THE THANKSGIVING PLAY Previews — Page 2

This one was a big miss for me as well, sadly.

The cast tries their best to bring the extremely one-note characters to life but the material was just not good. The best moments for me were when the play actually pushes into the uncomfortable and "goes there" with the subject matter, but unfortunately the show all too frequently RUSHES to bring us back to the "white people trying too hard to be politically correct" equilibrium.

I knew we were in for a long afternoon when (spoiler, maybe? below). It was a loooong 100 minutes.

To me, this felt like a combination of POTUS and the Minutes. I found the absurd end enjoyable, but the middle dragged on for a while. (To the point where I was more interested in watching D'arcy Carden peel the skin off a single grape than whatever dialogue was happening in the scene.)

I thought D'Arcy Carden was the funniest of the bunch. Scott Foley broke a couple of times, although I couldn't tell if he broke genuinely, or if it was a planted break.

Overall, I found the show to be ... fine. Some of the videos were cringeworthily funny, while others were just cringe and dragged the show on.

Surprised by the lack of chatter on this.

Going in I knew the show had been produced regionally to varying degrees of acclaim. I also had heard the show was putting a mirror up to current zeitgeist culture with satire . I have to say while entertaining and fast paced the show wasn't the great satire or cultural commentary I thought it was going to be. Seemed a bit soft - and not as skewering as I had expected.

The cast, this ensemble, are doing some excellent work. D'Arcy Carden in particular - and hell I will always love Scott Foley and not mad at seeing him without a shirt on - but overall thought the show was just fine...Entertaining certainly but don't think it stings as deeply or makes the social statement it wants - a bit half baked. We definitely laughed but wanted a bit more - and given its PH history and regional love - thought there would be more to it.

Excellent production design

And trying to wrap my head around The Shining references which I don't get.

VernonGersch said: "And trying to wrap my head around The Shining references which I don't get."

To me, the moment that seemed the most The Shining like was when they were all covered in blood. Aside from the visual, that scene also showed their transformation into people so inside their own heads they were going crazy. That's what happens to Jack Torrance in The Shining (at least in the movie, I didn't read the book).

That same scene also crystalized why The Thanksgiving Play wasn't working for me. There's no way Scott Foley's character, given how sensitive he wants to be to Native Americans would enthusiastically hold up decapitated heads.

I found both the Scott Foley character and the Katie Finneran character totally unbelievable and overly broad caricatures. Well meaning liberals who have no context for what they're talking about is a reasonable satirical target.

However, because from the start of the play, everything they said or did seemed completely unhinged, there's no way to escalate that. It's hard to show characters have a blind spot around representation when all their behavior is strange. They can't eat cheese without it turning into a fight, they appear to have problems holding on to jobs, their sex life is apparently super weird...

Also without completely revealing the ending, at the beginning of the play, that super "woke" couple insists there's no way to do their play without collaborating with at least one Native American. Their solution at the end is completely consistent with that point. They don't really evolve as characters.

I'll just say I much preferred the off-broadway production. There, the actors didn't seem to be parodying anyone, they just acted naturally. D'arcy is obviously a very funny and talented person but she seemed to be playing a version of a human where Margot Siebert just was a character who behaved that way with no comment in the performance. There's nothing wrong with the "bigger" approach taken here by everyone but it does make everyone seem like a joke so therefore there are no moments of clarity.

I also STRONGLY missed the actors doing the songs between scenes. Those videos seemed to just drag on and on.

nasty_khakis said: "I'll just say I much preferred the off-broadway production. There, the actors didn't seem to be parodying anyone, they just acted naturally. D'arcy is obviously a very funny and talented person but she seemed to be playing a version of a human where Margot Siebert just was a character who behaved that way with no comment in the performance. There's nothing wrong with the "bigger" approach taken here by everyone but it does make everyone seem like a joke so therefore there are no moments of clarity.

I also STRONGLY missed the actors doing the songs between scenes. Those videos seemed to just drag on and on."



100% agree. This was so good at Playwrights and is just a big dud on Broadway. Chavkin is to blame, unfortunately.

jacobsnchz14 said: "Hey, EDSOSLO! Didn't know if you wanted to start a new thread for tonight's reviews or just change the name of this one in your original post! "

Reviews thread just launched!