Tati (Richard Schiff, right) studies the Torah with young Chava (operated by puppeteer Justin Perkins, left) in Emil Weinstein’s Becoming Eve.
Any family rift can be gut-wrenching under the best of circumstances. But imagine the agony that ensues when one extricates oneself from a family and society whose unshakable beliefs are reinforced by centuries of tradition. Playwright Emil Weinstein’s Becoming Eve, based on Abby Chava Stein’s memoir, and directed by Tyne Rafaeli, expertly conveys this angst—and Chava’s conundrum.
Chava (Tommy Dorfman, left) hopes that her ex-wife Fraidy (Tedra Millan) will accept her as a woman. Photographs by Matthew Murphy.
Chava (Tommy Dorfman) waits in a progressive synagogue where Jonah (Brandon Uranowitz), serves as rabbi. She has arranged for a meeting there with her estranged Hasidic father (Richard Schiff), “Tati” in Yiddish. She seeks to explain that not only has she left her large birth family’s pan-generational way of life, her marriage to Fraidy (Tedra Millan), and fatherhood, but she has begun life as a woman. She clearly wants to reconcile with her father and family, but she knows that her transition, and her bodily changes and wardrobe, preclude her attending her cousin’s wedding.
From the moment Chava swaps her revealing blouse and skirt for a loose-fitting sweatshirt and jeans, it’s obvious that she dreads the meeting. She nearly flees the synagogue before Tati arrives. Jonah, the married rabbi and father who also left Orthodoxy and his birth family, has his own emotional baggage. Yet he seems unperturbed at the prospect of facing Tati, the formidable scion with an illustrious rabbinical lineage. He convinces Chava to stay and tries to run interference between them.
Jonah (Brandon Uranowitz) delivers a sermon to his captive audience.
Becoming Eve, the play’s title, reflects Chava’s own process of self-acceptance and change, and her interpretation of Eve’s origin as well. Chava—“Eve” in English—was the first woman, a giver of life. Ex-Hasid Chava, who reads scholarly Jewish commentaries, posits that God’s first human creation was androgynous and that Isaac’s soul was female prior to the akedah—Hebrew for “binding.” When Abraham accedes to God’s request (a test) that he sacrifice his only son, an angel intervenes to stop him; at this point, according to Chava’s sources, Isaac acquires a male soul. Chava seizes on this controversial perspective and maintains that her own soul has always been female. From early childhood, she has desired to be like her mother, Mami, (Judy Kuhn) and sisters.
Over the years, within a tightly knit Hasidic world where couples are expected to raise large families, Chava dissociates from a male identity and ultimately realizes that her marriage and parenthood are not sustainable. One feels for Dorfman’s Chava—as does Millan’s Fraidy, who is sympathetic as an engaged young woman and wife. Fraidy admits that she herself has grappled with religious precepts.
Nearly realistic, life-size puppets represent Chava at various ages, from earliest childhood memories through religious rites of passage—first haircut at age 3, bar mitzvah at 13, teen friendship with Chesky (Rad Pereira), sexual awakening, and a very late, inadequate foray into sex education just before he marries Fraidy and fathers a son. Operated by Justin Otaki Perkins and Emma Wiseman, the puppets cleverly guide the audience through Chava’s metamorphosis.
Judy Kuhn (with puppet Chava) plays Mami in Weinstein’s drama.
The play’s time-shifting between the puppets and the contemporaneous synagogue setting are extremely effective, in part because Chava, situated beside or behind the puppets, voices their dialogue. Lighting designer Ben Stanton’s alternating bursts of light and total darkness between scenes also help to toggle between past and present.
Rafaeli’s tight direction facilitates a simmering, poignant family tension that turns explosive, with a riveting performance by Schiff as Tati. While Chava can immediately verbalize her struggles, her father, as the dignified patriarch of a prominent family, manages a near-pleading invitation to Chava to come home, reconcile with Fraidy before she remarries, have access to their son, and, of course, cease humiliating his family. Suddenly Tati loses control, and all that is gut-wrenching pours forth. In harrowing references to his family, decimated in Auschwitz, Tati’s anguish at the loss of his son, on the heels of the Holocaust, reveals alternating vulnerability and unbridled rage:
You grew up with such privilege. Well-fed and well-loved enough to be arrogant. A child of plenty. I thought you would lead us one day. Only instead—
Schiff’s performance as the dominating Tati, who fails to sway his child, is chilling. Nevertheless, when he and Jonah, as foils—suspicion vs. openness—face off, they engage in humorous repartee.
The play’s sole, potential limitation is that audiences might misconstrue Weinstein’s characterization of Hasidim. Some, but not all, Hasidic communities fear the secular world’s impact. At the same time, though, following the Holocaust, they need what the secular world can offer them, in order to rebuild their families—which have been shattered via genocide and shattered by choice.
The New York Theatre Workshop’s Becoming Eve runs at the Abron Arts Center (466 Grand St.) through April 27. Performances are Tuesdays through Sundays at 7 p.m.; matinees are at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call (212) 598-0400 x1422 or visit nytw.org.
Playwright: Emil Weinstein
Director: Tyne Rafaeli
Puppetry Design & Direction: Amanda Villalobos
Lighting Design: Ben Stanton
Scenic Design: Arnulfo Maldonado
Sound Design: Uptown Works
Music: Daniel Kluger
Costume Design: Enver Chakartash
