‘QUEENS’: (Left to right) Marin Ireland, Nadine Malouf, Nicole Villamil & Brooke Bloom. Photo: Valerie Terranova.

QUEENS
By Martyna Majok
Directed by Trip Cullman
Through December 7, 2025
Manhattan Theatre Club
NY City Center Stage I
131 West 55th Street
https://www.manhattantheatreclub.com/

By Scott Harrah

Martyna Majok’s Queens has returned Off-Broadway in a reworked, deeply moving production directed by Trip Cullman. Set in an illegal basement apartment in Queens, the play explores the intersecting lives of immigrant women from across the globe.  These women come from Poland, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and beyond. All the women are struggling to survive in America while reckoning with the past they left behind.

The story

Queens spans from 2001 to 2017 and follows a group of immigrant women from around the world who share the same cramped space while struggling to build new lives in America. When a young Ukrainian woman named Inna (Julia Lester) arrives searching for her estranged mother, she stirs up painful memories and forces the others—particularly Renia (Marin Ireland), the Polish landlord of sorts—to confront the choices and sacrifices they’ve made in pursuit of safety, dignity, and belonging. The women’s stories unfold through shifting timelines and layered interactions, creating a poignant mosaic of survival, identity, and the costs of the American Dream.

Martyna Majok’s unsentimental script examines what it means to build a new life in an unfamiliar place while leaving another one behind. Each character’s story adds texture to the collective immigrant experience, and as the play toggles between 2001 and 2017, the audience witnesses how time, loss, and reinvention shape each woman’s path.

Outstanding ensemble cast

Stage veteran Marin Ireland anchors the production with her remarkable portrayal of Renia, a Polish immigrant whose stoic strength masks deep emotional scars. Ms. Ireland’s mastery of dialects and nuance brings authenticity to every line. Equally compelling is Anna Chlumsky as Agata, whose realism and quiet heartbreak elevate the play’s emotional core. Nadine Malouf gives a particularly poignant performance as Aamani, an Afghan woman whose memories of surviving Taliban oppression and her identity as a woman and a lesbian lend the show moments of haunting despair.

Trip Cullman directs with his usual sensitivity and precision, keeping the pacing tight despite the script’s complex, time-jumping structure. The dialogue occasionally becomes dense and obtuse, especially in scenes where the women speak in thick accents or other languages, making it hard to follow at times. Still, Ms. Majok’s reworked script (originally staged in 2018) is much improved — clearer, more cohesive, and thematically resonant in today’s political climate.

Relevant in modern-day America

For a drama steeped in heavy themes, Queens never drags. Its honesty about immigration, sacrifice, and female resilience feels especially urgent and topical in 2025 America. The result is an affecting, beautifully acted piece of theater that stays with you long after the lights go down.

Published November 6, 2025
Reviewed at press performance on October 30, 2025

‘QUEENS’: Marin Ireland & Anna Chlumsky. Photo: Valerie Terranova.

‘QUEENS’: (Clockwise from top left): The cast; Brooke Bloom & Nadine Malouf; Anna Chulmsky; Julia Lester & Marin Ireland. Photos: Valerie Terranova.

‘QUEENS’: Marin Ireland & Sharlene Cruz. Photo: Valerie Terranova.

‘QUEENS’: (top) Julia Lester; (bottom) Andrea Syglowski. Photos: Valerie Terranova.

‘QUEENS’: Nicole Villamil & Marin Ireland. Photo: Valerie Terranova.

‘QUEENS’: Nadine Malouf, Nicole Villamil, Marin Ireland & Brooke Bloom. Photo: Valerie Terranova.

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LA DIVA & HER GHOSTWRITER: Renée Fleming & Jerry O’Connell in ‘Living On Love.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

LIVING ON LOVE
Written by Joe DiPietro
Based on the play Peccadillo by Garson Kanin
Directed by Kathleen Marshall
Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th Street
(212-239-6200), www.LivingOnLoveBroadway.com

By David NouNou

As comedies are very rare on Broadway these days, one has to be grateful for Living On Love, a play that has been rebooted by Joe DiPietro and has the feel of comedies of the 1950s. A lot of those comedies had a paper-thin plotline; not very taxing on the stars that portrayed those characters. The trials and tribulations were set up, but they all sorted themselves out in the end. Their objective was to please an audience. They were usually written for married celebrity couples like Rex Harrison and his then-wife Lili Palmer, and the show would have a large advance due to the marquee star power and usually lasted between six to nine months, or the entire season if lucky. This way, the actors could display their grand living albeit via the stage, the customers were happy seeing stars playing themselves or facsimiles, though some critics may have groused over the skimpy storyline. But best of all, the producers recouped their money and everybody went home happy.

Peccadillo by Garson Kanin (on which this show is based) is such a play. Mr. Kanin wrote it in 1985 but the setting and time is New York City in 1957. The characters in Peccadillo would have been the kind of people he came in contact with; after all, he did work in the theater. He was married to Ruth Gordon and they were best friends with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

In Living On Love, Vito De Angelis, a conductor, known to his nearest and dearest as Maestro (Douglas Sills), a cross between Leonard Bernstein and Steve Martin, is married to La Diva, Raquel De Angelis (Renée Fleming) for over 30 years. Their egos precede them wherever they go. They have both fallen on hard times, meaning they are getting older and their demand is less, so now they are in the process of writing their biographies and have been assigned ghostwriters to assist them. Maestro has a spunky junior editor, Iris Peabody (Anna Chlumsky). La Diva has the fawning writer Robert Sampson (Jerry O’Connell). And the best thing any household can have is a pair of harmonious butlers who have been serving the Maestro and La Diva for over 30 years: Bruce (Blake Hammond) and Eric (Scott Robertson). Needless to say, in the quest to see who finishes the book first, flirtatious goings on take place, with a lot of preening and boasting taking place.

Renée Fleming not only entices her protégé writer, Robert, but the audience as well, with her trilling of various arias from the operas she’s appeared in and what a voice. Ms. Fleming, a multiple Grammy Award winner, is making her Broadway debut. She has the diva down pat, but her inner actress for Broadway has to find its center. Douglas Sills, with a heavy Italian accent as the Maestro, is hysterical with himself as the center of the universe. He knows how to squeeze every line and leer for all it’s worth.

Jerry O’Connell, as the spineless ghostwriter, has the perfect bumbling and cuteness to make Robert believable. Anna Chlumsky, with her perky self-doubt, is the perfect foil to give Mr. O’Connell the spine he has been lacking. Together they would be the adorable younger couple. As the two butlers, Blake Hammond and Scott Robertson are synchronistic perfection; second bananas that steal the show.

Kathleen Marshall’s direction keeps things moving at a fast pace, which keeps the audience alert when the script lags. Living On Love is a nugget from yesteryear; you don’t go to peel off its veneer, you go to enjoy it, have a few laughs and go home relishing Ms. Fleming’s voice and presence, Mr. Sills’ eccentric, over-the-top behavior of a narcissist, Mr. Hammond & Mr. Robertson’s synchronicity, as well as enjoy Mr. O’Connell and Ms. Chlumsky finding their way through the mayhem. All in all, an enjoyable, harmless old-fashioned comedy whose purpose is to be entertaining and diverting for a couple of hours.

THE MAESTRO & LA DIVA: Douglas Sills & Renée Fleming in ‘Living On Love.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

MADCAP MOMENT: (left to right) Renée Fleming, Jerry O’Connell & Douglas Sills in ‘Living On Love.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 24, 2015
Reviewed at press performance on April 23, 2015

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