MANIFEST DESTINY
Written and Directed by Manuel Ortiz
Teatro LATEA at The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center | 107 Suffolk Street, NYC
June 12 - June 29
Let us together descend into the intoxicating chiaroscuro of historical memory and performative reckoning. For in Manifest Destiny, playwright Manuel Ortiz does not merely unveil a play; he exhumes a phantom—one cloaked not in the garb of Shakespearean melancholy, but in the bloody regalia of imperial arrogance masquerading as righteous deliverance.
Let us begin at the beginning—not of the play, but of the premise. Consider, if you will, a pernicious myth born amid the smoky fervor of 19th-century American nationalism: Manifest Destiny—that presumptuous ideology which declared, with bombast and no small measure of racial hubris, that the United States was divinely ordained to spread its dominion across the North American continent. It was an audacious cocktail: a potent mix of American exceptionalism, evangelical zeal for republicanism, and the unstated but ever-present aroma of white supremacy. Not content to dwell in the abstract, this ideology found its claws in concrete action: in the annexation of Mexican lands, in the ideological manipulation of Latin America, and—perhaps most insidiously—in the exportation of democracy as imperial instrument. Consider our present idiot-in-chief as he threatens to annex Canada and Greenland.
And now—enter stage left—Ortiz, like a bard of bitter truths, takes this grotesque inheritance and spins it into a tale as gripping as it is devastating. Manifest Destiny the play is not a simple historical re-enactment; no, it is a reckoning delivered through satire, pathos, and a theatricality so self-aware it practically winks at you while it lands its punches. It is a play within a ghost story, or perhaps a ghost story within a political dossier, wrapped in Shakespearean pastiche and shaken—not stirred—with Latin American rage.
The production opens not with fanfare, but with irony: the cast of four actors, in full Brechtian flourish, break the fourth wall to introduce themselves not by their real names (per the advice of imaginary lawyers), but as Hamlet, Horatio, Claudius, and Ophelia. One chuckles at the jest—until one realizes how aptly these masks fit. Actor 4 (the versatile Jesse B. Koehler) delivers the now-infamous line about the play being “probably more like seventy-thirty” fiction—thus inviting us into a dreamscape where art and reality do not merely blur, but collude.
At the heart of the play is Francisco Arcila’s Hamlet, an echo of the original Danish prince, but this time cast as the grieving son of a desaparecido—the disappeared father, a victim of the Pinochet regime. Hamlet’s sorrow is not soliloquized in the halls of Elsinore, but in a Brooklyn apartment haunted not by memory alone, but by real-world complicity. His partner, Horatio (played with an understated poignancy by John Evans Reese), is an American lawyer, their interracial, same-sex marriage presented refreshingly not as novelty or burden, but as baseline reality—a quiet triumph of representation in a play raging against political oppression.
Nefesh Cordero Pino’s Ophelia—a childhood friend with a matching familial trauma—joins Hamlet in his quest for vengeance, aimed squarely at Claudius Cownley, the dashing yet repellent CIA/DINA double agent. Koehler, as Cownley, transforms with mercurial ease from affable partygoer to chilling executioner. His portrayal is made even more unsettling by the light-hearted delivery of Mariana, his wife (also played by Pino), who belts out a hilariously off-key rendition of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” just as the 1973 Chilean coup d’état detonates—literally and figuratively—across the stage.
This grotesque domestic scene—framed by a toy dollhouse that slowly reveals itself to be a site of torture—encapsulates the play’s thesis: behind the grinning mask of ideology lies machinery soaked in blood. Ortiz uses theatrical devices not as gimmicks, but as traps—baiting the audience with levity before plunging them into darkness. The surrealist projection mishap, in which the real name of a CIA agent is briefly displayed, only to be “corrected” mid-performance, is both hilarious and horrifying. It’s a moment that crystallizes the genius of Ortiz: a director unafraid to let the absurdity of bureaucracy and the terror of truth share the same breath.
The cast of four navigate this labyrinthine world with astonishing cohesion. Their rhythmic role-swapping, tonal dexterity, and emotional calibration give the performance a dynamism that propels the narrative even as it fractures time. Ortiz employs flashbacks, ghostly apparitions, and abrupt tonal shifts not to confuse but to deepen: every layer unpeeled reveals a harder, sharper truth.
And what of the message? Manifest Destiny is not content to rest in historical critique. It lifts the veil on American foreign policy, drawing a direct line from the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine to 20th-century Cold War machinations and 21st-century political interventions. It is an indictment of empire cloaked in entertainment. But more than that, it is a requiem—for the disappeared, for truth, for history denied.
In the end, Manifest Destiny is not merely a play—it is an exorcism. An exorcism of American innocence, of Chilean pain, and of the ghosts that refuse to be buried. It should be required viewing not only for lovers of theater, but for citizens of conscience. Ortiz has gifted us with a masterwork: complex yet clear, bold yet intimate, devastating yet—paradoxically—frequently hilarious.
The story coalesces around the simmering dynamic of Hamlet, Horatio, and Ophelia—no longer merely players bearing borrowed Shakespearean names, but flesh-and-blood vessels of unresolved trauma. It is here that Ophelia, as embodied with beguiling steel by Pino, reenters Hamlet’s world not as a love interest nor a tragic figure doomed to madness, but as a co-conspirator in a mission of righteous retribution. She is no longer a passive witness to the chaos of men; she is its architect. A flashback sequence—rendered with a gentleness that belies the gravity of the subject—reveals the shared foundation of their alliance: both have lost fathers to the shadowy machinery of the Pinochet regime, both seek justice, and both understand that justice in this world is a performance requiring cunning, costume, and calculation.
Ortiz, ever the theatrical alchemist, continues his deft interweaving of fact and fiction, grounding his fictionalized characters in grim historical truth without succumbing to didacticism or despair. His is not the dry chronology of a history textbook, but the emotionally charged terrain of human contradiction—where the desire for vengeance walks hand-in-hand with love, and moments of comic levity lurk just beside unspeakable truths. The ghost of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is omnipresent, not in direct quotation, but in structure and soul. Those familiar with the prince of Denmark’s journey will find ample resonance here: fathers lost to treachery, the moral rot at the heart of political institutions, the terrible ambiguity of action.
The scenes that follow, unfolding with near surgical precision, plumb ever deeper into the sinister historical layers the play seeks to expose—yet they do so with a sly theatricality that never permits the weight of the material to overwhelm. It is in this balancing act that Ortiz proves himself a master. The darkness is there, undeniably—yet so, too, is laughter. And more importantly, thought. The audience is not instructed what to think, but invited to reflect, to reconsider, to reckon. Manifest Destiny dares to present the United States not as a singular villain, but as a deeply conflicted character—part liberator, part oppressor, whose ideals often serve as a veil for interventionist ambition. It is a play that arrives not as an artifact of the past, but as an urgent mirror held to the present.
The production’s technical elements, too, are nothing short of exquisite. Attilio Rigotti’s scenic and projection design, built from a sea of cardboard boxes, functions as both metaphor and mechanic. The boxes imply transience, movement, the constant packing and unpacking of history—both personal and national. They serve not only as physical space but as temporal markers, supporting the play’s intricate shifts across time and geography. Rigotti’s sound design, complemented by Deby Kaufmann’s evocative original score, is similarly elegant—never intruding, always enhancing.
Costume designer Paco May masterfully navigates the blurred lines between past and present, reality and fiction, outfitting the actors in garments that fluidly support the play’s kaleidoscopic transitions. Meanwhile, Miguel Valderrama’s lighting—subtle when it must be, piercing when required—becomes an unspoken narrator, guiding us through memory, dream, and nightmare. Valderrama also serves as the production’s technical director, and his firm hand is evident throughout.
As Manifest Destiny moves toward its final scenes, it does not offer simple catharsis. Instead, it leaves us with something far more valuable: the emotional architecture necessary to interrogate history, identity, and moral inheritance. What does it mean to seek justice in a world where the machinery of state crushes individual lives in the name of ideology? What is the cost of forgetting—and who pays it? These are not comfortable questions. But Ortiz, with his searing intellect and theatrical wit, ensures they are unforgettable ones.
Produced by split/decision and Teatro LATEA.
Click HERE for tickets.
Review by Tony Marinelli.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on June 24, 2025. All rights reserved.