The Playwright Larissa FastHorse on “The Thanksgiving Play,” Broadway’s New Comedy of White Wokeness

The New Yorker Radio Hour — April 18, 2023
Host: David Remnick
Guest: Larissa FastHorse (playwright, member of the Sicangu Lakota nation)
Interviewer: Vincent Cunningham (The New Yorker staff writer)

Episode Overview

This episode features a deep-dive conversation with playwright Larissa FastHorse about her new Broadway comedy, “The Thanksgiving Play.” As the first Native American woman to have a play produced on Broadway, FastHorse discusses her satirical, razor-sharp look at “white wokeness,” performative allyship, and representation in the American theater. The episode covers FastHorse’s personal journey, artistic philosophy, and the ongoing cultural and ethical debates that underpin both her new play and broader conversations in theater.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. FastHorse’s Background and Cultural Identity

• Adoption & Upbringing:
  • FastHorse grew up in South Dakota, adopted into a white family connected to the Lakota reservation.
  • Despite her adoption, she was raised “very aware of my Lakota identity and my Lakota culture,” thanks to mentors and elders.
  • She navigated the challenges of being in a predominantly white world, especially through her first career in classical ballet.
    • “It doesn’t really get much whiter than that. I don’t know. Maybe opera.” (FastHorse, 01:45)
• Superpower of Translation:
  • FastHorse reframes her bicultural experience as a “superpower” — enabling her to “translate” Indigenous experiences for white audiences, who remain the majority.
    • “I can take Lakota culture and experiences and contemporary indigenous experiences and translate them into white for white audiences, which unfortunately, are the majority of audiences still in American theater.” (FastHorse, 02:38)

2. The Influence of Ballet on Her Playwriting

• Work Ethic:
  • Ballet shaped her discipline: “You’re expected to do a lot on your own…that kind of work ethic has helped me as a playwright.” (FastHorse, 03:27)
• Movement-Based Storytelling:
  • Her choreography background brings movement and gesture into her plays.
  • “There’s a lot of movement-based acting, you know, text-free scenes…that are essential to the story.” (FastHorse, 03:47)
• Process of Adaptation:
  • She learned from the Balanchine tradition to continually adapt work based on her collaborators’ strengths.

3. Satirizing Performative Wokeness: “The Thanksgiving Play”

• Premise:
  • The play follows four white-presenting performers attempting to create an “inclusive” Thanksgiving pageant without making audiences feel bad or misrepresenting Native Americans.
  • The characters become a parody of “liberal people bending themselves into pretzels to show that they’re woke.” (Remnick, 00:14)
• Educational vs Artistic Intent:
  • FastHorse reflects on the tension between didacticism and art:
    • “You can be an artist or you can be an educator. If you try to be both, you’ll do one of them badly. So you have to pick one.” (FastHorse, retelling advice from mentor Maritimeita, 05:57)
  • She chooses to prioritize art, letting the education be a secondary, organic effect.

4. Audience Expectations and Satire's Double-Edge

• White Liberal Audience:
  • “I make no… I do not hide that…this is about white liberal folks, which tend to be theater goers.” (FastHorse, 13:22)
• Sugar and Medicine:
  • FastHorse approaches serious topics through comedy:
    • “That’s the sugar and then there’s the medicine...you have to keep taking it through it.” (FastHorse, 13:36)
  • Some audiences feel uncomfortable, evidenced by the rare walk-outs:
    • “Once it got too far in, they were just like, no, this is too much.” (FastHorse, 14:08)
  • Most, however, are highly engaged — sometimes vocally participating so much they add several extra minutes to the show.

5. Passing and Representation in Theater

• Personal Experience with Passing:
  • FastHorse is “white passing” and has experienced both privilege and pain because of it — acceptance in some rooms, but also exclusion and colorism within her own communities.
  • “I am quite sure that I get into rooms that not white passing, native people would not get into.” (FastHorse, 09:13)
• Casting Hypocrisies:
  • Although she wrote casting notes to encourage “people of color who can pass for white” to audition, these instructions were blocked in New York casting.
  • “We were told we can’t put that in the casting breakdown...there are still white people on these stages in New York City right now playing native...but you’re saying I can’t openly have non, you know, white people play white people if they look white to you.” (FastHorse, 12:11)

6. Land Acknowledgement and Reparations

• Land Acknowledgement as a Step:
  • Though acknowledging some “tiredness,” FastHorse upholds its importance:
    • “Until everybody in the United States of America, if you can name the indigenous land they’re standing on, we need to keep doing it.” (FastHorse, 14:58)
  • She urges that land acknowledgment is the first stage toward reparation:
    • “If you can’t name who you’re supposed to be paying reparation to, you obviously can’t even begin. So you have to at least know who reparations are owed to for the land that you’re on. Who are you paying rent to? You need to know that. And then you need to start paying the rent.” (FastHorse, 15:27)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On walking both worlds:

  • “I really recognize it as my superpower that I can take Lakota culture and experiences and contemporary indigenous experiences and translate them into white for white audiences.” (FastHorse, 02:33)

• On the White Theatrical Gaze:

  • “I just can’t imagine what it would be like…for a white male playwright… [to] just be a playwright and they don’t do anything else." (FastHorse, 09:44)

• On casting hypocrisies:

  • “I’m not allowed to ask people if they’re Native American when they’re being cast…then people get all mad because we cast…someone that turns out they weren’t native or they didn’t have a connection to community. And it’s just, it’s this constant…thing which is all part of…what we’re dealing with in Thanksgiving play.” (FastHorse, 12:15)

• On satire and discomfort:

  • “It’s satire. It’s a comedy within a satire. So the satire is the medicine and you have to keep taking it through it.” (FastHorse, 13:36)

• On land acknowledgment:

  • “Land acknowledgement is a step. So it’s the first step of many steps toward reparation or the many steps of reparation.” (FastHorse, 15:27)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:10 — Remnick introduces the theme (wokeness, “The Thanksgiving Play,” and FastHorse’s historic Broadway presence)
• 01:45 — FastHorse on her upbringing, adoption, and ballet as a cultural experience
• 03:18 — Ballet’s lasting influence on FastHorse’s writing style and process
• 04:58 — Summary of “The Thanksgiving Play” and satirical aim
• 06:50 — Balancing art and education; FastHorse’s artistic mission
• 08:12 — “Passing” in theater, colorism, and representation complexities
• 09:41 — Burden of being “the first” and serving as cultural educator
• 11:28 — Ongoing redface in theater; paradoxes in casting policies
• 13:22 — FastHorse’s intended audience; responses from theatregoers
• 14:36 — Land acknowledgements and their meaning
• 15:27 — Reparations: “Who are you paying rent to?”

Tone and Style

The conversation is candid, witty, and incisive, weaving humor with sharp critique. FastHorse’s remarks carry a balance of irony and earnestness, illuminating both the progress and persistent contradictions of race and representation in American theater.

Recommended for listeners interested in:

• Satire and social commentary in theater
• Native American representation and issues of identity
• The politics of casting and "wokeness"
• Artistic process and philosophy