Review: THE THANKSGIVING PLAY at Dezart Performs

The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse at Dezart Performs

Set in the office/stage of grade school theater teacher, Logan (Macy Idzakovich), we open with her and Jaxton (Matthew Grondin) - two wacky, woke warriors discussing the play they are creating that year to commemorate the “first Thanksgiving”.

Logan has hired a local teacher/historian/playwright wanna be, Caden (John Wuchte) to keep them on the straight and narrow fact-wise. And Logan has applied for and received a grant to hire a Native American actress, Alica (Stefania Gonzalez). I could explain what happens next but that would ruin all of the fun. 

So let’s just talk about Larissa FastHorse’s play. It’s one of the funniest I have seen in a long time. The setups are brilliant, the dialogue is inspired, and it is so well crafted that it leads us to the most logically illogical and hilariously fitting endings I’ve ever had the pleasure of witnessing. Yes it is as convoluted as that sentence, but it is not a contrivance. If you pay close attention, you just might get what’s happening a few moments before everyone else and bark out a solo laugh like someone did the night I saw it. Might have been me.

I have said this repeatedly, but I’ll say it again, Director Michael Shaw knows how to squeeze every last drop of comedy out of a play, and combined with the talent he’s got on that stage, this has got to be one of my favorite productions so far. And that’s saying a lot. I’ve loved most everything this company does, and if I didn’t love it, I still enjoyed it. Given the opportunity, I would watch this production of The Thanksgiving Play again and again - like I do with my favorite movies (which includes one of Dezart’s upcoming plays What the Constitution Means to Me) with but two caveats. Both easily fixable. I’ll get there.

The Cast 

Tall and handsome, Grondin is visually perfect as Jaxon, the street actor (and, per Logan, not a good one) who is also Logan’s paramour. He has relatively no ambition other than to “just be”. Besides visually fitting the bill, Grondin does a great job of playing both unaware and overly self-aware at the same time. Nice work. 

The character of Logan is, I’m 100% certain, a Libra. The driving force of the play, she feels the need to analyze everything to make it fit into her “overly woke” and perfect world lens. As the director (and co-collaborator) of the play within the play (that has yet to be written), the pint-sized Idzakovich gives us a big performance, in-your-face and full of intensity - perfect for the character, and as much as I loved the energy of the intensity, I would have preferred it a little less in-my-ears. I felt a bit yelled at, and it wasn’t a technical issue. 

Caden, the historian/teacher/playwright, is the personification of reality in the play. He continually flips the script to show us how reality is made of a very different fabric than the fairy tales our ancestors wove atop the truth. He’s a walking, talking history channel, and the reality of the first Thanksgiving does not fit into a children’s play at a grade school at all. But Wuchte’s Caden is by no means mundane or boring. He is ridiculously fun in his choices. Wuchte reminds me a bit of one of my favorite improv comics, Colin Mochrie. It’s a very smart, no-holds-barred, spunky performance by Wuchte.

Everyone was terrific, I don’t want to minimize what a great job all of the actors did, but it was Stefania Gonzalez who owned the night as Alicia. She has impeccable comic timing, and I will add that despite the ill-fitting, unflattering, and, quite frankly, awful costume she was dressed in - Gonzalez didn’t let it phase her, instead she owned it. Eventually we forgot to notice; we were too busy eating out of the palm of her hand. Really great work by Gonzalez.

Technicals

The set design by Jimmy Cuomo is once again a delight, however for the first time in my history with Dezart, it felt a bit dimly lit. For instance, there are book cases in the back that don’t get a lick of love from the lighting design. Where Rick Bluum’s design does shine, is the outdoor effect from the opaque windows. As mentioned, I was baffled by Christine Cover Ferro’s costume design for Alicia, however, the rest of the costumes fit the bill. 

Lest you believe the play is constructed to make a certain sector of the American population feel bad about themselves, you’re likely thinking of the wrong sector. Fasthorse drops us word by word into a woke abyss of hilarious futility in a very very funny play that’s a must see production for me. Runs through November 12.

https://dezartperforms.org/

Photography courtesy of David A. Lee    

Producers: Michael Shaw, Clark Duggar

Sound Design: Clark Duggar

Production Stage Manager: Paul James Tenaglia 

Technical Director: Tom O’Brien

Asst. Stage Manager: Louise Ross

Props Master: Greg Thorneycroft

Costume Assistant: Emma Bibo

Props Assistant: Edward Anguiano

 

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