Joan Marcus
Audiences attending New York theater are used to hearing the announcement at the beginning of many productions—that the venue they are sitting stands on land that was the original homeland of the Lenape people. In the program for the Public Theater’s production of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s 2013 play, Manahatta (to Dec. 23), the statement has grown in declarative emphasis. “The Public stands in honor of the first people and our ancestors…We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced removal from this territory. We honor the generations of stewards, and we pay our respects to the many diverse indigenous peoples still connected to this land.”
The play, directed by Laurie Woolery, takes place in two time zones and places—the year of the financial crash in 2008 in Manhattan and Oklahoma, and then 17th century Manahatta (popularly known as Manhattan Island), where Dutch settlers land, and—first by inquisitive charm, then by brute force—displace the Lenape. The play contrasts the echoing themes of the two different eras: the violent centrifugal spin of money, racism, trade, power, and identity. The company of actors play different characters with similar characteristics in both eras.
Present in both old and modern storylines are the Lenape—a people in the 17th century selling furs and at home in what we know today as Downtown Manhattan. In the 17th century, we see the incipient forces of capitalism destroy the Lenape in their own homeland; in 2008, we see a modern Lenape family in Oklahoma threatened with losing their home because of the financial crash.