Letter to the Editor: The Thanksgiving Play is a "Deep and Broad Parody of Over-the-Top Wokeness
It was as if playwright FastHorse was saying, “So you want a play about Native Americans and Pilgrims with no Native Americans in it? OK, here’s what you get.”
After seeing a dress rehearsal of The Thanksgiving Play I left wondering how I would write a review, because this is not a normal cut-and-dried theater experience. This ain’t no Agatha Christie.
But if you think about a Native American playwright deciding to write a modern play about Pilgrims and Indians, and writing it to be performed without any Native American actors… that makes my task seem tame.
Larissa FastHorse has written plays to be performed by largely Native American actors, one about Native American experiences in Los Angeles county, which I learned has the nation's 2nd largest Native American population. (She also has lots of other interesting facets to her career.)
But faced with the knowledge that across the United States and Canada the over 6,000 community theaters – and many equity theaters – generally will have zero native American actors, she wrote a Pilgrims-Indians play to be acted entirely by white people, and then turned the dial on humor, satire, and absurdity up to 11.
The director and actors are to create the play on the fly via improvisation. The four roles are: the school theater director; her “actor” boyfriend; another teacher who is rather academic in approach and wants the play to stick to some facts; and a hired professional actress (her term) who was chosen because one of her six headshots made her look somewhat Native American, which she is not.
These four attempt to synthesize a play about Turkey Day that is 110% "woke" in every aspect, and the play becomes a deep and broad parody of over-the-top wokeness by four white people trying much too hard to be be so politically correct that they struggle to compose a comprehensible sentence.
Sometimes I got the feeling that playwright FastHorse was saying, “So you want a play about Native Americans and Pilgrims with no Native Americans in it? OK, here’s what you get.”
Even the small preview audience was laughing out loud quite a bit; the play really is funny. Specially funny for theater people because it skewers overly woke white people, but REALLY goes after them in the context of theater, which is a world playwright FastHorse knows well.
The four actors all personify their roles with great skill and energy: Brit Barone is again remarkable at being a high-powered force of nature; Kenny Kelleher is her equal in his role as her boyfriend; David Foster perfectly puts forth his historically aware and educated two cents into the mayhem; Sarah Logsdon, with her astounding animated face, is captivating at the Hollywood actress, who is the least woke person in the play, but as she says, “not real smart – she’s been tested”.
Director Dev Luthra has cast the play expertly, each actor is dedicated to their persona. She keeps the play moving along with brisk pacing, no scene changes, and no intermission. But there are a few theatrical surprise moments that will keep you on your theater toes.
Oddly, while this play should probably appeal to people of various political positions: it really goes after wokeness, and I suspect the woke and semi-woke will find it the funniest.
Go see it! It runs until November 22.
The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse
Park Playhouse, Burlington Players
Directed by: Dev Luthra
Featuring: Brit Barone, David Foster, Kenny Kelleher, Sarah Logsdon
