Written by Larissa Fasthorse, The Thanksgiving Play is a spoof on political correctness. Political correctness defined as treating the marginalized, vilified, systemically subjugated, or otherwise abused communities, with respect and deference. Such groups might include, Indigenous Americans, Women, Jews, African Americans, Muslims, LGBTQ. Those who cleave to the ideology of political correctness (safe to say) have honorable, conscientious, and vigilant good intentions. They strive to diminish the pain and misery endured by our fellow human beings, throughout the world. Throughout history.
Logan is a very progressive, Junior High School Drama teacher, who is staging the school Thanksgiving play. She was recently reprimanded for her production of The Iceman Cometh; the content apparently too controversial for scholars on the cusp of adolescence. Logan has invited Jaxton, her erstwhile lover and kindred spirit, in the enigmatic realm of conceptual theatre. Jaxton and Logan grasp the benefits of meditation, improvisation and the metaphysical, when building a script. Alicia is an actress hired to be part of this very lofty Thanksgiving narrative. Mistaking a headshot of Alicia for her actual ethnicity, Logan was thrilled to employ an “actual” Native American. Caden is a history teacher. His grisly details of ceremonies concurrent with the first Thanksgiving, are somewhat inappropriate to the occasion.
All four of these collaborator/performers (with the possible exception of Alicia) are gung-ho about the project. Brainstorming, considering various hooks and angles, throwing out ideas. All bearing in mind they must rise above the imperialist, patriarchal arrogance of their forbears. Sadly, they lack practical grounding when it comes to execution. Logan feels it would be wrong to cast someone who isn’t Indian to play one, though it’s not as if they’re turning any away. Her solution of honoring them by their absence is perhaps giving students and parents too much credit. Caden, Alicia, Logan and Jaxton are a sweet bunch, but their idealism ultimately seems too nebulous to drop anchor.
Fasthorse’s strategy for The Thanksgiving Play is fairly sound. While it never feels cynical, and intellectual skills of the teachers never in question, we’re meant to regard them as flakes. Someone’s left the cake out in the rain. The central premise (evolved, cerebral liberals woefully deficient in theatrical articulation) is serviceable, if overworked. Which is not to say she doesn’t have a point. It’s not that political correctness is necessarily an affectation or insipid bourgeois quickfix. We see the characters performing their goofy holiday songs in ridiculous costumes and how easily they’re sidetracked, and of course, it’s amusing. But none of them seems to notice the resulting event is a debacle.
Thanksgiving Play closed December 1st, 2019.