Queens Off-Broadway Reviews

While “Queens” casts unsparing light on the experience of the women in America, Ms. Majok is hardly sentimental about what they left behind. Emblematic are scenes set in Ukraine in 2016, with Inna and her American-husband-hunting friend Lera (Andrea Syglowski) discussing the unpromising futures in their country.

Save for the opening scene, in which one character punches another in the face, there's not a lot of capital-A Action in Queens. It's a talky play, but the vivid ensemble, under Trip Cullman's direction, gives every conversation a propulsive energy. Their unspoken ambitions and regrets thrum beneath every word they do say. Not every character gets explored in equal depth, and we don't learn how they all got there or where they all go when their time in the apartment comes to and end. But it's a testament to Majok, Cullman, and the cast that we long to know, to ever more deeply understand these women otherwise forced to hide away.

Majok’s expansive work lives up to their talents, and allows each of them to shine, capturing two moments (2001 and 2017) at an overcrowded basement apartment in the titular New York borough. The women making do with their exploitative-but-what-can-you-do situation are all from Ukraine, Honduras, Afghanistan and Poland, either striving towards financial independence or temporarily in the country to send money (or wayward relatives) back home. The particulars of their situations are both immaterial to critical analysis and completely the point; a compendium of the world’s ails that drive people to migrate, and which drive the disenfranchised to build strong communities – well, almost always.

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.