‘The Thanksgiving Play’ Review: Larissa FastHorse’s Broadway Satire of Wokeness Is Outpaced by History
6 / 10
It’s a testament to the breakneck pace of the past eight years that “The Thanksgiving Play” would be better off set when it was written. The substance of its argument is no less pressing: How and by whom stories get told perpetuate systems of power and oppression. But the objects of its satire seem both too easy a mark and already expired. It’s true that vanity, complacency and self-congratulations hinder progress, but such illusions have largely gone up in smoke. The winds of backlash have shifted, the schoolhouse is on fire and the hose is needed elsewhere. To their credit, the players do eventually reach a realization, if one that seems even more obvious today — that white creators ought to do less, leaving space for others to tell their own stories. Hopefully “The Thanksgiving Play” clears the way for future artists like FastHorse to do just that.
