The Thanksgiving Play

Content Warning: This section discusses anti-Indigenous racism and the genocide of Indigenous Americans.

The water bottle only appears in Scene 2, but it is a significant symbol of Performative Wokeness and White Privilege/Guilt, revealing both the way the characters are approaching this Thanksgiving play project and who they are as people. Jaxton gives the water bottle, which is a mason jar, to Logan as a gift for the first day of rehearsal. At first, Logan is confused and unimpressed by the gift, but Jaxton informs her that he bought it at the farmer’s market and that the glass is recycled shards from broken windows collected in housing projects. Logan lights up, suddenly ecstatic about the gift. Jaxton is the one who got Logan the job as the director of this piece, and the gift is a subtle way of reminding her of this (which works, as she thanks him for getting her the job). Jaxton also uses the jar as a way of describing the play, effectively marking his authority before she can and defining the piece on his own terms. He proclaims,

It’s symbolic of the way we’re going to create this play.