Theatre in Review: Indian Princesses (Atlantic Theater Company/Linda Gross Theater)Indian Princesses is based on a bizarre cultural detail, and Eliana Theologides Rodriguez knows whereof she writes. The YMCA-sponsored Indian Princesses program was designed to promote father-daughter bonding via a dive into Native American culture. In fact, it was largely an exercise in kitsch, its authenticity apparently equal to the portrayal of the Indian maiden on a box of Land O'Lakes butter. (It goes without saying that it has been retired.) Set in 2008, just as the economy is cratering, the play gathers four father figures (including step- and grandparents), with their adopted and/or mixed-race girls, aged nine to 12, played by performers in their twenties. The combination of jittery, middle-aged (or older) men (dealing with loss, separation, unemployment, and ignorance) and girls making their first halting steps at asserting their identities is promising, but Indian Princesses belongs to, and is somewhat hampered by, the burgeoning genre of Young Adult Theatre, which, arguably, began about ten years ago with The Wolves and includes such entries as John Proctor is the Villain, Trophy Boys, All Nighter, and, this season, Spread. These plays study small, insular colonies of young people, either entering or leaving adolescence, taking sociological note of their circumstances. The best of them regard their young characters with tenderness and acuity. Others, including Grief Camp, presented at Atlantic last season, and Initiative, recently produced at the Public, cradle them too closely, treating them like trauma subjects. In such company, Indian Princesses struggles to stand out. The early scenes are occasionally amusing, especially when the topic of slavery comes up, sending the adults into a panic. (One of the girls, Maisey, is Black, and her parent, Wayne, is determined to shield her from the facts "until she's ready." One wonders when that will be.) But the characters are sketchily drawn, often defined by a single trait, suggesting that a relatively large cast of nine is more than this early-career playwright can capably realize. Viewed from the vantage point of 2026, the Indian Princess rituals seem so silly, so obviously tone-deaf that they quickly become tedious, especially when dealt with at length. The playwright also indulges in what are by now standard tropes of the Young Adult genre, including a moment of group primal screaming and a scene in which a character prophesies everyone's futures. It doesn't help that the play's centerpiece, an American history sketch presented at a weekend camp, plays like a weak retread of Larissa FastHorse's The Thanksgiving Play. Miranda Cornell's staging feels uncertain, especially in the script's half-hearted attempts at humor. Perhaps because of their greater experience, the male cast members stand out: Ben Beckley, as a dad quietly terrified about his stalled career; Greg Keller, as a chatty and innocently self-regarding New Yorker transplanted to the Midwest; Pete Simpson, terse and faintly hostile as a proto-MAGA type, silently mourning his dead wife; and Frank Wood, as the group's cheerily ineffective leader. The female half of the company must deal with more fuzzily imagined characters; making the strongest impressions are Rebecca Jimenez as the oldest, toughest, and most skeptical of the crowd; Anissa Marie Griego as a showbiz hopeful coming to the pained realization that her Yaqui background may impede her playing Penny Pringle in Hairspray (honey, you have much bigger problems in your future); and the effortlessly radiant Lark White, as the resident expert in the occult. But also doing solid work are Serenity Mariana, as the sister living in Griego's shadow, and Haley Wong, burdened by the implications of her grandfather's evangelical Christianity. The production is well-designed, especially Emmie Finckel's scenery, employing a retractable stage when the action moves from the YMCA to a camp setting. Serafina Bush's costumes subtly provide each character with a distinct profile. Mextly Couzin's lighting and Salvador Zamora's sound design are both perfectly fine. Late in the evening, the play shows signs of life as one generation confronts another; especially good is the scene featuring Wood, facing up to the effect of his religiosity on Wong, who has resorted to a form of self-harm. And even if it is a well-worn device, there is real charm in seeing White predict what will happen to each of her friends. But Indian Princesses falters on a paradox, insisting on its young characters' distinctiveness while providing little evidence of it, and enshrining them in mundane dramatic circumstances. It's not terrible, but it's not special, and too much of it has been done better elsewhere. --David Barbour 
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