Broadway’s Very Funny “The Thanksgiving Play” Arrives Possibly Just Past Its Best-By Date
by Admin
Truth be told, I am not an American, but a Canadian living in NYC, brought up on the television and film imagery that surrounds the fable that is ‘American Thanksgiving’. It’s a wildly inaccurate formulation, not based on any real history, as we learn quite inventively in the new Broadway production of The Thanksgiving Play, currently being restaged at Second Stage’s Helen Hayes Theatre. It’s a hilarious hoot of a play, etched in its uber-wokeness and earnestness by a cast of comedic pros setting the table with the goods as deliciously as possible. This is a play that I saw years ago, at Playwrights Horizons back in 2018, but here in its updated remount, the flame is still ignited and the ideas still served up, but somehow, maybe because of the political landscape surrounding the idea of being ‘too woke’ for your own good seems a bit dated and past its prime, even as I laughed all the way back to the dinner table.
Scott Foley and Katie Finneran Photo by Joan Marcus.
The ‘natives gave to me’ videos that are presented before the feast even begins (and throughout this 100 min play) are a welcome addition, pushing forth all the fictionalized and prolific myths associated with this holiday that my mother always refers to as, “just another Thursday in November“. The holiday itself seemed quaint but obsessionally commerce-driven, especially to us socially minded Canadians who already have had our harvest feast back on our Canadian Thanksgiving in October, oddly enough on the same day as American Columbus Day. Ironic. The one good thing for this Canadian boy was that it didn’t feel like the holiday was marinated in a completely false narrative, one that even I knew deep down in his hungry turkey-lovin’ heart had nothing to do with reality. Although that framework in Canada might be getting a bit murkier with every passing year.