of experience before you in captivating fashion and lets you draw your own conclusions. He leaves you to draw your own parallels between such initially disparate incidents as a funny/horrifying encounter with a Texas neighbor and the plight of Native people in Red Wing. But one of the most rewarding aspects of this show is found by diving through the layers that tie one tale to another. ‘Three Rivers Meeting’ is a marvelous piece of writing.” (January 8, 1998)

“‘Three Rivers Meeting’ is vintage Stowell. Stowell travels back and forth between his recent encounter with a local Indian chief and his tempestuous relationship with his mother while growing up in McAllen, Texas. Woven into the fabric of the tale is a thoughtful and often humorous meditation on race relations between Indians and whites, with the young Stowell cruising the border looking to beat up Mexicans, and the elder Stowell canoeing with an Indian elder who helps to run a casino. The set comprises nothing but a picnic table, an ice chest, and a few trees, but Stowell manages to paint an imaginative world so lucid that the stage itself is almost incidental. The real show happens inside your mind, in a place veteran Stowell watchers will instantly recognize—a world both realistic and surreal, infused with a novelist’s attention to psychological detail, a comedian’s sense of timing, and an actor’s ability for poignant silences.” (January, 14, 1998)