Not a Safe Space

Sanctuary City is an undocumented immigration story that takes a sharp turn.

- HELEN SHAW

THE FIRST IMAGE of the play is a girl on a fire escape. She’s cold and anxious to get inside; the boy helps her climb through his window. Somewhere in our collective imagination, West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet have turned the fire escape into shorthand for star-crossed romance. Even long after the play has changed (and changed again), our minds hang on to that first moment to say, “Here is young love.”

Martyna Majok’s Sanctuary City contains other romances, other yearnings. It also breaks its own heart, pivoting in the middle from experimental high-wire act to tendentious issue drama. There are moments in the last section that seems to belong to another writer entirely, and characters welsh on promises the playwright made on their behalf. Why does Majok do it? I’m feeling my way here (I’m still bruised), but I think it may be because theater’s vicarious heartache isn’t enough for her. To tell the story she wants to tell, she’s willing to let us fall out of love with the play itself.