You might remember the controversy, if not the name of the play. Last year, the New York Theatre Workshop had planned to give Emil Weinstein’s first play, “Becoming Eve,” its world premiere at the nearby Connelly Theatre in the East Village. Suddenly, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York decided to flex its muscle to reject the show. Who even knew the church owned the Connelly? The archdiocese released a statement about not letting Weinstein’s play enter its holy domain: “Nothing should take place on church-owned property that is contrary to the teaching of the church.”
Not to be deterred, NYTW found another theater, and “Becoming Eve” opened Monday at the Abrons Arts Center on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan. To say it has been worth the wait is an understatement. “Becoming Eve” confirms what I’ve written repeatedly: We are living in a golden age of American dramatic literature, and Weinstein’s play can take its place at the top of this theater trend with such other recently staged new works as Bess Wohl’s “Liberation” (now Off Broadway) and Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Purpose” (now on Broadway).
Too much ink gets spilled about $900-plus-dollar tickets to gawk at movie stars in “Othello,” “Good Night, and Good Luck” and “Glengarry Glen Ross.” All three are worth seeing, but those outrageous ticket prices give New York theater a bad name. Plays like “Liberation,” “Purpose” and now “Becoming Eve” often have discount tickets available through TKTS, TDF and other sellers. They’re cheaper tickets and better theater, too.
Regarding “Becoming Eve,” I can’t do better than an official press release to describe it: “ ‘Becoming Eve’ tells the remarkable true story of trans rabbi Abby Chava Stein, tracing her journey from a Hasidic rabbinical family to becoming a trailblazing leader in the LGBTSIA+ community.”
Let’s leave out the “trailblazing” part for the moment. That story came after the story told here on stage by Weinstein that’s based on Stein’s 2019 memoir. The play takes place in about the time (under two hours) that it takes Chava (Tommy Dorfman) to tell his rabbi-father (Richard Schiff) that she’s a trans woman. For the meeting, Chava choses a small second-floor synagogue, converted from a public school (set design by Arnulfo Maldonado); and mediating that showdown is a third rabbi, Jonah (Brandon Uranowitz). Adding to the suspense is Chava’s assertion about her family: “My parents are the descendants of the most important men in Jewish history!” Thunderclap.
Chava believes she can use the Akedah to win over her parents. Rather than seeing Abraham’s binding of his son Isaac as a “sacrifice,” Chava interprets the Old Testament story as a “transformation.”
Interspersed with this father-daughter confrontation are scenes that take us back to Stefele/Chava’s childhood, adolescence and the arranged marriage to Fraidy (Tedra Millan), a union that gives the couple a much beloved son.
Flashbacks in the movies or on stage can be a problem. Director Tyne Rafaeli handles these magnificently by introducing each with a crack of thunder and lightning as if her stage manager were the vengeful God of the Old Testament. Kudos to Ben Stanton’s lighting and UptownWorks’ sound design.
The first flashback shows the young Shefele/Chava before his Upsheren, the ritual haircutting of Hasidic boys at the age of three. “I don’t want to be a boy!” the child screams. Actually, it is Dorfman who voices the child Shefele, who is a Bunrahu-style puppet manipulated by two puppeteers, Justin Otaki Perkins and Emma Wiseman.
In the present-day sequences of “Becoming Eve,” the father’s first words after not having seen Chava for two years are, “You shaved your …”
To delay the moment of her revelation, Chava takes off her miniskirt and bra top to wear instead baggy jeans and an equally loose-fitting zip-up hoodie (costumes by Enver Chakartash) to meet her father and mother. When Mami eventually shows up, Judy Kuhn makes her the essence of maternal warmth. That entrance, however, is significantly delayed, because Mami has decided against making the hot two-hour subway ride to the Upper West Side from Williamsburg, which is described as “a hermetically sealed 19th century village that happens to be in Brooklyn.”
“Becoming Eve” happens to be a very funny play, some of the best moments coming in the cultural mashup between Schiff’s Hasidic rabbi and Uranowitz’s “transdenominational Renewal” rabbi, whom the father at one point calls Judas. The timing between these two great actors is vintage vaudeville.
In the flashbacks, as Shefele/Chava grows up, the puppets get bigger. There is a kiss with a Hasidic classmate (Rad Pereira, being beautifully elusive). The puppet is fully adult-size for the first meeting with Fraidy, the bride to be. Rafaeli’s direction works stage magic here: Dorfman always speaks for the puppets, but sometimes she also physically replaces them. Especially moving, and downright erotic, are the scenes of physical intimacy after the couple has married. They eventually divorce, and Tedra Millan’s performance is careful never to portray this female character as either villain or victim.
Schiff’s father could definitely be played as the villain. This theater season, the critical raves for actors has gone to those playing multiple characters in a one-person show. Andrew Scott in “Vanya” and Sarah Snook in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” are impressive, but there’s necessarily a lot of gimmickry going on with all that role-playing. Schiff seemingly drops all masks. If he is acting, he never ever lets us catch him doing it.
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