What language will one need to speak in the afterlife?

The question arises with urgency after siblings Shadi (Elena Yazzie) and Broder (Nathaniel TwoBears) are temporarily cast into the spirit world during an intervention. Broder does not speak his family's ancestral Navajo language. Shadi knows only a few phrases, which she begins to yell in desperation.

Fortunately for them, the Formless Being (Niizhogaabo) appears, speaking both Diné bizaad and English. The afterlife, it turns out, is bilingual.

The brief scene is one of several witty and engaging moments in Rhiana Yazzie's (no relation to Elena Yazzie) new comedy, "The Nut, the Hermit, the Crow and the Monk."

Yazzie's and co-director Amber Ball's staging of "Nut" runs through this weekend, as the capstone show in the 15th season of New Native Theatre, which playwright Yazzie founded. It has the feel of DIY project, with the creative team using theatrical invention to maximize the company's small resources. A cardboard box is used effectively as a car, for example. And there's shadow puppetry and lots of poetic symbolism.

The play itself has an overlay of story lines that spoof the self-help movement. The main plot involves Shadi, Broder and their cousin Prima (LaReina LaPlante) confronting Prima's dad (Thomas Draskovic) about his drinking habit.

The family also includes a mom who deals with her traumas by watching YouTube cat videos, and Aunty Ti (Meredith McCoy), a famous writer and self-help guru who exposes their intimate pain in her writings — oblivious to the new pain she's causing ("it won an award" she tells family members when asked why she does that).

A one-act, "Nut" is imaginative and highly creative. And the acting company works tirelessly. Yazzie makes references as varied as Pink Floyd and Amy Winehouse. There also are inside jokes, with members of the audience laughing at different lines and scenarios. And that's OK, because the playwright is bringing Native culture to the world and the world to the Native culture.

Still, "Nut" occasionally feels overstuffed.

But to say that the acting and production values, while competent and credible, are not up to the standards of, say, the Guthrie Theater misses the point.

For Yazzie and New Native Theatre are involved in an exciting and important project that harkens to the founding of the Guthrie itself. Minnesota has had a special place in the American performing arts landscape, both as a catalyst and as home to some leading theater companies.

"Nut" shows that New Native is building in a similar vein. The show displays the results of the effort to both build an audience for this type of work and the artists to execute it. That is the real celebration for a play and a theater that's making strides and providing some surprisingly incisive and insightful entertainment along the way.

'The Nut, the Hermit, the Crow and the Monk'

When: 7:30 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun.

Where: Gremlin Theatre, 550 Vandalia St. St. Paul.

Tickets: $35 or pay-as-you-can. brownpapertickets.com.