The reviews are in for Fish, Melis Aker’s darkly comic play about a London teenager who goes looking for her missing brother in the ISIS corners of Twitter, which opened Off-Broadway on Sunday, October 11, at WP Theater in a co-production with Signature Theatre, directed by Tatiana Pandiani. Set in 2016, on the eve of the Brexit vote, it follows 17-year-old Karya (Yasmin Ranz-Lind) as a search for answers turns into a catfishing scheme that pays. The critics agree that it is funny and well acted, with Ranz-Lind and Roxanna Hope Radja, as her grieving mother, the names that come up most often, but they part company over whether the play holds all of its threads together.
The verdict: six reviews in so far, and none of the six outlets publishes a rating, so there is no score to average. All six have good words for the ensemble, most enjoy the comedy, and most single out Roxanna Hope Radja or Yasmin Ranz-Lind. New York Theatre Guide is the most enthusiastic and Theater Pizzazz close behind; TheaterMania is warm with a reservation about the swimming-lesson thread, while Exeunt NYC and Pages on Stages both feel the play leaves too much for the audience to piece together.
What are critics saying about Fish?
TheaterMania
"A Coming-of-Age Comedy About ISIS"
Reviewer: Zachary Stewart
Stewart has a good time with a premise he calls outrageous, and he credits Tatiana Pandiani’s direction with lifting the whole company to the level its lead sets.
"Ranz-Lind is not only a gifted comedian, but she sells us on Karya’s dramatic character arc."
He singles out Roxanna Hope Radja’s desperate mother as the most powerful turn of the night. His main reservation is the recurring swimming-lesson thread, which he finds the least persuasive device in the script, though he still leaves convinced the play rings true.
New York Theatre Guide
"Teen buddy comedy tackles terrorism"
Reviewer: Austin Fimmano
Fimmano is the warmest voice in the field. He admires how Melis Aker keeps the comedy and the grief in balance, and he thinks Yasmin Ranz-Lind conveys most of Karya’s inner life through her face alone.
"Under the direction of Tatiana Pandiani, Fish is sharp, funny, and intensely vulnerable."
He also finds Radja very funny as the mother, likes Sara Haider’s effortlessly cool Isha, and ends up reading the evening as much as a portrait of a mother and daughter as a teen comedy.
Exeunt NYC
Reviewer: Nicole Serratore
Serratore is the most reserved of the six. She likes the sharp, profane banter between the two friends and the rapport between Ranz-Lind and Alyssa May Gold, and she praises Emmie Finckel’s tiled set, which doubles as a pool, and G Clausen’s echoing sound.
"…delivers on laughs, though the play gets a little buried under the weight of its intentions."
Her objection is that Aker tries to carry too much at once, from Brexit to grief to sexuality, and that the links between those strands are not always clear. She also finds the staging of the online chats a little self-conscious.
Theater Pizzazz
"A Family on the Verge of Sinking Must Learn to Swim"
Reviewer: Stuart Miller
Miller calls the play funny and poignant, and he is struck by how generously Aker writes the mother as well as the daughter, giving Ceyda her own fears and history.
"While the entire cast is strong, Radja as Ceyda is the stand-out…"
He also enjoys Pandiani’s inventive answers to a dry swimming pool and to on-stage Twitter. His one complaint is with how the two teenage girls are cast and directed, which he thinks falls back on a familiar type.
Off Off Online
Reviewer: Deirdre Donovan
Donovan spends much of her notice on the play’s imagery, above all its blunt opening scene, which she reads as an early sign of the losses that shape Karya’s story.
"…it merits attention from theatergoers who look to the stage not merely for entertainment…"
She finds the five actors well matched throughout and calls the evening hard going in the best sense, a play about loss and extremism rather than a comfortable night out.
Pages on Stages
"Hooked"
Reviewer: Mason Pilevsky
Pilevsky had a lot of fun watching it, and he credits the play with keeping him thinking well after he left the theater.
"The concept of Fish is deeply engaging and utterly unique."
Even so, he wanted answers it never gives, about the legal fallout of Karya’s scheme and about what the play finally means to say, and he left unsure of its message.
For more of what the New York critics have been saying, read our roundups for Good Time Charlie at The Public Theater and Topdog/Underdog at Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
Fish runs at WP Theater, 2162 Broadway at 76th Street, through October 25, 2026. The running time is 1 hour and 40 minutes, with no intermission. Production photos by Joan Marcus.
