'Indian Princesses' Off-Broadway review — a new spin on the girlhood play

Read our review of Indian Princesses off Broadway, a new play by Eliana Theologides Rodriguez co-produced by Rattlestick Theater and Atlantic Theater Company.

Summary

• Indian Princesses follows a group of young girls of color and their white fathers navigating identity; friendship; and growing up at the real YCMA program of the title
• The show features a strong cast but doesn't always go deeply enough into the themes and questions it raises; The show is recommended for fans of plays about girlhood and fans of the cast full of Off-Broadway mainstays

The girls of Eliana Theologides Rodriguez's Indian Princesses are almost always on stage, crouching in the dirt and weaving blades of grass into crowns and wands. While their fathers stay inside the YMCA debating parenting strategies and masculinity in the face of job loss, the girls sit in the grass below on designer Emmie Finckel’s set, toying with bugs and hiding in the moss. Watching adults pretend to be children for almost two hours is a lot to ask of an audience, but in these quieter moments of imaginative solitude, the cast shines. The girls form cliques and stage performances and cast spells and play a Sodom-and-Gomorrah-inspired game in which one of them gets to play God and burn down their town.

They also dance around the elephant that’s followed them on stage since the play’s premiere last year at La Jolla Playhouse: The term “Indian princess” is a slur, one the playwright is aware of and that Native artists have called for her to remove from the title. While La Jolla touted its dramaturgical resources and promised that “our team does not, under any circumstances, use this phrase outside of the context of the play,” Atlantic Theater Company and Rattlestick Theater, who co-produce the Off-Broadway premiere, do not offer the harm-reduction or outreach measures Native artists asked for (nor do they credit a dramaturg). The only acknowledgment of the controversy is a program insert credited to Theologides Rodriguez, in which she encourages audience members to seek out plays from unnamed Native artists; a different version of the note appears on the Atlantic and Rattlestick websites.

Should this brouhaha matter in examining the play before us? Indian Princesses purports to grapple with its culturally appropriative title, the real name of a real father-daughter YMCA program. The fathers in the play are all white men who are trying to either force or avoid conversations about their daughters’ racial and ethnic heritages. Both Wayne (Ben Beckley) and Mac (Pete Simpson) believe telling their daughters they’re different will just hold them back in life. Why should their children be raised to think the world is out to get them, even if that may be true? Meanwhile, Chris (Greg Keller), a white lawyer now raising his Native stepdaughters, likes to remind Lily (Anissa Marie Griego) and Hazel (Serenity Mariana) that they’re different every five minutes, a heavy-handed attempt at empowerment that just makes the girls think he’s weird and annoying.

Chris is annoying, a white-savior caricature with a grating voice who manages to center himself in his insistence on centering others. But as the play’s drama unfolds, you realize something else annoying: Chris is right. He’s the only adult willing to talk to these desperate children like they’re people, to level with them about the myriad things keeping them up at night: guilt, shame, grief, uncertainty about where they came from. When Maisey (the astute Lark White), in a clear-eyed nighttime magic ritual, predicts that only some of them will forgive their dads, it’s much easier to malign the stony Mac and preachy Glen (Frank Wood) than the awkward and arrogant Chris, who is at least trying.

Perhaps Indian Princesses showcases one limitation of the girlhood play, which is that circumstances are filtered through the eyes of children. We do not have to, or rather do not get to, interrogate anything too sticky when the only Native characters (or, as Glen calls them, “two real-life Indian princesses”) are 9 and 11 years old. They want to choreograph dances and chew on their hair and tell secrets; they don’t want to confront their identities, not now, not here.

This is perhaps true of childhood, and Griego and Mariana’s girlish mannerisms are delightful in their hyper-focused self-seriousness. But this phenomenon is also rather convenient for Theologides Rodriguez and director Miranda Cornell, who seem to want to avoid the tough conversations as much as their characters do. Children accept what adults tell them with a shrug and a skip, even if what they’ve been told is inaccurate, inappropriate, or just plain wrong. Audiences are adults. We are more discerning, and therefore more demanding.

Indian Princesses summary

In 2008, Glen (Wood) starts up a new tribe of Indian Princesses, a YMCA-sanctioned father-daughter bonding group. The new tribe, the Spirit Squirrels, is made up exclusively of white fathers and girls of color: Andi (Rebecca Jimenez), a half-Mexican girl who just lost her mom and Mac (Simpson), her taciturn father; Glen and his half-Japanese granddaughter, Samantha (Haley Wong); Wayne (Beckley) and his adopted Black daughter, Maisey (White); and Chris (Keller), a white lawyer who recently became the stepfather to Lily (Griego) and Hazel (Mariana), two Native children.

With the economy floundering and change in the air, the Spirit Squirrels navigate identity, friendship, and who has which magical powers while their fathers argue over the best way to raise their girls.

What to expect at Indian Princesses

Indian Princesses runs approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes without an intermission.

The play features discussions of racism, including racist harassment directed at children. Many Native artists have pointed out that the play’s title is a slur against Native women, and a white character does use the term to describe two Native girls in the play. The play also discusses adoption, sex, self-harm, and the death of a parent.

What audiences are saying about Indian Princesses

Indian Princesses

• Mezzanine user Aaron Gluck calls Indian Princesses a “great play […] that really made you see the power of friendship.”
• Mezzanine user B A says the production exemplifies “excellence from two Gen Z women: playwright Eliana Theologides Rodriguez and director Miranda Cornell.”
• Reddit user u/Creative_Diet_6279 writes that the play “provokes the reminder that people are very comfortable dehumanizing [Native people] in the name of comedy and that nostalgia is prioritized over actually unpacking that slur and its history.”
• Reddit user u/Moist_Report_6934 wrote, "One of the best things I've seen at Atlantic Theater in awhile; really thought-provoking play with a stacked cast. [...] I also participated in Indian Princesses as a kid so this really resonated, but I do think a wide variety of theatergoers could resonate with the father / daughter relationship questions this play raises."

Who should see Indian Princesses

• If you enjoy the ever-evolving trend of plays about girlhood in the aughts, like the recent Off-Broadway productions Calf Scramble and Dad Don’t Read This, you’ll want to check out this play.
• If you love Broadway’s The Outsiders, you’ll want to see associate and resident director Miranda Cornell take the reins as the director of Indian Princesses.
• Off-Broadway aficionados will note that the cast of Indian Princesses is stacked, including Haley Wong of The Public Theater’s Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) and Lark White of Grief Camp at Atlantic last season.

Learn more about Indian Princesses off Broadway

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.

Learn more and get Indian Princesses tickets on New York Theatre Guide. Indian Princesses is at Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater through June 7.

Photo credit: Indian Princesses off Broadway. (Photos by Ahron R. Foster)