At the heart of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s new play “Manahatta” at The Public Theater is the city’s origin story, told and giddily retold over centuries: the moment when Dutch settlers ostensibly “purchased” the island of Manhattan from gullible Lenape natives for the equivalent of $24.
That myth, according to historians, has served the colonizers well. In their book, “Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898,” Edwin G. Burroughs and Mike Wallace wrote that the story helped generations of Europeans and their descendants believe that the acquisition of the land was built “not on conquest but on contract.”
“What tickles the tellers is that the Dutch conned the Indians into handing over–in exchange for a handful of worthless trinkets–what became the most valuable piece of real estate in the world,” Burroughs and Wallace wrote. “It is our Primal Deal.”
The production, which opened last week and is set to run through Dec. 23, jumps between the past and the present while reframing this legend. In this retelling by Nagle, a playwright of Cherokee heritage who is also one of the country’s foremost experts on tribal sovereignty, the audience is asked to consider the perspective of the dispossessed: the Native American men and women who were stripped of their land, first in the 17th century and again during the subprime mortgage crisis in the early 21st century.
Elizabeth Frances and Rainbow Dickerson in the New York premiere production of MANAHATTA, written by Mary Kathryn Nagle and directed by Laurie Woolery, at The Public Theater.
In addition to being written by a Native playwright, the Public’s production of Manahatta stars Native (and non-Native) actors and features Lenape cultural advisers. There are even lines of dialogue spoken in the Lenape language: “Awen hech nan” (Who is that person?); “Keku hach katatam” (What do you want?); and “Ki chi hach ne le” (Is that really so?) All of which makes it extremely unusual for the city’s theater scene, and the city at large.
“Within the city of New York, there is a silence” regarding Lenape history and dispossession, said Joe Baker, the cofounder and executive director of Lenape Center, based in Manhattan. Baker also serves as a cultural consultant for the play and said over time, Native history in the city had effectively been “erased, covered up, built over.”
Manahatta arrives at a time when Native stories and characters are getting a wider airing. This past spring, “The Thanksgiving Play” by Larissa FastHorse opened at the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway to critical acclaim. “Reservation Dogs” ended a three-season run in September after consistently being named one of the best shows on television. And Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which journeys into the Osage murders of the 1920s, has generated considerable Oscar buzz since its release last month, with many reviewers labeling it a masterpiece.
“We're at an exciting crossroads right now when it comes to Native storytelling,” said Baker.
Jeffrey King in the New York premiere production of MANAHATTA, written by Mary Kathryn Nagle and directed by Laurie Woolery, at The Public Theater.
The violence to come
Manahatta is a play that “collides history and past,” said Nagle in a recent interview at the Public.
The story primarily follows a character by the name of Jane Snake, who Nagle described as “a young Delaware Lenape woman who is seeking to break all those glass ceilings and do the unprecedented thing, which has become one of the first Native Americans to run a financial institution on Wall Street.” The firm, it turns out, is Lehman Brothers, which spectacularly collapsed in 2008.
Nagle said she began conceiving of the play years ago, while working at a “fancy law firm” in Manhattan and realizing that none of her colleagues knew the roots of the island’s name.
“This was before the fad of land acknowledgments, but no one said to me, ‘Oh, I think it's Lenape for something,’” said Nagle. “I was really aware of the erasure of Lenape people in their own homes.”
Rainbow Dickerson in the New York premiere production of MANAHATTA, written by Mary Kathryn Nagle and directed by Laurie Woolery, at The Public Theater.
She found it especially unsettling that this erasure could happen in a city that prides itself on its pluralism.
“There's like a square mile in Queens where more languages are spoken in that square mile than anywhere else on Earth,” said Nagle. “Really interesting, right? But where is Lenape still spoken?”
Less than an hour later, she was seated in a ground floor rehearsal space across the street from the Public, with cast and crew members of the play, including director Laurie Woolery. With less than two weeks to go before opening night on Nov. 16, Woolery was having the actors go through a scene set in the 1600s that was at once playful and ominous.
One of them, Enrico Nassi, played a Lenape character by the name of Se-ket-tu-may-qua, opposite the character of Le-le-wa'-you, played by actress Elizabeth Frances. Both actors are Native American: Nassi is enrolled in the Otoe-Missouria Tribe and a member of the Cherokee Nation, while Frances is also Cherokee.
Playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle and director Laurie Woolery.
In the scene, Le-le-wa'-you and Se-ket-tu-may-qua are fur traders. She expresses curiosity about the white settlers who are growing in number on the island and tells Se-ket-tu-may-qua that she’d like to accompany him when he next goes to trade with the settlers. He refuses.
“They don't trade the same way we do,” he tells Le-le-wa'-you.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asks.
“I’ve seen them do things,” says Se-ket-tu-may-qua, his face growing serious, “things I have to believe are only possible if you leave your women behind.”
I was really aware of the erasure of Lenape people in their own homes.
The scene, set early in the story, hints not only at the conflict to come in the play but at what the audience will recognize as the long history of colonization, marked by genocide and sexual violence. Today, Native American women are murdered at a rate 10 times that of the general U.S. population, according to government data. That legacy is part of the reason why Nagle writes plays, when she isn’t taking on cases as a lawyer.
“Until we can re-humanize Native women in the eyes of Americans, I think we'll continue to see those really high rates of violence,” she said. “And one important way to re-humanize us is through arts and entertainment. Because historically, arts and entertainment have been used to dehumanize us.”
‘There is a new awareness’
Rainbow Dickerson, an actress who plays two characters in Manahatta – that of Toosh-ki-pa-kwis-i in the 17th century and Jane Snake’s sister Debra in the near present – said she was heartened to see the entertainment industry as a whole commit to “more diversity on stage and screen, in the room and on the page.” Still, as a performer of Thai, Caucasian and Rappahannock tribal ancestry, she said some Native stereotypes were deeply embedded.
“I’d say the stoic Indian, magical Indian, earth mother, exotic Indian princess, historic diorama, and alcoholic/troubled soul stereotypes may still be the dominant ideas that come to peoples’ mind when thinking about Indigenous people,” she wrote in an email. “One stereotype that I think is shifting is that of Native people lacking humor.” She pointed to “Reservation Dogs” and writer and filmmaker Drew Hayden Taylor as examples.
That’s one of the aims of Manahatta as well. Native Americans, Nagle tells us, can be as painfully corny as anyone else.
“Ya know us Indians, we can't drink tea,” says one character in Manahatta. “If we drink too much tea, we drown in our own tea pee.”
Dickerson said she felt fortunate to have worked with Baker, the Lenape cultural adviser, who helped pick the right costumes, helped determine what chair would be appropriate for a contemporary Lenape home in Anadarko, Oklahoma as well as a basket in the 1600s.
I’d say the stoic Indian, magical Indian, earth mother, exotic Indian princess, historic diorama, and alcoholic/troubled soul stereotypes may still be the dominant ideas that come to peoples’ mind when thinking about Indigenous people.
“My last quick conversation with Joe was about the dried blue corn I carry out in one of the scenes,” she said. “I learned about how many rows of kernels a traditional Lenape cob always has (9 in case you were wondering, which is less than most other varieties you’ll find), how rare they are now, and how the community is working to preserve and cultivate more. All that in three minutes!”
For Baker, the ability to bring life and authenticity to a production set in the Lenape past and present has been “richly rewarding.” As a child in Oklahoma, he grew up hearing stories recounted by his great grandparents.
“They were uneasy stories,” said Baker. “So at a very early age, I was aware that we were different, and that there had been some sort of tragic occurrence.”
The family allotment lands, he learned, had been “illegally seized” by “white entrepreneurs, by oil companies, by leasing agents” and other entities. In the process, he said, his grandmother was poisoned and in 1934 his uncle Wilbur Wright was murdered. At the age of eight Baker vowed to restore the lands to the family. While he was unable to fulfill that childhood vow, he eventually moved to New York and worked to “continue the voice of Lenape within the homeland.”
Today he is 77 and said the work of Native Americans is beginning to bear fruit.
“There is a new awareness,” he said. “I know when we started this work at Lenape Center 14 years ago, it was rare to hear Lenape mentioned. That's not true today.”
He was especially encouraged by young people, who he said were “no longer buying” the standard narrative of the city and the nation.
“They're asking hard questions,” said Baker. “They're asking, ‘What happened?’”
