![]() ![]() “I don’t teach history or consult on history to make people feel comfortable about true history.” “I don’t think my job or even the actors or Tim’s is to make the audience feel comfortable about true history,” Mitchell says. He told them not to worry about how offensive their lines or actions on stage were, because that was the whole point, since the shocking stories that FastHorse weaves throughout her play are based on true events. Throughout, Mitchell took time to reassure students that it was OK to follow FastHorse’s stage directions, regardless how disturbing they may be. Magid relishes playing Logan because “there are no throw-away lines” in the script. The trouble continues for Logan (Paige Magid), Jaxton (Adam Joseph Matos), and Alicia (Ruby Marden). Joined by Hall, who also served as the play’s dramaturge, Mitchell fielded questions from students in real time and responded to emails from students who wanted to dig deeper into FastHorse’s message. Several times this fall, Mitchell, who has been a lecturer in Native American studies at the University of Maine for 23 years, drove more than three hours roundtrip from Orono to provide insight at rehearsals, as well as encouragement to the students. Throughout the process of working with John Bear, Joe, Wabanaki REACH, and doing research, I realized how much I don’t know.” I knew as part of the learning it would require a whole cultural competency to help us approach this carefully and thoughtfully. With The Thanksgiving Play, the goal of working with Mitchell and Hall is to avoid the pitfall of “becoming the play. The practice of inviting cultural consultants is part of the new approach to theater taking place across the country, Dugan explains. “Meant to ‘lift up’ the Native American point of view despite including no Native Americans,” writes The New York Times in its review, the play within the play “twists the into pretzels of performative wokeness so mortifying they induce a perma-cringe.” While played for laughs, their efforts are clearly small-minded and offensive. At left is Logan (Paige Magid ’24), director of the fraught Thanksgiving pageant, and at right is Alicia (Ruby Marden ’27), a Los Angeles–based actor hired on the pretense of being Native American. The play within The Thanksgiving Play spirals into chaos as artistic differences become physical between Caden (David Walker ’24) and Jaxton (Adam Joseph Matos ’26). It’s about four white actors, two of whom are teachers and all of whom consider themselves liberal, woke, and forward-thinking, and how they go about rehearsing a Thanksgiving pageant that celebrates Native American Heritage Month for elementary school students. One of the top-10 most-produced plays in the country this year, The Thanksgiving Play delivers belly laughs, but is also intended to shock and disturb the audience. I need to work with these actors and the director. ![]() In fact, I thought, ‘This has to be done. “But once I saw their commitment, I was completely sold. 13.Īt first, says Mitchell, he was “a little apprehensive” about joining the Bates theater team. Performances of The Thanksgiving Play take place on the Gannett Theater stage through Nov. So as Dugan set out to produce The Thanksgiving Play at Bates this fall, he forged a partnership with two experts: John Bear Mitchell, a citizen of the Penobscot Nation and program coordinator at the University of Maine’s Wabanaki Center in Orono, and Bates Associate Professor of History Joe Hall, who teaches and researches the history of the Wabanaki tribes: the Wolastoqey (or Maliseet), Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, and Abenaki. ![]() Good intentions quickly create bad, but very funny results. The Thanksgiving Play’s play-within-a-play gets going as the woke and clueless Caden (David Walker ’24), Logan (Paige Magid ’24), Alicia (Ruby Marden ’27), and Jaxton (Adam Joseph Matos ’26) set out to create a Thanksgiving pageant for schoolchildren that also celebrates Native American Heritage Month. Tim Dugan, associate professor of theater, has wanted to bring The Thanksgiving Play to Bates since it was first produced off-Broadway in 2018.īut he knew that in order to produce Larissa FastHorse’s satire, which is as hilarious as it is unsettling, the Bates production crew and cast would need help avoiding the very behavior that the play viciously lampoons: performative wokeness by white people who think they’re celebrating a Native American perspective. Share on Email Share on Facebook Share on X (Twitter) Share on LinkedIn ![]()
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