I don’t know if it is liberal guilt, masochism, a belief that self-scrutiny sells or all three, but Steppenwolf Theatre Company has developed a penchant for staging plays that satirize people and institutions like itself.
The latest is the Chicago premiere of Larissa FastHorse’s “The Thanksgiving Play,” which skewers various forms of “wokeness,” politically correct language, theater and theater artists, sanitized history, the education system, veganism and a whole lot more. Steppenwolf’s co-artistic directors even acknowledge in their program note that the theater “fits the profile of the type of institution that inspired the play.” But they go on to say that the characters “are not to be looked down upon; there is humanity and dignity in their pursuit of responsible artmaking.”
However, it’s hard not to judge these caricatures harshly in this frantically paced production directed by Jess McLeod. Despite good intentions, they’re clueless and self-absorbed with personal agendas that undermine their ostensible goals.
The set-up of the 90-minute one act, which FastHorse (of the Sicangu Lakota Nation) has said stemmed in part from her frustration that historically white institutions were not producing her plays that featured Indigenous characters, starts with Logan, an uptight, intense, insecure drama teacher played by co-artistic director Audrey Francis. Having almost lost her job for the ludicrously misguided choice of mounting “The Iceman Cometh” with high school students, she hopes to redeem herself by “devising” a new Thanksgiving piece to be performed at a local elementary school. She’s also a vegan, so the very mention of turkey makes her queasy.
Tagging along as her collaborator is her boyfriend Jaxton (Nate Santana), whose dubious qualifications include street performer and yoga practitioner and whose self-important seriousness is at times hilarious. Logan also has enlisted elementary school history teacher and would-be playwright Caden (a perfectly nerdy Tim Hopper) as a consultant, and he’s brought thousands of pages of research and a full script that begins with events 4,000 years in the past.
Finally, Logan has scored funding from a number of sources, including a “Native American Heritage Month Awareness Through Art Grant” that she’s used to hire Alicia (Paloma Nozicka), a professional Native American actor from Los Angeles.
The entire play takes place on the first day of rehearsal for the project. Logan is opinionated and determined to be in control, but she’s committed to the improv process and wants everyone to contribute, especially Alicia, on whom she’s counting for the Indigenous perspective.
Alas, it turns out that ditsy, none-too-smart (“I’ve been tested,” she says) Alicia isn’t Native American at all. She simply has a head shot that shows her as Native American (with turquoise jewelry), one of several she uses to demonstrate her flexibility to play different roles.
This information freaks everyone out. Everyone except Alicia, that is. LA stereotype that she is, she also is the closest to a normative character. She knows exactly who she is and what she wants and is basically unflappable.
The others tie themselves up in knots trying to figure out what to do. After increasingly heated arguments. Logan decides that if they don’t have any Native American performers, their play can’t have any Native American characters. What was envisioned (if wrongly) as a more-or-less historically accurate celebration between newly arrived settlers and Indigenous Americans — even if it masked centuries of displacement, expropriation and war — is reduced to a bloody literally) self-canceling mess.
What I like best about FastHorse’s humor is the many spot-on details and her willingness to follow any premise to its logical conclusion.
But there are a couple of problems with Steppenwolf’s production.
Scattered throughout the main action are a number of interludes, starting with “The Nine Days of Thanksgiving,” a parody of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” featuring a pilgrim with light-up sneakers enumerating the gifts the Indigenous community gave to him. Another vignette has the actors playing turkeys; yet another is a gruesome game that picks up on the idea that Thanksgiving is all about football. In New York, these scenes were on video and represented actual school pageants (or so I’ve read). Here the four actors play all the parts, so it’s not clear what they’re supposed to be. Pegging them as the results of the improv brainstorming sessions doesn’t make much sense because they’re so politically incorrect.
In general, the Ensemble Theater doesn’t serve the play all that well. I was sitting near one end of the oval and found myself looking at the actors’ backs more often than that, which also made it hard to hear them at times. Facial expressions got lost, as did key funny bits like Logan and Jaxton’s “uncoupling” ritual as they resumed their professional relationship.
Still, “The Thanksgiving Play” is likely to make you think of a seemingly benign holiday in a new way, and FastHorse’s moxie is to be admired. It’s also interesting to note that her response to her frustration paid off: The play was on Broadway last year, apparently making her the first Native American woman to have a show there.
