Ohad Ashkenazi, Jasmine Rochelle Goodspeed, Marisa Diamond* and Johnny Gordon; Photograph: Sharman Altshuler

Presented by Moonbox Productions
by Larissa FastHorse
Directed by Tara Moses
Dramaturgy by Kailey Bennett

Featuring: Jasmine Goodspeed, Johnny Gordon, Ohad Ashkenazi, Marisa Diamond
Partnered with the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB)

Nov. 21 – Dec. 15, 2024
Arrow Street Arts
2 Arrow St.
Cambridge, MA 02138

Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission

Age Guidelines: Recommended for ages 13+

Content Warning: This production contains adult language, mature themes, racism, redface, violence, and unsettling truths of both Massachusetts’ and America’s history.

Review by Noelani Kamelamela

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — I am Kanaka Maoli, and the mainstream Thanksgiving story never felt quite real to me especially once I became an adult, because the watered-down story we were fed in Hawai’i of how our people were betrayed to the Americans sounded very unlike what we knew. So, I sincerely doubted that the sweet, clean story of sharing and caring in the early British colonies was anything like the reality. I don’t expect theatergoers to glean the full story out of Moonbox Production’s run of The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa Fasthorse. I would love to see this show in rep with another biting satirical work Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee.

Both works come from the minds of non-white playwrights presenting back to the audience white behavior, imagined or observed, take your pick. Where Straight White Men excavates a fully white and fully male family for drama, The Thanksgiving Play takes three presumed white educators and an actor through a creative process to make educational theatre centered around the American holiday of Thanksgiving. With a realistic classroom backdrop and props that could be taken directly from any Massachusetts public school, these creatives use facts and feelings to make theater for kids about THE REAL THANKSGIVING.

I have gotten to watch a reading of this in addition to having access to the book. The various touches to center the play within Massachusetts, with both Larissa Fasthorse’s blessing and Tara Moses’ direction, give the audience touchstones so that they think they know what the play is or is trying to become. Each character also appears to be an archetype at first. In particular, Jasmine Goodspeed, which Boston audiences may have seen in We are the Land last year at Emerson, plays Logan, the main protagonist and female director, with all the self-importance and vision of a drama teacher in her early 20s. Each creative reminds me of people I know in the arts, which allows me perspective on the amount of joy I got out of watching each character interaction.

Trauma, real or imagined, is a little easier to take inside the magic box of satire. I can hear a wild statement without flinching if there is a nod and a wink. I’m a critic, so: game recognizes game. Watching a piece take aim at hypocrisy from multiple angles is energizing. Outside of the main plot, actors also performed vibrant, powerful vignettes which were far more moving and entertaining to me than other things happening onstage. That is not a dig at the rest of the production: these vignettes are entirely my vibe. I would go again just to watch the vignettes. As we reached the crescendo and denouement, the classroom and its denizens were transformed into an exhausted, soiled mess. This only took 90 minutes without an intermission.

The audience I shared my in-theatre experience with was primarily white, and it also felt like they were not familiar with the show. Expectations were subverted and there were quite a few gasps of shock periodically. I enjoyed the audience’s reactions more than I expected. It’s not a work that makes you feel joy about being an American. It is also not a play that excuses anyone from ignorance. Thanksgiving means many different things, and I’m grateful that this play has graced both Broadway and most recently, Harvard Square.

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