'Queens' Off-Broadway review — strong ensemble cast delivers a propulsive portrait of the immigrant experience
Read our review of Queens off Broadway, a revised version of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Martyna Majok's 2018 play, presented by Manhattan Theatre Club.
Summary
- Queens follows the lives of immigrant women living in an illegal basement apartment in the NYC borough of Queens
- The show has sharp writing; a detailed and lived-in set; and a strong ensemble cast whose standouts include Marin Ireland; Julia Lester; and Brooke Bloom
- The play is recommended for fans of other current shows like Ragtime; Liberation; and The Other Americans
The NYC borough of Queens is the most linguistically diverse place in the world. Its 178 square miles encompass speakers of nearly as many, if not more, languages from every corner of the globe. As such, the title of Martyna Majok's Queens achieves a universality and a specificity all at once: It identifies the play as a microcosm of this borough as a whole, and it also nods to a group of individual women living there, ones whose kingdoms are but a few square feet in an illegally operated basement apartment.
Over the course of 16 years, dozens of immigrant women come in and out of this residence as they try to build lives in the States. Queens zeroes in on six, with the Polish Renia (Marin Ireland, excellent) as the axis around which the play's world spins. Her story connects two fraught moments for immigrants: 2001, shortly after 9/11 and when Renia first arrives in Queens with only a single plastic bag of possessions; and 2017, shortly after Trump is elected and when Renia has assumed ownership of the apartment. (An early, blink-and-you'll-miss-it line that foreshadows Renia's arc to come: "He did lotta great things already, not even one year president, and now all the bad countries can’t even fly here.")
But Queens is still very much an ensemble piece, particularly in the early-aughts scenes. There, we meet Belarusian Pelagiya (a standout Brooke Bloom), the tenants' soft-spoken but firm leader. Afghan Aamani (Nadine Malouf), unable to be her full self anywhere. Honduran Isabela (Nicole Villamil), who values her many clothes by the number of hours she worked to buy each piece. In fact, Renia's story — of striving to create a "big" life to share with her daughter — takes a backseat for a long while until Agata (Anna Chlumsky) arrives and yanks it to the forefront in a flurry of angry Polish. To say more would spoil the play, but suffice it to say that in 2017, Renia ends up feeling a kind of kinship with her newest tenant, the young, Ukrainian Inna (a knockout Julia Lester), who's in search of her long-estranged mother.
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.
Queens summary
In 2017, Ukrainian-born Inna searches for the mother who abandoned her for America as a child. She seeks answers — and lodging — at the illegal basement apartment in Queens, New York, run by longtime tenant Renia. Inna's presence unlocks the story of how Renia first came to the apartment 16 years earlier, of the group of women she once shared it with, and what ultimately became of the sacrifices they made to survive in America.
Queens premiered in 2018 with Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3, and the 2025 production with Manhattan Theatre Club is a revised version of the play that shaves off two characters and nearly 30 minutes (the current runtime is 2 hours and 15 minutes, including intermission). Three cast members — Nadine Malouf as Aamani, Andrea Syglowski as Lera, and Nicole Villamil as Isabela — return from the LCT3 production.
What to expect at Queens
It's fitting that Queens is performed at New York City Center's Stage I, located in the venue's basement. Of course, it's a lavishly finished basement, but it nonetheless enhances the closed-off feel of the apartment as rendered by Marsha Ginsberg's lived-in, meticulously detailed set. The chairs are mismatched. One lamp lacks a shade. Magnets clutter the fridge, and a thin curtain hangs askew as a makeshift room divider. All these furnishings are as disparate as the tenants who use them, doing what they can to make the place a home. (That includes stashing liquor in the most unexpected crevices, as hilariously revealed in one scene.)
Majok excellently captures the rhythm and clarity of dialogue in broken English, and maintains that rhythm as the characters slide in and out of their native tongues. Expect to hear untranslated snatches of various languages, but the characters' emotions remain crystal-clear.
What audiences are saying about Queens
As of writing, Queens has an audience approval rating of 77% on the review aggregator Show-Score. While some theatregoers critiqued the play's length and multitude of storylines, responses to the performances were overwhelmingly positive.
- "Act 1 lives in exposition and can feel a tad slow at times, but Act 2 is so, so worth every moment, with emotional payoffs for every relationship. Multiple timelines are handled with clarity, and the state of immigration in 2001 reverberates sadly and with much relevance in 2025." - Show-Score user Nathan A
- "One of the most impressive things about it is that each performer delivers her lines in an uncannily believable dialect." - Show-Score user stuontheaisle
- "Interesting, well-acted story of immigrant women's struggles [...] But it doesn't quite take off. A little too much jumping around in time, made it a little hard to track." - Show-Score user Show Addict
- "The insight that immigrants sacrifice enormously for the promise of America is not new. BUT there were many great performances (including Julia Lester!) with the Queens-bee being Marin Ireland. She is well-worth the time and price of admission!" - Show-Score user TheaterBuff
Read more audience reviews of Queens on Show-Score.
Who should see Queens
- Fans of recent shows like John Leguizamo's family drama The Other Americans and the currently running revival of the Broadway musical Ragtime — both of which tackle the immigrant experience in NYC in different time periods — will be intrigued by Majok's exploration of the uniquely female immigration experience in the years between 9/11 and the first Trump administration.
- Fans of the currently running Liberation on Broadway, Bess Wohl's critically acclaimed play about the feminist movement in the 1970s and today, may also enjoy Queens. Both are all-female memory plays that explore timely sociopolitical topics, and each spotlights the perspectives of a diverse group of ordinary women.
- Fans of Tony Award nominees Julia Lester (Into the Woods on Broadway, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series) and Marin Ireland (Reasons to Be Pretty on Broadway, The Umbrella Academy) will appreciate seeing their talents in an intimate space, bolstered by an all-around excellent ensemble.
Learn more about Queens off Broadway
Queens is a sprawling portrait of immigrant women's experiences made energetic and compelling by a phenomenal cast.
Photo credit: Queens off Broadway. (Photos by Valerie Terranova)
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