Who is categorized as white in America? Talene Monahon’s Meet the Cartozians examines the question through courtroom arguments, family conflict, and reality-TV spectacle. Her smart, complicated play tackles identity and assimilation, asking who is allowed to assimilate, manipulate, or escape the label of ‘model minority’?
Produced by Second Stage Theater and now playing Off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center, the play’s first act offers an insightful (if exposition-heavy) look at the 1925 court case, United States v. Cartozian. In Monahon’s dramatization, the Cartozian family’s fight for naturalization comes down to one point: “We are not like them.”
Forced to flee their homeland amid a genocide, and now building a life in America, the Cartozians are different from other immigrants; they have no country to return to. Exhibiting a mix of prejudice and self-preservation, they also don’t wish to be compared to Muslims; again, they say, “we are not like them.”
Act II, set 100 years later on the blindingly bright set of a Meet the Kardashians-style reality show, sees Armenian Americans tell a different story, debating their place within the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) community.
Each act almost functions independently. If the first makes for lovely, moving theater, the second is “good TV,” salacious, academic, and nasty, reminiscent of Eureka Day or Slave Play.
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The jump from historical drama to contemporary ‘problem play’ is slightly jarring, and you miss the Cartozian family’s unpretentious conception of Americanness. Still, Monahon draws memorable parallels, and the ensemble shines. Andrea Martin is particularly compelling, first as a sharp matriarch with exceptional timing, and later, an impressively endearing and infuriating Glendale grandma. Will Brill is also in good form, twice playing an outsider in need of an education. But the play’s heart is Nael Nacer’s soft-spoken Tatos Cartozian, a father desperate to find a place for his family, and the reason an Armenian American later becomes one of the most famous women in the world.
The two acts don’t always fit together, but neither does the American identity the Cartozians are chasing.
Emily Chackerian is a Brooklyn-based dramaturg and theater critic. She currently serves as the Artistic Assistant and Board Liaison at Signature Theatre and as the Associate Editor of 3Views on Theater. For more work, visit emilychackerian.substack.com.
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Fast facts: ‘Meet the Cartozians’
Despite a tonal shift between acts, Talene Monahon’s exploration of Armenian American identity spotlights an underrepresented story that connects historical trauma to contemporary celebrity.
- The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, New York City
- Running time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission
- Performances through December 7, 2025
