The cast; Photo by 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.
Critique by Kitty Drexel
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Moonbox’s The Thanksgiving Play interprets the white American history of Thanksgiving that MAGA and its ilk want us to forget. Florida’s laws, for example, would keep copies of Larissa Fasthorse’s play out of school libraries just in case a white person might feel sad by its contents. Friends, the purpose of knowing our white, colonialist history isn’t to feel sad; it’s to recognize the white supremacist systems that enabled these atrocities so we can dismantle them. We aren’t responsible for our ancestors’ actions but we are responsible for repairing the damage they caused.
The Thanksgiving Play is about four well-meaning but oblivious white folks who try to write a Thanksgiving play for their local Massachusetts public school celebration for families and fail fantastically. The characters, teacher and director Logan (Jasmine Goodspeed), local actor Jaxton (Johnny Gordon), teacher and research assistant (Ohad Ashkenazi) and LA transplant Alicia (Marisa Diamond) each represent a flavor of white wokeness (pedantically cautious, weaponized incompetence, false allyship and beige obliviousness). Together, they take turns shaking hands with and uplifting the invisible fifth character of the play: White Supremacy. Our horny-for-adversity characters micro-agress their way out of positive change and into awkward social exchanges. The Thanksgiving Play reminds us that Native stories are better left told by Native people.
In her “Director’s Note,” Tara Moses tells her readers the published script of The Thanksgiving Play there is a BIPOC-specific casting note. It says, “BIPOC that can pass as white should be considered for all characters.” Moses then tells us that Moonbox’s current production is the only one to honor the note with a full cast of Native actors and persons of color. Moses is the first Native director to lead a TTP production. That’s horrifying, and also the American I know and love.
Boston’s fringe theatre community is paving the way toward a better standard of practices for the city. It’s not the larger companies with massive budgets and electronic sets that roll on motorized wheels. It’s not the community theatres with their hundreds of devoted members. It’s not even the universities with their famous staff, legacy budgets and cutting-edge academic research. No. It’s medium companies like Moonbox that are doing the hard work at a grassroots level: choosing the problem plays, casting with underserved communities, educating its audiences, paying them, and starting over again when they make mistakes.
Moonbox hired director Tara Moses (Seminole Nation of Oklahoma) and dramaturg Kailey Bennett (Cherokee Nation). Together, they made the conscious decision with Moonbox to hire American Indians and other natives to the cast and staff of this play. This is where the bar is now. It isn’t enough to cast and hire BIPOC. They also have to be local and pertinent to the intentions of the living playwright. That’s the standard now. I lie in wait for our theatre community to meet it.
Despite the severity of this article, The Thanksgiving Play is very funny. The cast does a great job satirizing white wokeness and its inherent bullshittery. It’s funny and it’s theatre activism. Thanksgiving can be about family and togetherness without perpetuating the lies taught in elementary schools. Eat, be merry but don’t do so because you believe Colonizers celebrated a meal with American Indians when they did not.
Moonbox has partnered with the North American Indian Center of Boston on this production. Its website says NIACOB is the oldest urban Indian center in Massachusetts. Their mission is to empower the Native American community and to improve the quality of life of all Indigenous peoples. Please visit its website to learn more and make a donation.
For more information about the lies of Thanksgiving, please check out “Bounty,” a film about the Phips Bounty Proclamation of 1755 produced by the Upstander Project (film by Dawn Neptune Adams, Maulian Dana, Adam Mazo, Ben Pender-Cudlip, and Tracy Rector). The colonial government paid settlers handsomely to murder the Penobscot people on behalf of King George II for hundreds of years. “Bounty” brings this forgotten history to light.
