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Elizabeth Frances and Joe Tapper in Manahatta at The Public Theater. Joan Marcus

Manahatta | 1hr 45mins. No intermission. | Public Theater | 425 Lafayette Street | 212-967-7555

Every history play has its moral. The Trojan Women: Victory in war brings shame to all. Richard III: Power may be gained (not held) by hypocrisy and murder. A Man for All Seasons and The Crucible: Convictions are worth dying for. So what’s the takeaway from Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Manahatta, which juxtaposes the 17th-century Dutch colonization of this island and the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis? Hard to choose one. White folks monetize, steal, and destroy everything they touch? Ownership is the root of all evil? Ancestors never die?

Maybe the clue is something Bobbie (Sheila Tousey) says to Luke (Enrico Nassi). She has leveraged a bank loan on an adjustable-rate mortgage in order to pay for her late husband’s crushing hospital bills. Debt-ridden Bobbie now faces foreclosure. Luke, like Bobbie, is Native American, working for his (white) father at the bank. He’s guilt-ridden over helping Bobbie into this financial quagmire. She’s philosophical about it. “[W]e need folks like you, to walk in both worlds,” Bobbie says. “You can talk their talk, walk their walk, but the moment you forget who you are, they have you. And then you’re walkin’ in one world, not two.” 

It’s a powerful warning, one I wish Nagle had heeded. By running a Lenape family’s misfortunes through a dual-era structure, she prioritizes time-jumping echoes—between the “purchase” of Manahatta in 1626 and the housing market crash—over credible human drama. What it means, in practice, is an academic concept that looks good on paper, but yields shallow characters, wooden dialogue, and a perverse sense of historical fatalism.

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Joan Marcus

Audiences attending New York theater are used to hearing the announcement at the beginning of many productions—that the venue they are sitting stands on land that was the original homeland of the Lenape people. In the program for the Public Theater’s production of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s 2013 play, Manahatta (to Dec. 23), the statement has grown in declarative emphasis. “The Public stands in honor of the first people and our ancestors…We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced removal from this territory. We honor the generations of stewards, and we pay our respects to the many diverse indigenous peoples still connected to this land.”

The play, directed by Laurie Woolery, takes place in two time zones and places—the year of the financial crash in 2008 in Manhattan and Oklahoma, and then 17th century Manahatta (popularly known as Manhattan Island), where Dutch settlers land, and—first by inquisitive charm, then by brute force—displace the Lenape. The play contrasts the echoing themes of the two different eras: the violent centrifugal spin of money, racism, trade, power, and identity. The company of actors play different characters with similar characteristics in both eras.

Present in both old and modern storylines are the Lenape—a people in the 17th century selling furs and at home in what we know today as Downtown Manhattan. In the 17th century, we see the incipient forces of capitalism destroy the Lenape in their own homeland; in 2008, we see a modern Lenape family in Oklahoma threatened with losing their home because of the financial crash.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Source: www.thedailybeast.com

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Review: ‘Manahatta’ Shows the Brute Forces of New York—Then and Now0)if(e&&”performance”in e&&e.performance&&”function”==typeof e.performance.setResourceTimingBufferSize)e.performance.setResourceTimingBufferSize();!function(){if(BOOMR=e.BOOMR||{},BOOMR.plugins=BOOMR.plugins||{},!BOOMR.plugins.AK){var n=””==”true”?1:0,t=””,a=”eyckraaeaaanajqacqnryaaaa5sxm2af-f-f448605b0-clienttons-s.akamaihd.net”,i=”false”==”true”?2:1,o={“ak.v”:”36″,”ak.cp”:”1314783″,”ak.ai”:parseInt(“790502″,10),”ak.ol”:”0″,”ak.cr”:4,”ak.ipv”:6,”ak.proto”:”http/1.1″,”ak.rid”:”5a025a1c”,”ak.r”:46578,”ak.a2″:n,”ak.m”:”dscr”,”ak.n”:”ff”,”ak.bpcip”:”2604:a880:400:d0::”,”ak.cport”:35342,”ak.gh”:”23.40.178.205″,”ak.quicv”:””,”ak.tlsv”:”tls1.3″,”ak.0rtt”:””,”ak.csrc”:”-“,”ak.acc”:”reno”,”ak.t”:”1702258693″,”ak.ak”:”hOBiQwZUYzCg5VSAfCLimQ==a2KGZdOK2FXPB3V/CyRjVR9qjmfcNLP8DFoXWzJgDDDAzxOMaOCten4Iw98B+xBqWFMYB5MF611zjDNTHitWLDUWhckbbu1hikWPfnRBdw/79j/m0QF/DxYwQvB/5uOFySPx3Gvb9slYqhEAcz/OOj0mmuzUfODQ2wuqxRUa8ZXC/yX97cO96BusGRd+bGuqpwoJnfuCboeIULZz1uaX6exjB1ETbvGjKXlRkZxBTvxDSsFMWzcSXYra505cjDyrtTiNsMhNCYtqNLtwljhP8RJvE1LG22GAUQRL8DeHb8Ypvuxe3GaZMHga6/uh5eCgLtn8EEog1UoykvMhVJRtNKV6kiOztT5R0lzjyROIXj3zmdHHES6m61Dx9NyAdyY0/s3cMBVCOHoDqDu+1Btmka8juRM5RAl35If+/tYj+No=”,”ak.pv”:”30″,”ak.dpoabenc”:””,”ak.tf”:i};if(“”!==t)o[“ak.ruds”]=t;var r={i:!1,av:function(n){var t=”http.initiator”;if(n&&(!n[t]||”spa_hard”===n[t]))o[“ak.feo”]=void 0!==e.aFeoApplied?1:0,BOOMR.addVar(o)},rv:function(){var e=[“ak.bpcip”,”ak.cport”,”ak.cr”,”ak.csrc”,”ak.gh”,”ak.ipv”,”ak.m”,”ak.n”,”ak.ol”,”ak.proto”,”ak.quicv”,”ak.tlsv”,”ak.0rtt”,”ak.r”,”ak.acc”,”ak.t”,”ak.tf”];BOOMR.removeVar(e)}};BOOMR.plugins.AK={akVars:o,akDNSPreFetchDomain:a,init:function(){if(!r.i){var e=BOOMR.subscribe;e(“before_beacon”,r.av,null,null),e(“onbeacon”,r.rv,null,null),r.i=!0}return this},is_complete:function(){return!0}}}}()}(window);]]>

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