Manahatta NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (79)
See it if you are interested in indigenous history, you like great acting, you love great drama
Don't see it if you're not interested in history or identity
See it if Native story being told on stage. Past and present is woven together in a coherent flowline.
Don't see it if Avoid if you can't handle white discomfort.
See it if you want to see a story about and by Native Americans.
Don't see it if you want to see a skillful piece of theatre. Read more
See it if you're interested in history
Don't see it if you're looking for an absorbing drama
See it if You love great acting with a multi generational story at heart and a story bridging many concepts.
Don't see it if You’re not open to time traveling between the past and present for storytelling.
See it if Important to show/see work by/about Native Americans. Political, critical review of how Natives treated in history & today. Hope to see more
Don't see it if The storyline was often too obvious, Would have appreciated plotlines a little more complex. Takes place in 2 time frames.
See it if You appreciate new ways of looking at things and untold stories.
Don't see it if If you want light theater, or if you don’t want to reflect on the past when it may be ugly.
See it if you wanna see a well written story about Native Americans, spanning centuries and switching between the past and the present.
Don't see it if you are looking for light entertainment or comedy, or if complex timelines easily confuse you.
Critic Reviews (19)
“Now open at the Public Theater...Nagle’s play traces the origins of American finance and the follies of its bottomless appetite for capital to the exploitation of the Lenape by the city’s Dutch settlers.”
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“Many of the characters in Mary Kathryn Nagle’s ;Manahatta,; now running at The Public Theater, wear their naïve hearts on their sleeves, appearing trustworthy until the moment they’re proven otherwise...Laurie Woolery’s production isn’t understated, but it does make a statement.”
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“Overfamiliar writing like this, however earnest, doesn’t introduce us to fascinating people; it confirms narrative tropes...We know what we’re witnessing is devastating, but what we feel is abstraction, as if we’re looking at the chalk outline of a body without the body in it.”
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"At under two hours, 'Manahatta' doesn’t sprawl, but the breadth of its canvas is so large that almost inevitably some passages feel rushed, and some characters more archetypal than fully realized—figures glimpsed from afar and sometimes hazily."
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“The play disappoints because it could have dug deeper, told us something research materials don’t or can’t. May it inspire other, beginning writers. Anyone can scribble a moral; mapping a journey to the revelation is hard.”
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“Mary Kathryn Nagle’s ‘Manahatta’ offers a useful service: She is a Native American playwright reminding us what it truly means to reckon with the blood that white Americans have shed in the name of independence and progress. Thankfully, Nagle’s ambitious play, making its New York premiere at the Public Theater, has more to offer than just a history lesson.”
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“ ‘Manahatta’ is a thing of mirrors...as Nagle makes blazingly clear, much work needs to be done to break the mirror image of the past that continues to plague us today.”
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“Thanks to the razor-sharp writing, directing, and solid performances all around, ‘Manahatta’ is a powerful discourse on the lives of the Lenape during the colonial era and through to the present day. But be sure to listen closely as the zingers fly, or you might miss interactions like this one between two of the colonist interlopers discussing how they might manage things when they drive out the Native Americans and, with them, the fur trade on which they depend.”
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