The Thanksgiving Play

by Larissa FastHorse

A mismatched but well-meaning foursome sets out to devise a politically correct school play that can somehow sensitively celebrate both Thanksgiving and Native American Month. How can this wildly diverse quartet—separated by cultural chasms and vastly different perspectives on history—navigate a complicated, hilarious thicket of privilege, representation, and of course school district regulations? The schools are waiting, and the pageant must go on!

Genres: Plays, Drama, Fiction, Theatre, Audiobook, Humor, Read For School

72 pages, Paperback

First published April 29, 2019

Reviews

[Theo Logos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Larisa FastHorse’s play is a farce designed to make us think in an era where dogma too often trumps thought. It is a farcical satire aiming at truly low-hanging fruit — the bumbling intersection of white liberal guilt and complete cluelessness. Four well intentioned young people trapped in a morass of Woke dogma where virtue signaling is mistaken for progressivism attempt to create a grade school Thanksgiving play that will deconstruct the privileged mythology while elevating the indigenous perspective. Their problems start with the fact that they are all white, and their dogma informs them that they are not allowed to speak for other cultures. What to do?

The over the top satire is driven by the contortions the characters go through in an attempt to conform to their dogma, no matter how absurd the results. It can feel uncomfortable because, despite its ridiculous absurdity, it strikes too close to scenarios that most modern progressives have witnessed. Unfortunately, it failed to be as funny as it should have been because the characters were paper thin, and so uniformly clueless (cluelessness was their only recognizable trait) that there just wasn’t any real substance to laugh at.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A play produced by LA Theater Works that satirizes everything--the holiday's fake roots in a mythical dinner featuring the supposedly happy getting-together of white rock raider "pilgrims" and Native Americans, and a play produced by four pretentious and politically correct actors for an elementary school. The director thinks she is hiring a Native American (authenticity!) for a lot of money to be the lead, and they fall all over themselves in the effort to honor her her tribal cultural, but it turns out she isn't exactly. . . . But they are all clueless, and the school board is clueless and it's a kind of farcical mess.

Now, when I put it that way it sounds potentially hilarious right? But honestly, I didn't laugh nearly as much as FastHorse would have liked me to, though it makes a good series of points. I liked hearing all the familiar patriotic and religious songs with which much of white America is familiar through an indigenous lens, ouch. It's pretty good, just not quite up to Oscar Wilde-level of social skewering.

[Ashley Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I originally read this in 2020 at the beginning of the rehearsal process for a staged reading, and then COVID rolled into town and shut everything down. Reread for the actual reading, three years down the road, and it's still brilliant.

-----
Phenomenal commentary.

[Cori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ten million stars. Ten.million.stars. This play has one of the best lines ever. Here it is:
(Referring to a mason jar intended to be used as a water bottle) “It’s made with recycled glass from broken windows in housing projects.”

This play perfectly (shall we say “acutely”? Lol) exemplifies woke culture. It had me crying with laughter at every turn. I absolutely cannot wait to see a production of this finely crafted brilliant work of art.

[Doug · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's an old saying 'There's no arguing with success', and since at one point this was one of the ten most widely produced plays in the US (apparently mainly in school presentations - although it recently also debuted on Broadway, where it was surely outclassed by almost everything else there), I suppose it's somewhat churlish I thought it lacking in both cleverness and humour. But there is also the infamous quote by George S. Kaufman: “Satire is what closes on Saturday night” - and that would be extremely apropos here. This is basically a send-up of how allegedly 'woke' white people attempt to put on an elementary school pageant about the titular holiday that would be inclusive of the indigenous people's perspective - but haven't a clue about how to do that. It also takes a swipe at how annoying theatre people in general can be.

The problem I have with the script is that nothing coming out of any of the four characters' mouths remotely resembles anything an actual person - woke or not - would actually say. The exaggerated dialogues are therefore more cringe-worthy than funny. I did get a mild chuckle out of one of Jaxton's lines: 'I went by the pronoun 'they' for a full year. I'm allowed one mistake.' However, the character is not in the least presented as 'non-binary', and if anything is TOO gender conforming to make the line have any objective sense - and such is true of the play as a whole.

I applaud the fact that FastHorse is the first Indigenous playwright to get widely produced - but this was so mediocre that I decided against reading her other play (What Would Crazy Horse Do?) that was also included in the volume.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/th...
ttps://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/bro...
https://variety.com/2023/legit/review...

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really don’t know how to rate this play. The play involves two White teachers and a White street performer who hire an actress who they think is Native American to help them write a culturally sensitive Thanksgiving play for schoolkids. In this supposed comedic satire, naturally, the actress turns out to be White, as well, and not too bright. The problem with this play is that annoying White people never deliver lines that are very funny. My favorite part of the audiobook was the interview after with playwright Larissa FastHorse. She talked about her own upbringing in South Dakota and her current life in Santa Monica, which she called “the epicenter of what I’m calling ‘perfomative wokeness,’ strange over-the-top trying to do things right so far that it actually comes around the circle to wrong.” But the annoying characters aren’t exaggerated in a way that’s funny or illuminating — they’re just insecure and annoying.

I also wish I’d known before the end of the play that the interlude of horrendous Thanksgiving plays were actual plays that were performed in schools. Holy moley! I would have found them funnier instead of thinking that that was just FastHorse with more unrealistically over-the-top bits.

While the interview was worth five stars, what I’m rating is the play. It’s three stars at best. And, being a liberal myself, it pains me to say this about an indigenous playwright who pored her heart into this work.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads as a farce and satire on good-intentioned liberalism; it centers around four white characters trying to do justice and speak about the horrors of racialized violence that whites perpetrated against Indigenous people, and FastHorse's writing stages how characters' moments of epiphany get papered over when they remember that they can't say this or that truth since we in a post-postrace era. Remembering that it's fundamentally a farce prevents some of the one-note characters from being a hindrance.

The play contains the sort of humor that reads well but would be even better and more pronounced onstage. Strong, great closing lines.

[maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read this during the semester and just never logged it??? did a scene from it so. never have i ever said so many words that meant absolutely nothing

[Tutankhamun18 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a short play about a group of white teachers and/or failed actors/playwrights who are tasked with writing a play for their school to perform in celebration of Thanksgiving, which also acknowledges Native Americans and Native American Heritage Month. Having expressed their desire to integrate these elements, they have received a grant to further their work with Native communities. In an effort to put this money to good use and to get an “own voices” perspective, they have hired Alicia, a ditzy actress who is also white American, but whom they read as Native American. The play depicts their conversations as they suggest ways to ingrate the Native American perspective on Thanksgiving without speaking for the community and finally deciding that as they cannot speak for them, they must do the play without them. The only way this seems possible is to have them killed offstage. Throughout this play is humorous and makes fun of these white left wing theatre people who commit hundreds of microaggressions and contribute towards the erasure of Native Americans in American culture. What is brilliant about this is that these are, loosely seen, educators. They are responsible for shaping the children’s school day realities. This play is fantastic. It is funny, sad and very confronting as it holds a mirror to the left wing and shows that good intentions and “not being racist” get’s you nowhere. Being Antiracist can be hard when you cannot sufficiently recognise your privilege and act to leverage opportunities to benefit those who need them. (The best play I have read since Journey’s End)



Some of my favourite sections:





LOGAN: STOP!!
(They stop.)
Have you lost your minds? How is killing off hundreds of Indigenous people, then kicking their heads, a proper celebration of Native American Heritage Month?
CADEN: It's true, and gets a Native American presence into our play.

—

LOGAN: We'll start and Jaxton can join us. I want to try a Pilgrim-style Thanksgiving scene, but we show the actual erasure of Native people. Graph-ically.
CADEN: I thought the scene with the heads was pretty graphic.
LOGAN: Graphic in a visceral way, not a visual one. We do a first Thanksgiving scene, like nor-mal, with Native people, but we don't play Native people. We allow their absence to speak for them. Where is the missing Indigenous perspec-tive? It's certainly missing from this room. We hold space for them by literally holding space for them. Give me a few minutes to work out some dialogue.

—

CADEN: I don't know if I could hear my girlfriend say that kind of stuff about me and be OK with it.
JAXTON: I know that her lashing out is not about her and me but actually her double-X's fighting back against centuries of patriarchal oppression.
It's not personal. It felt personal for a second, which I totally needed, but intellectually I know to filter anything she says to me through layers of justified feminine rage.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking for a comedic play to listen to (I'm emotionally recovering from my last play,) and The Thanksgiving Play happened to be on my shortlist and I realised it's USAmerican Thanksgiving (I'm Canadian, we have a different Thanksgiving). I figured what better time.

This is a decently funny and sharp satirical comedy that pokes fun at performative wokeness, Thanksgiving traditions, and theatre. The performances in the LA Theater Works audio production were solid all around. The talk with Larissa FastHorse at the end is really interesting too (including that a lot of the most absurd moments in the show were based on things real people had said to her).

All around this is a solid read and it's worth checking out (as is the audio edition specifically).

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2020 Read Harder Challenge: Work by First Nations/Indigenous Author) This short, amusing play is a savage take on PC culture and how we try to look at Thanksgiving and those involved in the first and current one. That one of the key players is a Native American helps add to the humor and point of the play. It slams the PC culture, as a number of liberal white folks attempts to get the story right without offending, but there are so deliberate that they insult everyone involved. I am sure it will be awesome to see in person, once we get back to a time when we can watch plays in person.

[Jaka]

Read this for class and it has so many good lines and moments I genuinely laughed out loud reading. FastHorse’s satire is clever, funny, and engaging and really puts a mirror to white activism that ends up being white people speaking over and speaking for Indigenous people. The use of buzzwords and the voices of the characters are so culturally relevant. I’d love to see this show staged.

[Laura Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read of MUT Season Selection Committee. Everyone and their mom wants to put on this play right now and I totally understand. This four-person show is full of theatre inside jokes and a fun comedy that is basically "fake woke white people, the play". As the chair of my department said: "It's a comedy, thank the lord."

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oof. Some funny bits, some painful bits. Would be interesting to see it staged. Read for 2020 Read Harder challenge.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bayneeta, I'm so glad I read your review of this! I listened to the same LA Theatre Works audio production. Very funny play about four white people trying desperately to produce an extremely "woke" and politically correct elementary school Thanksgiving play. The interview with Larissa Fasthorse at the end was great.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect example of what happens when one tries too hard to do the right thing!

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this play! I got to see in on stage on Broadway and it was incredible. Larissa FastHorse’s script is so funny. I want to see another one of her plays.

[Jack Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Really funny when preformed, not super memorable

[T N · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's another play! One more left before I am done reading the one's I had lying around. This one felt like another pointless play.

[Liz Farrow]

Very cringy. In a smart, prickly satirical way. The absurdity of landing on “nothing” because “something” is too complicated… is a harsh critique that feels fair right now. Thought provoking.

[Ross Williamson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“By doing nothing, we become part of the solution.”

Brutal, incisive, physically painful to listen to at times. (In the very best way.)

[tessssss · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

You're only allowed to read this play on Thanksgiving and I didn't want to break the rules and get arrested.

The Thanksgiving Play is terrific in its slaughter of woke white people being annoying as shit.

Larissa FastHorse writes line after line of hilarious dialogue and I would kill to be in this.

My only complaint is that it seems to end suddenly. It's a funny conclusion but just happens.

[Maude · Rating 4 out of 5]

woke theater that mocks woke theater

[•Kait• •Boers• · Rating 3 out of 5]

woke (derogatory)

[Marissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play is as broad and obvious as its title. In it, four white people—a high-minded and high-strung drama teacher, an irritating yoga bro who prides himself on being “woke,” a sexy but dim actress, and a nerdy history teacher who’s mostly there to provide exposition—try to devise a play to teach schoolchildren about the first Thanksgiving. But how can they honor Native Americans’ central role in the story without any Natives in the room? So they bicker and argue and overthink things, and FastHorse scores a lot of easy points about white liberal guilt and performative political correctness. But the characters mostly remain thin caricatures, tiresome buffoons (interestingly, the one who comes off the best and most three-dimensional is the airheaded actress). This would be fine for a 10-minute sketch, but in a full-length play, even one that’s intended as a satire, there needs to be more depth or at least more variety.

The Thanksgiving Play is perhaps the most acclaimed play ever written by a Native American playwright—it will have 8 professional productions in 2019-2020, enough for a spot on American Theatre’s top-10 list—and yet it still centers white people. Yes, it centers them by making them look ridiculous, and tells them that they should just shut up and realize when their voices aren’t wanted… but only after making the audience sit through 90 minutes of the whitest white nonsense. Moreover, I (cynically) worry that theaters are producing The Thanksgiving Play because it allows them to put a female, Native playwright in their season yet not have to do the hard work of casting Native actors, or finding a Native director or dramaturg, or engaging with their local Native community. The Thanksgiving Play can be staged, without friction or tension, by exactly the kind of people it thinks it’s lampooning, who will then pat themselves on the back for doing so. That’s the whole problem.

Bonus: I admit to feeling some white-liberal guilt myself over disliking the first play I’ve ever read by a Native American author, but am somewhat comforted that one of my favorite theater critics, Sara Holdren, seemed to feel the same way about The Thanksgiving Play as I do.

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to the audio presentation of this play after enjoying Terry Gross’s Fresh Air interview with FastHorse.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wickedly funny satire about four white adults trying to develop an inclusive Thanksgiving play for children. A skewering of PC culture taken to the extreme. I saw the play with friends and we all loved it, and since we've been taking about it ever since, I decided to buy the play. It was good read too. I loved the earnestness and good intentions of all of the characters and the interpolation of real (terrible) Thanksgiving play ideas taken from the internet.

I think in writing a play about the impossibility of writing a good Thanksgiving play that would please everyone, the author wrote a good Thanksgiving play. That pleased me, at least.

[Luke Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hilarious satire on white privilege, Native American appropriation, and four adults trying to do something that will honor the grants of the director without upsetting anyone.

[Fred Daly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A send-up of pretentious liberal wokesters by a Native American writer. Often funny, but slight -- the target is too easy.