REVIEW: The Thanksgiving Play wriggles in performative wokeness

In 2024, is there a way to produce an engaging, culturally sensitive play about the first American Thanksgiving for elementary schoolers?

The Thanksgiving Play, penned by Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse and now playing at Mirvish’s CAA Theatre, poses that question in its first five minutes, then throws the query out with the cranberry sauce in its madcap exploration of a devised theatre piece at an unnamed primary school. When we meet Logan (Rachel Cairns), she’s a burnt-out theatre teacher at risk of being fired. Thankfully, she’s received some funding for Native American Heritage Month, which she’s used to hire an Indigenous actress — or so she thinks.

Soon enough, we meet Alicia (Jada Rifkin), who says she plays “multiple types” at the behest of her agent. No, she’s not Indigenous — in the headshot she used to book the job, she wore braids and a turquoise necklace — but due to Alicia’s contract, Logan’s stuck with her.

Good news, though: A social studies teacher, Caden (Craig Lauzon), is on board to help ensure the play’s historical accuracy. (“What’s a dramaturg?,” he asks sincerely. “No one knows,” says Logan with a frown.) And Jaxton (Colin B. Doyle), a farmer’s market performer and Logan’s downward-dog-ing boyfriend, is there to make sure the play is up to his sky-high standards for theatre.

As written, The Thanksgiving Play is a sharp satire about white people twisting themselves in knots as they go through the motions of progressivism. Jaxton brags he used they/them pronouns for a year; Logan makes a point of “holding space” for any and every comment, no matter how absurd. FastHorse’s script immediately calls to mind Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate, which similarly sees a racialized playwright maneuver misguided white characters into increasingly improbable social snafus. In both instances, the writing is metatheatrical and witty, forcing as many cringes as guffaws.

There’s not much directorial flair to note in Vinetta Strombergs’ production, but the cast makes it work, for the most part. Cairns and Doyle are a hilarious pair who encourage each other to explore their characters’ extremes. Are Logan and Jaxton codependent? 100 per cent. But Cairns and Doyle lean into the bit, suggesting the insufferable, oh-so-socially-aware couple with charm and a dollop of snark. Rifkin, too, has a few scene-stealing moments — Alicia’s explanation of her self-proclaimed “simplicity” is one of the high points of the show. And as the well-meaning history teacher, Lauzon is a standout as he breaks the fourth wall with a Jim-Halpert-style cocked eyebrow.

Perhaps the strongest component of The Thanksgiving Play is its spotlight on outdated teaching techniques, demonstrated in the form of projected videos that loom over Anahita Dehbonehie’s attractive classroom set. In these Pinterest-inspired spoofs, performed by students from George Brown College, Ellen Ray Hennessy, and Eldridge Theatre’s Eric Woolfe, old-fashioned counting songs take on a gruesome edge as they show how Indigenous people have been used as tokens of slaughter in the classroom. Woolfe’s puppets ensure lots of laughs, and make the callous nursery rhymes The Thanksgiving Play’s most successfully jagged barb.

Following its Broadway premiere last year, a smattering of critics and audiences called The Thanksgiving Play an SNL sketch stretched thin. There’s some merit to that critique — FastHorse’s script is a touch on the lengthy side, and the story embedded in The Thanksgiving Play could probably be told in an hour, rather than its present 90 minutes. But the comedy at the heart of The Thanksgiving Play is keener, and more smartly wielded, than any sketch show. Plus, the ending is sublime, a perfect punchline for an imperfect play. “Holding space,” indeed.

The Thanksgiving Play runs until October 20 at the CAA Theatre. Tickets are available here.

Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.

WRITTEN BY

Aisling Murphy

Aisling is Intermission’s senior editor and an award-winning arts journalist with bylines including the Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, CBC Arts, CTV News Toronto, and Maclean’s. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.

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