Queens – 01 November 2025

America has always had a somewhat complicated relationship with immigration. On one hand, we are taught about the great American melting pot where people of all cultures presumably live and grow together. On the other, there is pride in being American and defining what it means to be American involves the rather nasty task of deciding what it means not to be American. Queens, by Martyna Majok, takes place in a basement in Queens, New York in which immigrant women live together in a tiny shared space for various amounts of time as they navigate the new world that is America. They are all from different countries and different mother tongues. Some are very open about their journeys while others are very secretive. Though the common thread at first seems to be their desire to stay in America, as the play progresses questions are raised about their love for one another, their love for their families back home, and their conflicted feelings about where it is better to live.

This story moves through times frequently, yet clearly. The design elements, particularly lighting (Ben Stanton) and scenic (Marsha Ginsberg), support these transitions through time and space beautifully. The basement set literally pulls apart at times when the women in the stories cannot feel clear connections; at intermission, the space between makes room for two scenes that take place in Ukraine. Queens is as much about distance as it is about connection. The protagonist, Renia (Marin Ireland) abandons her daughter, and all of the women who lived in the house during her sixteen year stay wrongly trusted her not to leave them behind as well. Renia gets driven mad by the American dream and her desire to rationalize leaving Poland. In the most recent scenes, with Inna (Julia Lester), she even fantasizes about pretending that Inna is her abandoned daughter. Renia has become hardened by America, and feels a deep sense of loneliness that still doesn’t make her a genuinely charitable person. Her ambition grows, as does her pain and her trauma, leaving her unable to remain connected to Inna in the final moments of the show.

Costuming (Sarah Laux) tells us a lot about what each woman has been willing to give up to be American, and also a lot about what each woman is not willing to give up as part of how she was raised. For example, Isabela (Nicole Villamil)’s party dress gives off a floral, Latin feel that is different from Pelagiya (Brooke Bloom)’s stark black lines and Aamani’s (Nadine Malouf)’s Middle Eastern charm. Though no prizes are given for the worst suffering, Aamani is shown as facing the most discrimination, especially as most of her scenes take place in 2001 after the fall of the Twin Towers. She also stands out for her soft spoken kindness. She is the least hotheaded of the women, but still a force to be reckoned with. Aamani comes the closest to genuine acceptance of everyone, and for a long time she is the glue of quarters that would otherwise have felt too close for comfort. The inclusion of this Afghani character is important because she provides some continuity. At various points in US history, it has been okay to be Polish or Ukrainian or Mexican—exoticized on television to be with a woman with an accent. But at no point in the span of this play (2001-2017) was it easy to be Afghani in New York. Throw lesbian in the mix and the world gets even smaller. Aamani is in the safest place for her—and it’s not a safe place. She gets insulted on the subway. She gets groped at the store. She once follows a man home because she sees her native language on his book, and even he is unkind to her. For Aamani, this is what it means to be American: to be powerless. Yet she lives in the same American basement as Renia, whose greed overtakes her principles resulting in the loss of her ability to love.

Queens is playing here in New York at the same time as Liberation (click here for that review), another story of a group of bold, brave, beautiful women trying to carve out their portion of the American dream from a basement. Both are fascinating stories, but Queens speaks more to the pain of living in the basement and less to revolutionary ideas about how to change the world. The sad thing is that Liberation largely takes place in 1970, and Queens examines moments that are at minimum thirty years later. It’s sad to think of all of the women still dreaming in the confines of a basement, but the parallels in these stories are a powerful reminder of what it means to fight for all women—not just the ones society tells us to uplift. Despite the presence of more diverse women, Queens resonates as deeply universal. I highly recommend a trip to the basement of New York City Center to witness this powerful journey.

I attended this performance on a press pass from The Press Room.