Craig Lauzon, Colin A. Doyle, Jada Rifkin and Rachel Cairns in “The Thanksgiving Play”, Photo by Dahlia Katz
Purportedly, this is “a hit on Broadway and one of the most produced plays across North America.” While I understand the comedic appeal of Larissa FastHorse’s script, which pokes fun at performative allyship and woke rhetoric, this Pop-Up Theatre Canada Production of The Thanksgiving Play, presented by Mirvish, is just too under-rehearsed and flat to achieve the hilarity it strives towards.
Logan (Rachel Cairns) is a school drama teacher who has scored some government funding to stage a children’s Thanksgiving play that celebrates the problematic holiday while also being sensitive to Indigenous trauma. With her romantic partner Jaxton (Colin A Doyle), a smarmy yoga instructor; Caden (Craig Lauzon), an accuracy-obsessed history teacher, wannabe playwright; and Alicia (Jada Rifkin), an air-headed LA actress; Logan is determined to create a politically correct work of theatrical genius that satisfies everyone—collaborators, funders and audiences.
Because this is a wacky comedy, things go predictably awry. Misunderstandings and skewed perceptions lead to hokey dramatics, cultural misconceptions and clumsy virtue signalling. Theatre-related inside jokes abound. (The oh-so-relatable response to “What’s a dramaturg?” is pretty great.) The absurd, meta concept of an “empty space” standing in for Indigenous presence is a clever bit of theatrical pretension.
FastHorse, an Indigenous playwright, sought to address colonial tyranny from an oblique angle. Her story fixates on white people scrambling nobly yet blindly to “hold space” for Native communities and falling flat on their well meaning, misguided faces. As farce, this has potential; as satire, it’s bland and obvious. Its ineffectual characters are stereotypes spewing empty platitudes. That’s the point, I guess, but really great satire doesn’t broadcast its intentions so openly. We don’t discover anything here, we just get it.
But maybe it’s just supposed to be fun.
Well, the characters could be endearing if I believed them. There is a lot of banter and business, but it all feels so contrived. Director Vinetta Strombergs hasn’t been able to hone the timing or nuances. There is one notable exception: a moment when Cairns’ Logan, stressed to the max with her baggage and racing mind, appeals to Rifkin’s Alicia for advice on how to be “content.” It’s an authentic bonding moment between them and surprisingly insightful.
Anahita Dehbonehie’s cluttered school drama-room set is doing some heavy lifting, but its verisimilitude is wasted here. Tristan Gough’s projected video segments, with their offensive “Injun” songs and puppet skits featuring Elley Ray Hennessy and Eric Woolfe, add little to the overall story except some cringy humour about cultural insensitivity.
I admire the intention and I smiled a few times, but was ultimately disappointed by the wealth of talent left floundering here. Your milage may vary.
The Thanksgiving Play
running September 27 to October 20, 2024
CAA Theatre (651 Yonge St.)
running time: 100 minutes (no intermission)
Rachel Cairns, Jada Rifkin, Colin A. Doyle and Craig Lauzon in “The Thanksgiving Play”, Photo by Dahlia Katz