Thanks for Giving

by Kevin Loring

Nan’s family is home for Thanksgiving, but some unsolicited truths are about to be dropped at the dinner table. Old wounds and new realities collide, and sibling rivalry is stoked, but the enduring spirit that guides this family charges on, ever fierce. Thanks for Giving offers plenty to chew on. This intimate and restorative new play from Governor General’s Literary Award winner Kevin Loring, the first ever Artistic Director of Indigenous Theatre at the National Arts Centre of Canada, is about legacy – the legacy of our personal and collective histories, and a family’s legacy as it moves into an age where the assumptions of the old ways surrender to new possibilities. But if the play’s main course is legacy, the dessert is pumpkin pie. Tuck in!

Genres: Plays

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2019

About the author

Kevin Loring is a writer and actor whose play Where the Blood Mixes won the prestigious Canadian Governor General's Literary Award for Drama in 2009. Kevin is a member of the Nlaka'Pamux First Nation in British Columbia, and currently lives in Vancouver.

Reviews

[Jaime M · Rating 5 out of 5]

People should definitely make time to read more plays. I wish I could see this in person. One day.

High School teachers - I think this is an appropriate piece of literature to read around Thx Giving conversations. I recently listened to an IndigiMedia podcast on Thanksgiving and this would have been a great author/play write to interview or to even include the arts as references to current political events.

The bear, twins, the long-time Canadian child apprehension system (‘residential schools,’ children’s aid, health care reporting system authorities), patriarchy & matriarchy.

There are some serious topics here. Be prepared, generous in your space around reading this play, and careful about your journey into a family’s experience in an example of the effects of Canada’s genocide project against Indigenous People.

It’s an important perspective of what we have experienced, and still are going through, and insight into what we could potentially receive from this story if we have any hope for our own reconnecting families. It’s a story that’s so real, relevant and right now.

Reading this will make you richer.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent play, in which an Indigenous family with layers of trauma--personal and generational--come together to struggle through. The first act focuses on a single Thanksgiving meal in which their conflicts threaten to break them apart, but then in subsequent acts they find reasons to re-unite, provide support for one another, and try to be better human beings and family members. As all of this is happening, there is a lot of great information given about Indigenous cultures and ethics, particularly in the context of incredibly violent settler colonialism, both contemporary and historical.
https://youtu.be/2YQPXVNv3W0