The Vagrant Trilogy NYC Reviews and Tickets

70%

(37 Ratings)

Positive

70%

Mixed

16%

Negative

14%

Members say

Relevant, Thought-provoking, Ambitious, Great acting, Intelligent

About the Show

Award-winning playwright Mona Mansour delves into the Palestinian struggle for home and identity.

In 1967, Adham, a Palestinian Wordsworth scholar, goes to London with his new wife to deliver a lecture. When war breaks out at home, he must make a decision that will affect the rest of his life. The two parts that follow explore alternate realities based on whether he decides to stay or return home. Mansour’s drama, directed by Obie Award winner and Drama Desk Award nominee Mark Wing-Davey, features six actors in nineteen different roles and spans four decades and three generations of a family uprooted by war and politics.

Show-Score Member Reviews (37)

Riveting and powerful in its examination of the displacement, exile, and statelessness of one man, an academic, and his family, and the consequences resulting from the life-changing choices one is forced to make in the face of horrible injustices

See it if you don't want to miss the beautiful direction of Mark Wing-Davey or the ultra talented cast of 6 playing a reported 19 roles.

Don't see it if you might find the 3+ hours running time daunting even though there are 2 intermissions and the evening just flies by due to the quality ... Read more

Resonant, Great acting, Great staging, Great writing, Absorbing

See it if you appreciate well written plays, great dramas, wonderful multiple story lines, incredible sets, great three act shows.

Don't see it if You don't like longer dramas, off-Broadway shows, shows dealing with war and refugees, shows that jump around different times. Read more

Great acting, Intelligent, Relevant, Slow

See it if Enjoyed the show and ideas. Thoughtful we’ll do e

Don't see it if Way too long. Over three hours and hard to stay for whole

Intense, Thought-provoking, Relevant, Intelligent, Absorbing

See it if You would enjoy a show about what it means to be a refugee or someone without a homeland. A show with a Palestinian perspective.

Don't see it if You cannot sit for a long time. It is over three hours long. You prefer a linear plot.

Relevant, Intense, Ambitious

See it if you are interested in the middle east crisis and the refugee problems

Don't see it if you don't want to sit for a long time and have trouble following different plot endings

Disappointing, Ambitious

See it if you want to see a play with a set up in the first act and alternate realities in the second and third acts. I know it's been done before.

Don't see it if ...well you can't. I saw the last performance. Read more

Relevant, Intelligent, Great acting

See it if well acted family drama in a larger context.

Don't see it if want a big sweeping story instead of one of a couple.

Relevant, Excruciating, Great acting, Great staging, Disappointing

See it if First act is stunning in content and design fabulous sets, full of expectation for acts 2-3 which torture us as it disappoints them

Don't see it if 3- 1/2 hours. The metaphor of being trapped feels literal Great potential disappoints them on stage and us as it doesn’t delve deep

Critic Reviews (7)

"Mansour’s rich trilogy about a displaced Palestinian family is captivating, and for all the protean theatricality of Mark Wing-Davey’s gorgeous production, watching it feels somehow like being engrossed in a novel, with that same luxuriant sense of immersion and transport. Woven of poetry and politics, threaded with comedy, it’s Stoppardian in its intellectualism and doesn’t shy from poignancy."
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"From over here in New York, it's easy for us to see the plight of refugees as an abstraction, be they Palestinians, Ukrainians, or any number of others. But it's impossible to do so after seeing 'The Vagrant Trilogy,' which uses the story of one man and his family to comment on the toll of being displaced from one's home."
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"Mansour presents flawed, deeply relatable characters in a seemingly intractable situation. Far from a political polemic about the Middle East, 'The Vagrant Trilogy' shows the human cost of history and forces us to imagine what we would do if given Adham's choice — if we were even lucky enough to have a choice."
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"'The Vagrant Trilogy' [is] an ambitious and thoroughly gripping drama about the price of exile and the disruptions of history. Tracing her characters across four decades and employing a clever counterfactual plot device, Mansour elegantly anatomizes the no-win plight of Palestinians displaced by the State of Israel. In exploring the varying choices available to her central characters Adham and Abir, the playwright makes clear that fate is ready to ambush them no matter what they decide."
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"Mansour’s vision of widespread vagrancy has the effect of implying that Palestinians are not alone in their unfortunate predicament. Perhaps we all are."
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"Mansour asks us to consider the extreme consequences of a single decision to change one’s status from culturally displaced immigrant who gives up everything to live in relative comfort, to that of a refugee who retains cultural identity and family but gives up his comfort and future."
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"This is an epic tale – the classic theme of home and heart. What do people do when home is not a simple location, as it is for most of us. What if home is something we carry with us? What if it is a location for which we settle, not the location of our dreams. And what if, like the destiny of every mythic journey, it is found within us?"
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Trailer

Creative team