This one man play from Dennis Trainor Jr tracks his gradual awakening out of his white liberal complacency in the early years of the Trump administration. Trainor begins in the present day, by noting his anomalous status as a guerrilla documentary filmmaker at a rich white dinner party but then flashes back to the comparatively halcyon days of January 2015 where he is recruited to help coordinate Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s failed presidential campaign.
Trainor not only effectively uses his recounting of his time working on Stein’s campaign to show the deterioration of his fantasies about making an electoral difference, but also his growing awareness of white privilege and how the subject can cause divisions within the left wing. Trainor’s later chronicling of his involvement in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests of 2016-17 further serves to demonstrate his increasing realisation of his own white privilege, combining humour with serious socio-political points to great effect.
Trainor uses this dual approach throughout the play’s duration, which also helps to flesh out his personal life as an excitable bumbling dad and provide a much-needed tonal balance to proceedings. Trainor’s penultimate realisation of the settler nature of white Americans is particularly effective as a powerful moment that embodies one of the play’s key themes so well.
Manifest Destiny’s Child is a much-needed chronicling of one white liberal’s journey of self-realisation that informs and entertains without ever coming across as preachy. Trainor has a highly engaging stage presence that ensures the audience is with him every step of the way.