Despite all attempts to project Norman Rockwell vibes onto Thanksgiving, the holiday has long been associated with stressful travel, flaring tempers, and tears, thanks to relations with diametrically opposed beliefs gathering in close quarters for a long, leisurely meal.

Throw in a conversation about the brutal, non-mythologized history of the American Thanksgiving holiday, and, well, you’ve likely lit a powder keg. Yet this is essentially what two white, politically progressive characters in Larissa FastHorse’s satire The Thanksgiving Play, now being presented by The Penny Seats Theatre Company, aim for: to devise an original holiday play for elementary school students that tells the truth in a culturally ethical way.

As you might guess, this turns out to be a far harder and messier task than they expect.

Logan (Brittany Batell) is an uber-liberal, vegan drama teacher whose recent student production of The Iceman Cometh resulted in a petition signed by 300 parents, so she’s already on thin ice. Her equally performatively “woke” boyfriend, Jaxton (Kevin Keller), fancies himself a serious artist—though he mainly works as a street performer at a farmers’ market and does yoga—who will help create an original play that both honors and “holds space” for indigenous peoples.

To ensure historical accuracy, Logan recruits Caden (Russ Schwartz), a nerdy teacher with both relevant knowledge and playwright dreams. Logan also uses a grant to hire an actress named Alicia (Gabrielle Piazza), whose headshot suggests she’s Native American.

Alicia, however, is not only not indigenous, but she casts herself (via her agent) as “ethnically fluid,” unbothered by questions of appropriation and authenticity. Logan has a small breakdown while processing this information, then shifts the conversation to: How can this small white theater troupe present a play that centers native history and culture without the input or involvement of any Indigenous artists? Is it even possible?

The Thanksgiving Play explores this question, highlighting the contradictions and absurdities of political correctness when taken to extremes. (At one point, Jaxton gently accuses Logan of gender stereotyping when she assigns him and Caden to devise battle scenes, and Logan counters that historical accuracy all but demands male-only involvement. Touché, I guess?)

If we’re tiptoeing around every demographic’s sensitivities and triggers, FastHorse seems to argue, and we’re “making space” for them all equally, then we quickly find ourselves unable to communicate anything at all. Thus, the losses of potentially smoothing out all cultural frictions may be greater than the gains—and this message is likely to sting those in the audience (myself included) who’ve leaned hard into cultural sensitivity for decades.

Plus, it’s interesting to note that FastHorse’s Thanksgiving Play was the first by a Native American playwright to be produced on Broadway—in 2023. First, wow—so that took a long time. But second, FastHorse has said in interviews that her previous plays, calling for Indigenous actors, were often deemed “un-castable,” so she decided to write a play about white people grappling with native history in America.

The results are often funny, up to and including interstitial songs—performed by the cast playing kids—that employ cringey, Thanksgiving-themed children’s songs you can hear online. (As the show progresses, the young people’s presentations grow markedly darker, as FastHorse finds her own way to work in some hard truths.)

By the end of the show’s 90-minute run-time, however, watching these absurd characters tie themselves up in knots over what will be a forgettable or sublimely pretentious (maybe both?) children’s play feels less and less satisfying.

Perhaps that’s because the show starts to feel like variations on the same joke—which is, Logan and Jaxton clearly care most about appearing to be ultra-sensitive, evolved, and enlightened, but that makes them, ironically, the most self-absorbed people on stage.

Under Kelley Rawls’ direction, Penny Seats’ production of The Thanksgiving Play swings big, right from the start. Batell and Keller set the stage for farce by way of an absurd, intricate “de-coupling” ritual, done before they shift into work-together mode. Schwartz, meanwhile, is a more muted, serious, and nebbish-y presence, chiming in regularly as the play’s conscience regarding American history, which gradually starts to grate on Logan’s nerves. And while Piazza’s Alicia initially seems like little more than a vain, self-absorbed dingbat, you start to wonder if her good-natured, open-minded shrugs at the universe contain a deceptively profound kind of wisdom.

Regarding the production’s technical elements, Audrey Tieman’s set design (with an assist from Kinza Parker’s spot-on props) achieves the spare, institutional feeling of a high school drama room, complete with a desk, white board, and wall displays with Broadway show posters. Summer Wasung’s costume design visibly conveys the characters’ personalities—from Batell’s drama-teacher-standard-issue artsy scarf, to Keller’s “Free Peltier” tee, to Schwartz’s argyle sweater vest over a buttondown shirt—and also provides a dash of real-world whimsy during the musical numbers. Lighting designer Sydney Geysbeek and sound designer Will Myers help make scene transitions clear, and draw focus to the show’s most serious and harrowing moments.

Did I love The Thanksgiving Play? No. But did it challenge me and give me some ideas to chew on? Absolutely.

For that, I am always grateful.

Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.    

Penny Seats' production of "The Thanksgiving Play" runs through December 7 at Cahoots Event Center, 206 East Huron Street, Ann Arbor. Visit the Penny Seats website for tickets and more information.