14 October 2023
Larissa Fasthorse is concerned about a lack of laughter. The Lakota playwright from South Dakota has said that popular culture’s stories of Indigenous Americans are too often suffused with tragedy and drama, while Indigenous people often place a high value on humor.
So she’s spending much of 2023 cutting into the comedy deficit around issues affecting Indigenous people. Her hit Broadway show, “The Thanksgiving Play,” satirizes a group of white people trying to create a more historically accurate account of the first Thanksgiving and tumbling headlong into multiple blind spots. And now she’s teamed with Ty Defoe to create another comedy, “For the People,” which premiered on the Guthrie Theater’s Proscenium Stage on Friday night.
The Guthrie not only commissioned Fasthorse and Defoe to write the play, but asked them to develop it through conversations with Native elders in Minneapolis. The ensuing production employs almost exclusively Indigenous actors (and a couple of designers, too).
The result of their efforts is a very funny, thoroughly entertaining 90-minute romp that has plenty of sly social commentary, but is mostly designed to tell an engaging story about a collision between tradition and economic development. It’s a fun frolic, a stereotype-skewering sendup of clashes between and within cultures.
As the play opens, a group of elders is gathered in a very realistic imitation of a modern community center (kudos to set designer Tanya Orellana). They’re tasked with dispersing a grant and are ready to hear proposals that include a “statue/fountain/sculpture” that attempts to be all things to all people and a “reverse reenactment” that turns out better for the Indigenous people interned at Bdote (or Fort Snelling) than history would indicate.
But the chief focus of our attention is a proposal from April Dakota, a 20-something who wants to expand her wellness center on Minneapolis’ Franklin Avenue, which has a very long name and attempts to put Indigenous culture at the forefront, sometimes with cringe-inducing obliviousness. When April takes on a rich white suburbanite as a partner, their attempt to create a hybrid of Native and new age spirituality gets particularly hilarious, even while the stakes grow higher in the debate over what best benefits a community.
Director Michael John Garces has crafted a bright and breezy staging, each actor in the eight-member cast given opportunities to steal a scene or two. Katie Anvil Rich is an animated April, full of youthful enthusiasm but lacking in the wisdom department. Kalani Queypo is invariably engaging and energetic as her casino owner father, as is Kendall Kent as the spoiled rich girl who gradually hijacks April’s project.
Each member of the quarreling committee of Native elders cuts a comedic figure but is never treated disrespectfully by the playwrights. Among them, Wes Studi steals scenes as the low-key but loquacious Herb, who ends up being more important than expected. (In a cute inside joke, committee members tout Herb’s experience acting in “Dances with Wolves,” which Studi did.)
What looks like it will be merely a funny culture clash story grows deeper down the stretch, acting as something of a fable about resilience and growth. The climactic conflict is still uproariously silly, but “For the People” also leaves you with some rewarding lessons.
‘For the People’
When: Through Nov. 12
Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 S. Second St., Minneapolis
Tickets: $82-$5, available at 612-377-2224 or guthrietheater.org
Capsule: A brisk and very funny tale of culture clash.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at [email protected].
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