By Matthew Wexler
It takes years to write and produce a new play. Martyna Majok’s Queens has been in development for nearly a decade. So it’s serendipitous that Manhattan Theatre Club’s new Off-Broadway production opens at a time when New York City welcomes its first Muslim and South Asian mayor, as well as its youngest in over a century.
But Majok’s riff on the survival and rise to power of often-marginalized communities occurs far from City Hall. There are no grinning men in well-tailored suits. Instead, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright lures us into an overcrowded illegal basement apartment in Queens, New York, rented by various immigrant women (Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Afghan, and Honduran) between 2011 and 2017.
We first meet Renia (the captivating Marin Ireland) as a timid, new arrival. But over the years, she works her way into the life of the building’s owner, setting herself up for a piece of the American pie, even if it’s been left out on the counter a little too long.
Renia’s life intertwines with other renters, including Inna, a scrappy Ukrainian arrival in search of her mother, and Isabela (Nicole Villamil), preparing to head back to Honduras to take care of her dying mother and see the daughter she left behind, among others.
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Knockout performances across the board get to the heart of Majok’s play with little pity but plenty of humor. If the moments of magical realness feel less than inspired on Marsha Ginsberg’s bifurcated set with billowing curtains to indicate the passage of time, this found sisterhood has plenty in its tank to fuel the evening. References to 9/11 and Trump’s first presidential term ocassionally feel forced, though the spiraling xenophobia creates a chilling backdrop for the women’s intersecting lives.
Ironically, Liberation, Bess Wohl’s play about a women’s consciousness-raising group in 1970s Ohio, is playing a few blocks south on Broadway. While both works center women’s narratives, Majok reminds us that for some women, survival is the movement.
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Fast facts: ‘Queens’
Martyna Majok’s Queens turns a cramped Queens basement into a stage for American ambition, powered by Marin Ireland and an ensemble that refuses to beg for your pity.
- Manhattan Theatre Club at New York City Center Stage 1, 131 West 55th Street, New York City
- Two hours and 15 minutes with one intermission
- Performances through December 7, 2025
