‘Indian Princesses,’ at the Corner of Cringe and Compassion

By Sara Holdren , a theater director and Pulitzer-finalist critic at New York A scene from Indian Princesses, at the Atlantic. Photo: Ahron R Foster If Eliana Theologides Rodriguez isn’t in conscious conversation with certain plays and playwrights in her own immediate theatrical family tree — call them her older artistic cousins, or perhaps her uncles and aunts — she’s still richly and clearly steeped in their work.

‘Indian Princesses,’ at the Corner of Cringe and Compassion. By Sara Holdren , a theater director and Pulitzer-finalist critic at New York A scene from Indian Princesses, at the Atlantic. Photo: Ahron R Foster If Eliana Theologides Rodriguez isn’t in conscious conversation with certain plays and playwrights in her own immediate theatrical family tree — call them her older artistic cousins, or perhaps her uncles and aunts — she’s still richly and clearly steeped in their work. Her wonderfully sharp and poignant Off Broadway debut, Indian Princesses (now at the Atlantic Theater Company in a co-production with Rattlestick), shares features with Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play , Clare Barron’s Dance Nation , and Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play while also winking at movies like Bring It On and Addams Family Values , as prevalent in the...