Review: THE THANKSGIVING PLAY at Steppenwolf Theatre Company

In THE THANKSGIVING PLAY, four actors’ road to creating an elementary school Thanksgiving performance is paved with good intentions. But good intentions aren’t enough to save them from their “white savior” complexes. 

Larissa FastHorse’s self-described comedy within a satire takes audiences on a cringey and legitimately funny journey through the process of creating a devised Thanksgiving theater piece for elementary school students. FastHorse, who was the first female Native American playwright to have a play on Broadway when this piece debuted there last spring, gives us a quirky bunch to take on this project. High school drama teacher Logan (Steppenwolf Co-Artistic director Audrey Francis) takes on the director role, though she’s vegan, so any mention of turkey makes her feel rather ill. She brings along her boyfriend Jaxton (Nate Santana) for the ride, though his qualification as a street performer doesn’t necessarily make him the most qualified of collaborators. Jaxton’s declaration that he and Logan are “enlightened white allies” lets us know just what thorny territory we’re getting into. With the help of earnest elementary school history teacher Caden (Tim Hopper, doing some of his best work) and professional actor Alicia (Paloma Nozicka), who Logan wrongly assumes is Native American, this ragtag, well-intentioned group ends up devising, well, a mess. 

FastHorse’s writing will certainly make audiences want to stay away from their own attempts at retelling the Thanksgiving story (and it made me recall my own third grade Thanksgiving play; no surprise, some elements of that experience have not aged well). FastHorse intersperses the central action with interludes based on real-life school Thanksgiving pageants. While on Broadway these were delivered on video, here Francis, Santana, Hopper, and Nozicka take on those roles themselves. The play opens with the quarter recreating a “Nine Days of Thanksgiving” to the tune of “Twelve Day of Christmas” in which they share what the Native Americans gave to the Pilgrims. It’s uproarious and cringey. 

Of course the gag of THE THANKSGIVING PLAY is that the group at hand really doesn’t improve upon that “Nine Days” concept. Because none of the actors are Native American, Logan then proclaims that, therefore, no Natives should be included in their play. It might be a well-intentioned solution, but it’s a poor one. And I think that’s part of the challenge of THE THANKSGIVING PLAY: It complicates the question of how to educate young people about this fraught holiday, but it doesn’t bring us closer to possible answers. Now, that’s not FastHorse’s problem to solve; and, in fact, the crux of great theater is that it adds layers to questions, rather than providing answers. But it means that while the first three-quarters of the play are taut, leading to an absolutely wild and frenetic climax at that point, the ending has slack by comparison and trails off to a conclusion.

Still, it’s great fun to watch these characters throughout the entire play. Frequent theatergoers will recognize Logan and Jaxton’s archetypes; they’re the classic well-intentioned but inherently self-involved types who want to change the world, stay “woke”, and yet magically somehow not offend anyone (particularly in the case of Jaxton, who describes himself as an “actor and yoga person.”)

All four characters stay true to themselves throughout, and FastHorse has written fantastic character studies into her script. I think Hopper’s take on Caden is genius; he’s simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking. And even though Caden is trying very, very hard to bring his giant accordion file full of Thanksgiving-related research onto the stage, Hopper’s performance is so winning because he doesn’t seem like he’s trying hard at all. He wears Caden’s earnestness readily and easily. Nozicka leans into Alicia’s unapologetic simplicity (in fact, Logan literally describes her as “simplicity”). She sees no issue in having accepted the role of a Native American actor for the project; she explains that she can play “ethnically ambiguous,” and she doesn’t apologize for seizing the opportunity. Nozicka’s take on the role works because she understands that even if Alicia isn’t a serious person, she takes herself seriously. And her lack of concern with “doing the right thing” makes her an excellent foil to Logan and Jaxton, who are the proverbial try-hards. The play posits that, in the end, Alicia might have some of the right answers because she’s not trying to be anything she’s not. Francis has a great, harried energy as Logan. Santana brings a “love to hate him” energy as Jaxton; although he sometimes seems like he’s pushing to arrive at the character’s low-key energy, he’s funny to watch when he really leans into Jaxton’s self-centeredness. 

I have to give kudos to sound designer Tosin Olufolabi for playing a particularly delectable game of “sound designers having fun.” Make sure you listen closely to the pre-show music; it features Thanksgiving songs for kids, and it’s a great introduction to the play’s humor. 

It’s easy to laugh (and wince) at THE THANKSGIVING PLAY, even as it dives into complex questions about identity, representation, and how, exactly, we can reconcile the celebration of Thanksgiving with its complicated, violent history. Directed by Jess McLeod, the cast finds the fun — and the cringe — inherent in FastHorse’s text. 

THE THANKSGIVING PLAY runs through June 2, 2024 in the Ensemble Theater at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 North Halsted. 

Photo Credit: Michael Brosilow

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