La MaMa in association with Amanda + James present:

A Hoi Polloi production of

FAMILY

By Celine Song

Directed by Alec Duffy

September 12 - September 28, 2025

In this grotesque and pitch-dark play by Oscar-nominee Celine Song (Past Lives, Materialists), three half-siblings mourn their late father and battle over what lies underneath the floorboards. More Possession than Past Lives, this early work of Song’s serves as a surreal parable of America’s psyche. OBIE-winning theater company Hoi Polloi – known for bracing work such as Winning is Winning and White on White – re-envisions their 2024 site-specific production for La MaMa’s architecture, seizing the opportunity to push the psychosis of the play to the max.

LOCATION: La MaMa - Downstairs Theater - 66 East 4th St, New York, NY

PRESS FROM OUR 2024 PRODUCTION:

THE NEW YORK TIMES: "Directed by Alec Duffy, Family courts disgust and other dark emotions as it pries up the floorboards of this family’s history. . . they set ablaze almost every piety about the nuclear family. If the unofficial contract between an audience and a playwright stipulates that the audience pays to be entertained or edified, Song has revised that with Family. This play wants to offend, to disturb, to create an ash heap out of your expectations. There’s value in that, too." - Rhoda Feng

THE NEW YORKER: “A deliberately repulsive haunted-house fever dream written by Celine Song. Past Lives, Song’s delicate, realistic film, will in no way prepare audiences for how deranged this show is.” - Helen Shaw

EXEUNT: “The whole thing gets a giant charge–of energy, intensity, intimacy, discomfort–from the site-specific production.” - Loren Noveck

IMPULSE MAGAZINE: “In New York, a city full of shows in every church basement and public park, it takes something extraordinarily special to leave onlookers speechless. And yet, this fall, the twenty audience members at the brownstone being used for Hoi Polloi’s Family sat in stunned silence as the show ended, soft ‘holy shit’s echoing across the room.”