“I come from a very secretive family,” Dave Harris remarks. But I doubt that the secrets are as extreme as the ones in his play “Manakin,” in which four generations of brothers marry sisters while simultaneously worshiping Satan. A staged reading of the play will take place at Marist University on July 26, part of New York Stage and Film’s summer residency there.
The latest generation of this incestuous household, who are simply named “Brother” and “Sister,” are preparing to get married. A wedding is a hopeful moment for a family, but also one charged with anxiety. Harris examines this duality with grim humor and poetic elegance. “It’s a family where violence and love coexist, and they’re one and the same, often,” Harris observes. And the usual wedding jitters only increase when one is marrying one’s sibling.
Every home has rules, which are often arbitrary. In this family, no one is allowed to blow on their soup to cool it. This leads to an explosive argument between the father and great-grandfather during the wedding feast at the center of the play. Also during this meal, the family eats an absurd collection of birds: peacock, Cornish hen, peregrine falcon. The title of the play is a type of bird that goes unmentioned, a fruit-loving creature found in South and Central America. Its name combines “man” and “kin”—a male person and a family.
Another of the generational quirks in this play is Satanism. The family awaits the coming of Lucifer with the same glazed optimism with which evangelicals expect the Second Coming.
“Manakin” grew out of Harris’ fascination with Greek tragedy. The play’s invocation retells the tale of the House of Atreus in a style influenced by hip-hop:
Menelaus is not cute, and the stroke is weak.
He’s married to Helen. Helen a baddie.
A real baddie. So bad that Menelaus is like let me flex on all my haters…
Contemplating Greek tragedy—as Freud did—one sees patterns that continue today. “Every generation believes it’s going to bring about change, and the question is, ‘Do human beings ever change?’” Harris inquires. In this second era of Trump, it’s easy to be fatalistic about the human race. Because “Manakin” has no geographical setting, and the characters have no individual names, just roles like “Grandmother” and “Father,” the work takes on a philosophical tone.
And there are unexpected digressions, such as: “Cockroaches eat dead skin and human hair, and you lose 50 to 100 strands of hair a day so it’s impossible to not always be feeding the roaches,” says Daughter.
But love can blossom anywhere, even in the most transgressive families. The romance between the great-grandmother and great-grandfather is both passionate and gentle. They have outlived their errors, and forgiven all.
And moments of high poetry arise, such as this recitation by Godmother, who functions as a deity in this play: “In a world full of animals, / I found I had a body. / A garden. A bounty. / A night sky and stars I could smooth away like dust.”
Originally from Philadelphia, Harris received a master’s degree from UC-San Diego, and presently lives in Los Angeles. He will come to Poughkeepsie for the performance of “Manakin.”
Nowadays, playwrights also write for TV and movies. Harris wrote “Interview with a Vampire” for AMC, and “The Fortress of Solitude” for Amazon. Summertime, his first feature film, debuted at Sundance in 2020. His play “Tambo & Bones” received an LA Drama Critics Award for best new play in 2023. “Manakin” won the Relentless Award of the American Playwriting Foundation last year.
“Manakin” is one of 12 theatrical productions featured in New York Stage and Film’s 40th anniversary season at Marist University.
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This article appears in July 2025.
