There’s a line in a song from “Wicked” which goes, “A man’s a crusader or ruthless invader, it’s all in which label is able to persist.” That thought is much at the heart of Larissa Fasthorse’s biting satire, “The Thanksgiving Play,” DEZARTPERFORMS’ first play of the season.
Set mostly in a high school drama teacher’s classroom we first meet Logan (Macy Idzakovich), a drama teacher whose production of “The Iceman Cometh” so riled up the parents in the PTA, that they want to see Logan lose her job as quickly as possible. With her is her boyfriend and street performer Jaxton (Matthew Grondin) who is very ‘new age’ and is there to help Logan get through her latest crisis both spiritually as well as physically. To show her students the truth of Thanksgiving and to allow others to see her good intentions and hopefully keep her job, she has decided to create an honest Thanksgiving play from the Native Americans’ perspective. Towards that end, she has applied and gotten several grants, hired Caden (John Wuchte) a history teacher who wants to be a playwright to guarantee historical accuracy in her play and even hired a Native American actress named Alicia (Stefania Gonzalez) . Once Logan realizes that the willing if not too bright Alicia is not Native American, she comes to the conclusion that it would be best to not have any Native American roles be seen rather than having them played by non-Native Americans. The more they work on developing the idea, the more absurd the scenes become. There is a scene few minutes that they all mime eating traditional Thanksgiving fare that was a comedic highlight, As they rehearse one particular scene, their line readings become more and more sexually suggestive, not the ideal thing for a children’s theatre script to be. Ultimately, they realize that it would be virtually impossible for four white people to speak for the entire Native American population. In fact, it would be impossible to really know how they truly felt at all or even what really happened during that first Thanksgiving feast. In a flash of genius, Logan realizes that saying nothing, literally saying nothing, is the only way to avoid offending anyone and not speaking any mistruths.
Idzakovich’s Logan is good at finding those moments of truth. You can almost see the light bulb light up as a new direction of thought or an entirely new concept comes to her. She gets many of the laughs she can, though on occasion she pushes just a little too hard and loud especially when all 4 characters are onstage together in conversation.
Jaxton, as played by Grondin, is PC to a fault and uber-aware of other people’s feelings. In another actor’s hands, I can see how he would come off as unlikeable, straining to remain 100% politically correct and always searching for the meaning of the moment. But in Grondin’s hands, he comes across as a bit goofy and awkward and rather loveable as he tries to be the perfect modern man.
Wuchte’s Caden is like a kid in a candy store. Here he is having his own play being done by actors, adult actors in fact, not his young students. He is so excited that he amusingly seems totally rapturous and unaware of the chaos around him.
Gonzalez’s performance as the brain-challenged actress Alicia was the comedy highlight of the show. Her totally calm and unaware presence plays off of the more frantic behavior of the other 3 to produce some really big solid laughs. She is also not afraid of physical comedy and brings her entire body into play resulting in a very funny performance.
Jimmy Cuomo’s schoolroom set is spot on evoking a small town classroom. -It is perfectly adorned by Rick Bluhm’s lighting design.
While it’s not yet a perfect play, Fasthorse’s satire is razor-sharp and under Michael Shaw’s quick-paced direction it’s a lot of fun. The play does have much to say and for the most part says it while delivering lots of laughs.
THE THANKSGIVING PLAY is playing now thru Nov. 12, 2023. For tickets or further information check out their webpage at www.DEZARTPerforms.org