At the heart of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s new play “Manahatta” at The Public Theater is the city’s origin story, told and giddily retold over centuries: the moment when Dutch settlers ostensibly “purchased” the island of Manhattan from gullible Lenape natives for the equivalent of $24.
That myth, according to historians, has served the colonizers well. In their book, “Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898,” Edwin G. Burroughs and Mike Wallace wrote that the story helped generations of Europeans and their descendants believe that the acquisition of the land was built “not on conquest but on contract.”
“What tickles the tellers is that the Dutch conned the Indians into handing over–in exchange for a handful of worthless trinkets–what became the most valuable piece of real estate in the world,” Burroughs and Wallace wrote. “It is our Primal Deal.”
The production, which opened last week and is set to run through Dec. 23, jumps between the past and the present while reframing this legend. In this retelling by Nagle, a playwright of Cherokee heritage who is also one of the country’s foremost experts on tribal sovereignty, the audience is asked to consider the perspective of the dispossessed: the Native American men and women who were stripped of their land, first in the 17th century and again during the subprime mortgage crisis in the early 21st century.
Elizabeth Frances and Rainbow Dickerson in the New York premiere production of MANAHATTA, written by Mary Kathryn Nagle and directed by Laurie Woolery, at The Public Theater.
[–>Production photos by Joan Marcus
In addition to being written by a Native playwright, the Public’s production of Manahatta stars Native (and non-Native) actors and features Lenape cultural advisers. There are even lines of dialogue spoken in the Lenape language: “Awen hech nan” (Who is that person?); “Keku hach katatam”…
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Historic Wolf Creek Grist Mill in Loudonville, Ohio. 
