My first exposure to an Indigenous American was The Lone Ranger on radio. The Lone Ranger’s constant companion was Tonto, who referred to the masked man as “Kemosahbee.” Did even the Lone Ranger know what the word meant? It may have been a term of endearment or an obscenity. The comradeship between the Lone Ranger and Tonto was probably taken from James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking novels, written in the 1820s to 1840s, in which the hero, Natty Bumppo has an indigenous comrade Chingachgook. 

I can’t recall the name of the film, but my childhood memories also include being terrified by an Indian raid in some black and white epic. As was often the case, some nice white family was slaughtered and their home burnt down. Later I saw all the John Ford epics of battles between John Wayne and indigenous Americans. The Searchers, considered Ford’s greatest film turned the tables and presented Wayne as a fierce racist obsessed with revenge on an Indian tribe. Wayne’s Ethan Edwards saw his adversaries as sexual predators on white women. He was intent on killing his niece whose blood and maidenhood had been sullied by indigenous men. By the 1970s, films were turning the tables on the old tropes and presenting the American Indians as the good guys and the white guys as the enemy.

While most of the cinematic American Indians of the studio era were played by white men in redface, Tonto on the long-running television version of The Lone Ranger was played by an American Indian (well, actually, a Canadian Indian), Jay Silverheels (actual name, Harold Smith). Until recently there has been a shortage of American Indian actors because there have been few roles for them on screen and, even more so, on stage. Series like the excellent Dark Winds, created from Tony Hillerman novels, now use only indigenous actors. It would be as politically incorrect for a white actor to play an indigenous American as to play a Black or Asian person. 

Which brings us to the hilarious The Thanksgiving Play, now at Steppenwolf. Our history books tell us that the early settlers in Massachusetts had a feast of Thanksgiving with the Wampanoag tribe after the indigenous people provided food to the settlers during their first Winter in New England. In Larissa Fasthorse’s version, three small-town theatre folk and a Hollywood actress try to devise a politically correct drama of the first Thanksgiving to be presented to elementary school students and their parents. Logan, the director (Audrey Francis), is one of those serious theatre people who find themselves trapped in a situation unworthy of their talents (a public elementary school). Her fifth grade production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Comethled to a petition from parents to have her fired (I feel that way about professional productions of O’Neill’s overlong play). The Thanksgiving play will be her one chance at redemption. Her leading actor is her boyfriend Jaxton (Nate Santana), a local street performer and Yoga devotee who anguishes over being politically correct. They are joined by Caden (Tim Hopper), an elementary school teacher who is an aspiring playwright. Thanks to a grant, Logan has hired an American Indian actress, Alicia, based on a headshot of Alicia in Indian garb. Alicia turns out not to be indigenous, leaving Logan with the horror of an all-white troupe.

The Thanksgiving Play is a two-pronged satire. On one hand, it is a satire of political correctness gone awry, an indigenous version of the kind of white liberal P.C. inanity so brilliantly depicted in the recent film American Fiction. On the other hand, it is a comedy about the creation of theatre and a politically savvy farce—a contemporary version of classics like Noises Off, which will be revived at Steppenwolf next season. Though the focus is not always clear, The Thanksgiving Play is consistently funny, an antidote to the idiotic mess, Potus, that Steppenwolf served up a few months ago. 

The trick of farce is that the actors have to play their parts as seriously as they would in more serious fare. The humor in farce is that the characters often take themselves far too seriously. Under Jess McLeod’s direction, the four actors kept their absurd characters credible. As usual in farce events get crazier and more physical. 

Nothing is funnier or potentially more dangerous than extreme earnestness. The Thanksgiving Play is great medicine for our crazy times.