Manahatta
Written by Mary Kathryn Nagle
Directed by Laurie Woolery
Public Theatre
November 30, 2023
Production website
💉💉 out of 5.

Manahatta written by Mary Kathryn Nagle takes place in present day Oklahoma as well as present day Manhatta known today as Manhattan.  The show follows Jane Snake as she rises to the top ranks of Wall Street, while her family back in Oklahoma struggles to keep their home.  The family struggles as they are paying for a mortgage with an ARM – a loan repayment feature that brought down so many families during the housing crash of the 1980s. The show tries to draw a connection between what was happening for this Indian family in the 17th century Manhatta and the current time. The play depicts the arrival of the Dutch settlers representing the Dutch East India Company, who subsequently take the land of and massacre the Delaware Lenape people, driving them out of Manahatta and Lenapehoking.

Life and Times of Michael K
Adapted & Directed by Lara Foot
In collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company
St. Ann’s Warehouse
November 29, 2023
Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.

This was simply a magnificent and near perfect production. The first half of the show was particularly very moving. I knew that I was going to be in a for a real treat when I read that the show was going to use puppets as designed by Handspring Puppet Company, who is known for their puppets used in Warhorse.  This production of Life and Times of Michael K used dance, film, music and breathtaking puppetry, to tell the story of JM Coetzee’s Booker prize-winning novel from 1983, which gives dignity to a humble man. Born with a cleft lip, institutionalized and treated with contempt throughout his life, Michael gets swept up in a dystopian civil war in South Africa as he attempts to bring his ailing mother back to her childhood home on a farm.