Indian Princesses Off-Broadway Reviews

Indian Princesses presents a new spin on the trend of girlhood plays by allowing the adults their own interiority. While the fathers of the Spirit Squirrels sometimes provide comic relief, they also go on their own journeys of self-reflection. Not ev...

Indian Princesses presents a new spin on the trend of girlhood plays by allowing the adults their own interiority. While the fathers of the Spirit Squirrels sometimes provide comic relief, they also go on their own journeys of self-reflection. Not every journey feels earned, but Beckley’s delivery of a heartbreaking monologue about his daughter’s quiet pain provides a moment of hope and healing.

<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">Indian Princesses</em><span style="...

<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">Indian Princesses</em><span style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; background-color: rgb(241, 241, 241);">&nbsp;works best when the girls are interacting with each other. Growing up in a place where they don’t see many others like themselves, including within their own homes, they find a kind of sisterhood in shared outsiderness. It helps that the cast capture both preteen preococity, casual cruelty, and the impulse for reconciliation. And Rodriguez is generous enough to respect her characters’ individuality — particularly the grown-ups who often turn a blind eye to their daughters’ needs, sometimes unwittingly and with the best of intentions. Not all blundering fathers are built the same, or inflict the same kind of psychological damage.</span>

Indian Princesses meanders a bit too much among its three threads (i.e. a satirical lashing out at cultural appropriation, the cluelessness of the father figures, and the tight relationship that develops among the multiracial, multiethnic girls), but...

Indian Princesses meanders a bit too much among its three threads (i.e. a satirical lashing out at cultural appropriation, the cluelessness of the father figures, and the tight relationship that develops among the multiracial, multiethnic girls), but it is nonetheless a compelling tale, both of a messy present and a hopeful future.