The writer and director, Jimmy Maize, tried to weave together three plot lines, each more earnest than the other. One is about Marion (Molly McAdoo), whos researching Annie Moore, the first passenger to be processed at Ellis Island, for a PBS documentary. Another is about Wes (Esa Mora), a neurotic gay man, plagued by dreams about Lewis and Clark, who embarks on a road trip with his boyfriend (Renaldy Smith); his meltdown in the Rockies feels like a Woody Allen movie scene about a city guys freaking out at the sight of nature.

Finally, we follow Cather (Luke Zimmerman), dressed like a pioneer in a Thom Browne catalog, and Antonia (Ayana Workman) nods to Willa Cather and her novel My ntonia, with a dash of gender-bending on the prairie as the writer interacts with his creation.

The three strands appear to interconnect, albeit in mysterious ways. At one point, Marion and Antonia engage in a romantic-looking pas de deux (the choreography is by Wendy Seyb), but we were so far from the action that I could barely see the dance. By that time the audience, which roams as much as the cast, was sitting on the amphitheater-like steps, atop a grand staircase, while the ensemble was all the way down in the atrium. This at least made for some occasionally striking abstract visuals.

Most frustrating, however, was the inability to hear the choir, made up of members of the Downtown Voices and the Mama Foundations Wednesday Sings choirs. With any luck, the sound issues will be fixed in subsequent performances, but on Thursday evening, the singers were barely audible, making it hard to weigh in on Heather Christians gentle score; you can get a better sense of it from the productions teaser video on YouTube.

At times, though, the very faintness of the voices had an oddly beautiful ghostly effect. Perhaps in an unintentional nod to our hardscrabble predecessors, the show works best if you make the most of a tough situation.

Winter Garden at Brookfield Place

230 Vesey St.

website

Category Off Off Broadway, Play

Credits Written and directed by Jimmy Maize; Music by Heather Christian; Choreography by Wendy Seyb

Cast JeVon Blackwell, Molly McAdoo, Esa Mora, Renaldy Smith, Ayana Workman, Luke Zimmerman, Victoria Ernst, Thomas Jaeger, Rachael Worthington. Dancers: Marika Abe, Elaine Baez, Summer Gan, Emily Garrison, Kory Geller, Arlene Howell, Rachel Jarvis, Nicholas Johnson, Lucile Jorba Y Campo, Liberty Laferriere, Kelsey Leland, Angela Morgan, Scott Shedenhelm, Tara Lynn Steele, Fiona Tsang, Leanne Velednitsky, Katie Wilson, Emily Wong and Elizabeth Yako; Also Trinity Church's Downtown Voices Choir and Mama Foundation's Wednesday Sings! Choir

Opened June 22, 2017

Closing Date June 25, 2017

This information was last updated: June 23, 2017

Harbored Through June 25 at the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, Manhattan; rivertorivernyc.com. Running time: 1 hour.

A version of this review appears in print on June 24, 2017, on Page C5 of the New York edition with the headline: You Can See Ellis Island From This Play.

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Review: 'Harbored' Spins Immigrants' Tales, With Liberty in View ... - New York Times