Larissa FastHorse’s Thanksgiving Play is a brutal indictment of the cultural climate in America today, fitting perfectly into our season-long exploration of the Miseducation of the American Mind. It is cleverly conceived, written in the tradition of social satire going back to Aristophanes. We are delighted to present this recent work from one of America’s most provocative new dramatists, who in this play is holding up a mirror before us all.

The Thanksgiving Play depicts a quartet of teachers and actors charged with devising a holiday play to honor “Native American Heritage Awareness Month”; what ensues is a plunge into cognitive dissonance driven by the group’s desire to reveal the “true” history of Thanksgiving in a forty-five minute production for elementary school children. These self-professed “white allies” pronounce the orthodoxy of wokeness with the eloquence of native (as it were) speakers of a jargon-laden cant that inevitably exposes their own inherent biases. At the same time, the play they are creating collapses in on itself due to the unbearable weight of the contradictions and paradoxes with which their efforts are fraught. 

At first glance, the characters appear as caricatures who pretentiously believe that they are “the future of theatre and education” despite their undistinguished careers as theatre artists. Their lack of self-awareness is hilarious, until one realizes that the classrooms of America from pre-K to post-grad harbor tens of thousands of individuals just like the ones we see in the play: teachers who see raising awareness about social justice and other issues as their primary mission not only in the classroom, but in all aspects of their lives.

On the flip side, the play makes a mockery of the “traditions” of Thanksgiving as have been taught to the nation’s schoolchildren for generations. This is represented in the video segments interpolated between scenes, which the playwright inserted as examples of actual children’s performances found on YouTube. (In this production, child actors from the Casper Children’s Theatre were recorded performing the sketches). Some of the most degrading stereotypes of Native Americans, combined with complete misprision of the history of the Pilgrims, have found their way into the collective psyche of Americans by means of recitals such as these. Ignorance and bias are obscured by cuteness and mindless sloganeering while the children are paraded before their parents dressed in adorable little outfits. None of this is conducive to the purpose of a real education, which is not to tell children what to think, or even how to think, but to equip them with the tools they will need when they think, thus enabling them to distinguish fact from fiction, truth from lies, reality from delusion, and utility from fantasy; and more importantly, that there is such a thing as an objective reality that can be known, studied, and authenticated over and against magical thinking, emotional reasoning, and self-blinding subjectivity. 

And what, we hear no one ask, does all this have to do with the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas? Think about why they are slaughtering each other: accusations of colonization, land theft, genocide. If it is the case that “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free,” as if it were an historical imperative necessary for Justice to finally prevail, then it makes resonant sense that “from sea to shining sea, Turtle Island must be free.” For the history of the colonization of what eventually became the United States did not repeat with the creation of the State of Israel, but it did rhyme. Given therefore the logic of Hamas and their supporters, there is really no reason why an intifada against the descendants of the European invaders should not also occur, given that in both instances the grievances of the displaced and putatively oppressed peoples are identical. 

We understand that discussions such as this make some people uncomfortable. It’s the holiday season, and we all would prefer to be immersed in good cheer and warm feeling. Current and past events notwithstanding, such immersion is possible and something we should actively pursue. Nevertheless, it is our purpose to rattle chains, sound alarms, bang the pots and pans together, in order to wake the sleepers, and to say to anyone who will listen, “it’s time to rise, it’s time to think.” 

We wish you and yours a joyful Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year, and as always, we thank you for your support of our work.

William Conte, Ph.D.

Artistic Director