ABSTRACT
Yvette Nolan’s 2013 play, The Birds, adapts Aristophanes’ comedy into an anti-colonial and pro-democracy fable advocating First Nations peoples’ self-determination. Aristophanes suggests democracy drags down aristocratic virtues, but communal decision making is central to Nolan’s Birds’ governance. Nolan proffers this form of consensus-based direct democracy as a return to Indigenous traditions of self-government. Athenian direct democracy is vastly different from contemporary representative democracy, but Nolan’s play enacts a third democratic tradition. Nolan’s adaptation performs Indigenous resurgence, valorizing First Nations’ values. Unlike Aristophanes’ play, where Pisthetareus successfully builds his Bird city-state, Nolan’s Birds reassert their own culture. Eagle reminds the Birds that they rejected the ideology of ownership that allows some to exploit others. Eagle says, “We chose to begin again / Remembering what we know in our hearts / What, between us all, we can remember / Moving forward in a good way // The land cannot be owned / The walls must come down.” This reminds the Birds of their communal values and the ethical importance of living in harmony.
