Live and in person at the CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge St. Toronto, Ont. Playing until Oct. 20, 2024.
www.mirvish.com
Written by Larissa FastHorse
Directed by Vinetta Strombergs
Set by Anahita Dehbonehie
Costumes and props by Niloufar Ziaee
Lighting by Nick Blais
Videos by Tristan Gough
Cast: Rachel Cairns
Colin Doyle
Craig Lauzon
Jada Rifkin
With Elley Ray Hennessy
Eric Woolfe
Heavy-handedly written for a satire and deliberately over acted. The pace needed attention. Alas a disappointment.
The Story. The Thanksgiving Play is written a satire by Larissa FastHorse, a Native American and a member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation. The play references American Thanksgiving which is celebrated in November in the States. But the play is certainly applicable to Canadian Thanksgiving, which is Oct. 14 this year.
As to the story, first let me quote from the website for the play and I’ll add context after: “Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in Larissa FastHorse’s hilarious comedy.
A high school drama teacher, a history teacher, and two theatre people set out to create a new Thanksgiving show that won’t ruffle any feathers. Their politically correct attempts to update the myth of the first Thanksgiving with today’s social justice issues are served up as a comedic feast. The play asks: How do you do the right thing in an ever-changing world?”
Here are more details: Logan is a high school teacher, desperate to keep her job, who is the director and the moving force behind the play they will do for Thanksgiving. The play is to honour Native American History Month in the school. The production will be a devised/improvised project. Logan has applied for an won several grants for the project including money to hire a Native American actor for the play for authenticity when playing a Native American. Logan is joined in the project by her boyfriend Jaxton, a street performer/yoga instructor. Both Logan and Jaxton are scrupulous about being politically correct; from using the correct pronouns to using correct names, to proper gender reference, to classifications etc.
Caden is an elementary school history teacher and has researched the subject of Thanksgiving back 4000 years and has written a 60-page script for the project and is disappointed when he’s told the play will be ‘devised’ as they go.
And there is Alicia, from Los Angeles, who Logan has a grant to hired as the Native American actress, whose acting abilities were honed when she played the third understudy for in a Disney production. Except that Alicia isn’t Native American. She’s white, as are the others. She just used a publicity photo in which she played a Native American and this obviously confused Logan. At no time do these white folks consult any Native American about their culture or history. And they seem to have forgotten that the play is for elementary school students.
All the characters are culturally and politically ‘woke’ without sensitivity and intelligence, which makes them laughable; witless when it comes to historical context; and plain dumb when it comes to doing an age-appropriate play. However, I will say that the character of Alicia, who is written as a self-absorbed airhead, is the smartest of the lot because she knows from her work at Disney that the play should only be 20 minutes and not 45 as planned, because the attention span of an elementary school child is 20 minutes. No one pays attention to her.
Playwright Larissa FastHorse is having a dandy time satirizing these well-meaning but clueless white folks.
The Production. The Thanksgiving Play has had a lot of success in the United States. It’s one of the most produced plays in regional theatres in the States. It began in Oregon in 2018. After many workshops etc. it opened Off-Broadway in 2018. It then it opened on Broadway in 2023 (where I saw it).
There’s a lot to chew on with the play. Let’s start with a definition of Satire:
“The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.”
I think the bare bones of The Thanksgiving Play is fascinating and pointed in exposing the stupidity of the politically correct people without them having a clue about why it’s stupid or inappropriate. But instead of being subtle, Larissa FastHorse bludgeons the points with a sledgehammer to bang them in for effect. There’s lots of talk about pronouns, and chakras, and respecting space etc. But she focuses her abrasive points for the white characters and their ignorance of Native Americans and their culture.
There are two videos that are part of every production—in which white insensitivity is very clear. They suggest the pilgrims were teaching the Native Americans about survival which was not the case. In one quote a teacher says she is dividing her class into “pilgrims and Indians” in which the Pilgrims will teach the Indians to share.”
The audience groans at that.
I get the sense that Larissa FastHorse has written The Thanksgiving Play for those folks who don’t read books in hand. Who don’t know what irony or subtlety is. I think it’s for people who get all their reading, news, and information from their cellphones. Who don’t look up to see the world around them what with being glued to the small screen in their hand in front of them. So nuance escapes them. In the theatre, it all seems like overkill.
The set by Anahita Dehbonehie is of a school room with some desks, an American flag, and all manner of stuff, reminiscent of a classroom in a school. The costumes by Niloufar Ziaee are casual yoga for Jaxton (Colin A. Doyle); a jumpsuit for Logan (Rachel Cairns), work pants and a shirt for Caden (Craig Lauzon) who always clutches his briefcase to his chest like a security blanket for a kid, and tight jeans and a revealing top for Alicia (Jada Rifkin).
I think director Vinetta Strombergs falls into the trap set by the play to have the cast over-play everything. The acting is earnest and heightened. Rachel Cairns plays Logan as anxious about everything since her job is on the line. Colin Doyle as Jaxton is attentive and overly protective of Logan. A lot of the body language is exaggerated and thus over-plays the humour. Craig Lauzon as Caden is enthusiastic about history, but always clutches his briefcase to his chest like a security blanket for a kid. Jada Rifkin smoothly plays Alicia’s sexuality and over accentuated hair flipping and sashaying. The pace is too slow (glacial?) when it should go like the wind. Moments just lie there, unfunny.
In Canada we certainly have our own issues with our Indigenous peoples and so The Thanksgiving Play would have resonance with us. I think a Canadian audience would see the irony in a lot of the play, and certainly from the point of view of sharing. We have a land acknowledgement before most of our theatre performances in which we are told of the Dish with One Spoon Covenant, that we all should share.
There is a plaque at Front and Jarvis Streets in Toronto, commemorating Chief Wabakinine (died 1796) the Head Chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. On behalf of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Chief Wabakinine signed multiple land surrender treaties with the colonial British settlers. Chief Wabakinine and the Mississsaugas believed these treaties were being signed with the intention to share the land with the British, but the colonial settlers abused this trust and approached these documents as transfers of land ownership. This exploitation and abuse only worsened from the British. I think a Canadian audience would be aware of these ironies.
As I said I think the bare bones of The Thanksgiving Play is fascinating, but the actual result and this production don’t help in making it the resounding satire it needs or wants to be.
Mirvish Productions presents:
Plays until Oct. 20, 2024.
Running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)
www.mirvish.com