From The Golf Room

     Not too long ago, I found myself in New York City. As much as I wanted to walk around and ask people what is it like to have a committed socialist/communist mayor (and trust me, I thought about it), instead, I stayed focused and I walked into the stage production of  Indian Princesses at the Atlantic Theater Company on the advice of a friend. I expected to leave the theater very frustrated. I was anticipating another off-Broadway production rehearsing familiar claims about the past and slotting everything neatly into the language of identity. The play revisits the old YMCA father-daughter program that borrowed, often awkwardly, from Native American imagery and trials. Given the current cultural script, I assumed I knew where this was going: appropriation, confusion, and a tidy, annoying moral about the hidden damage of suburban American life.     All that said, I walked out pleasantly surprised. And, more than that, grateful. Not because the criticism...