How fucked up do we look as we strive for diversity?
Pretty fucked up.
That’s Larissa Fasthorse’s take on it with her seven-scene satire, “The Thanksgiving Play,” currently in production at Jobsite Theater in Tampa.
Reader, we are fucked up, and also exhausting. And by “we” I mean Euroamericans. And we’re at our most exhausting while we’re trying so hard we fail to see we’ve made diversity about us and not about the “other.”
If there’s one takeaway from Thanksgiving, it’s that true diversity isn’t about how the mainstream culture feels about it, but somehow, as we strive to include, endeavor to acknowledge, and reach for equality, we make it about us white folks and not about the “other” we allegedly want to include. Is there anything more white than culturally appropriating ourselves? The sentence is so meta that it fatigued me to write. Which fits; I left the Shimberg exhausted, and I’m white. Imagine how it feels to watch us try and not misrepresent another culture.
IF YOU GO
“The Thanksgiving Play”
Through Nov. 17: Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 4 p.m.
$29.50, demand-dependant.
Jobsite Theater at the Shimberg, Straz Center.
1010 N. WC MacInnes Place, Tampa. 813-229-7827.
jobsitetheater.org.
The easiest solution, of course, is to erase the other by pretending we can’t possibly get it right, a point Fasthorse makes with skewering, fearless wit. We’re so woke we don’t want to get it wrong, so let’s stay safe and not even try.
Somewhere I saw the words “terminally woke” used to describe this show, and, after watching the opening night performance, I can’t think of two better words to describe the the Euroamerican problem of how to deal with our xenophobic, violent past — a past we continue to misrepresent in our history books.
A note, though, before we delve into the performance: Jobsite itself does an admirable job with the very issues Fasthorse’s play satirizes; in his curtain speech, producing artistic director and company co-founder David Jenkins acknowledges the theater itself sits on traditional Tocobaga lands and also recognizes the Seminole Tribe of Florida — the descendents of the Tocobaga and other tribes — for their assistance with the production. The walls inside the theater display work from Kiowa artists Michael Jon Morgan, Ethan Candyfire, Travis Mammedaty and Gordon Emhoolah. (putting them well ahead of a heavily funded Tampa Bay museum that should have art exactly like this.)
Now, the show.
“The Thanksgiving Play” suggests we need to risk being wrong. Not wanting to take that risk is exhausting, and you will feel that exhaustion as you sit in the audience: At times, “Thanksgiving” meanders through delicate subjects; other times, it charges through it like frenetic Weimaraner. Fasthorse juxtaposes “traditional” (read: Euroamerican) Thanksgiving songs with their polar opposite: scenes where the end-stage liberals try and create a culturally-appropriate Thanksgiving play. A less talented director might have risked giving audiences whiplash, but Director Kari Goetz weaves the scenes together expertly. She brings forth just the right amount from each of the foursome, staggering the pacing so that just as it feels like too much, it slows.
And what a delightful foursome they are. Logan, a vegan director, played by Caitlin Eason wants to “devise” a culturally-appropriate Thanksgiving play. She’s assisted by her lover/actor, Jobsite fave Giles Davies, whose character Jaxton practically oozes cheap patchouli. A third grade teacher, Caden, played by Adam Workman, joins the group. He wants to write the real history but also doesn’t understand why beheaded Indians aren’t appropriate for a kids play. Rounding out this cast of theatrical dilettantes, Dana Mauro plays the actress hired for her mistaken ethnicity (Logan hires her, believing her a Native American.)
The synergy onstage is hysterical, in no small part thanks to Mauro, who brings radiant talent to her role as Alicia, a decidedly un-woke young woman. She’s unapologetically offensive to both indigenous people, because she will pretend to be a Native American for money, and vegan, because she recants with much delight (and ours) her family’s tradition of turkey bowling.
Workman’s Caden brings a curious blend to the role. With apologies to the theater for describing him in television terms, Workman looks like Jason Segel’s character in “How I Met Your Mother,” but at times sounds like Sheldon from “Big Bang Theory.” Onstage, this charms us, an insecure white guy who drools over a girl he cannot have but also will lose his shit if you change one word of his play.
Loyal Jobsite audiences will recognize Davies; he epitomizes the stereotypical starving artist who somehow finds a gainfully employed woman to help him. The physicality of his character — it’s not everyone who can scale a tall file cabinet to assume the lotus position — is a treasure every time we see him onstage, and his Jaxton is no exception.
While there’s more to say about this show, anything else added here would ruin any of the show’s many glorious surprises. I cannot imagine anyone not laughing their way through “The Thanksgiving Play.” If you curse political correctness and stubbornly shout “Merry Christmas!” at store clerks who wish you “Happy Holidays,” you’ll laugh. If diversity and inclusion matter to you, but you think us white folks are tripping over ourselves with our efforts, you’ll laugh. Both sides of the aisle will appreciate everything about “The Thanksgiving Play,” but consider yourselves warned: you’ll need to keep up with the show’s pace. Consider “The Thanksgiving Play” is the 90-minute theatrical equivalent of truly fine sex: it brings you to the brink and pulls you back, repeatedly, until it gives you glorious release.
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