Helen Shaw
@helenshaw.bsky.social
Writing about theater for the New Yorker. Tell me if you’ve seen something good!
Townsend writes in rare registers: heightened melodrama, yes, but also densely written jeremiad about personal, political anguish. How much is "real" here wavers, except for the rock-solid sense we're in the presence of real talent—both onstage (Weinstein is amazing) & behind it. www.jewishplot.com
November 9, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Townsend writes in rare registers: heightened melodrama, yes, but also densely written jeremiad about personal, political anguish. How much is "real" here wavers, except for the rock-solid sense we're in the presence of real talent—both onstage (Weinstein is amazing) & behind it. www.jewishplot.com
But Townsend dug this thing up (the word "plot" has certain graveyard implications, no?) to explore even darker matters than antisemitism in Dickens's London. The games-within-games that Townsend and director Sarah Hughes play instill a sick dread in us. I found it thrilling but nauseating (3/4)
November 9, 2025 at 5:32 PM
But Townsend dug this thing up (the word "plot" has certain graveyard implications, no?) to explore even darker matters than antisemitism in Dickens's London. The games-within-games that Townsend and director Sarah Hughes play instill a sick dread in us. I found it thrilling but nauseating (3/4)
When Madeline Weinstein welcomes us, she introduces Eddie Kaye Thomas, playing the lead in Townsend's reconstruction of a "lost" nineteenth-century play subtitled "The Semite of Mayfair." The melodrama wends along; it's almost too bad to be true. "Oh," you'll think, "how far theatre has come" (2/4)
November 9, 2025 at 5:32 PM
When Madeline Weinstein welcomes us, she introduces Eddie Kaye Thomas, playing the lead in Townsend's reconstruction of a "lost" nineteenth-century play subtitled "The Semite of Mayfair." The melodrama wends along; it's almost too bad to be true. "Oh," you'll think, "how far theatre has come" (2/4)
Torrey Townsend's "Jewish Plot" has two more nights: tonight (Sunday) and tomorrow (Monday). It's the rare show where anything I say could undermine it; the tonal and structural switchbacks here are genuinely exhilarating & I don't want to ruin it for anyone who can get to Theatre 154 in time. (1/4)
November 9, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Torrey Townsend's "Jewish Plot" has two more nights: tonight (Sunday) and tomorrow (Monday). It's the rare show where anything I say could undermine it; the tonal and structural switchbacks here are genuinely exhilarating & I don't want to ruin it for anyone who can get to Theatre 154 in time. (1/4)
"Kyoto"'s point is that Pearlman invented the anti-progress rulebook: delay negotiations on procedural grounds, exaggerate scientific uncertainty, attack the scientist rather than the science, exploit your enemies' inner divisions, etc. In this important way, "Kyoto" is good, because it's useful 4/5
November 4, 2025 at 5:38 PM
"Kyoto"'s point is that Pearlman invented the anti-progress rulebook: delay negotiations on procedural grounds, exaggerate scientific uncertainty, attack the scientist rather than the science, exploit your enemies' inner divisions, etc. In this important way, "Kyoto" is good, because it's useful 4/5
Like other such shows, Kyoto builds tension with cinematic music, bustling movement to create a sense of drama (some of us still remember the way Jennifer Ehle vigorously slid a coffee table onstage for J.T. Rogers's Process Drama "Oslo"), and a climactic Storm of Papers. This stuff kinda works 3/5
November 4, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Like other such shows, Kyoto builds tension with cinematic music, bustling movement to create a sense of drama (some of us still remember the way Jennifer Ehle vigorously slid a coffee table onstage for J.T. Rogers's Process Drama "Oslo"), and a climactic Storm of Papers. This stuff kinda works 3/5
It's another Process Drama from overseas: we've recently had "Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors," brought over from the National, which re-enacted the inquiry after a hellish fire, and "Agreement," from Belfast's Lyric, which dramatized the down-to-the-wire peace process in Northern Ireland 2/5
November 4, 2025 at 5:38 PM
It's another Process Drama from overseas: we've recently had "Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors," brought over from the National, which re-enacted the inquiry after a hellish fire, and "Agreement," from Belfast's Lyric, which dramatized the down-to-the-wire peace process in Northern Ireland 2/5
In Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson's "Kyoto" at Lincoln Center Theater, the real-life oil lobbyist Donald H. Pearlman (played by Stephen Kunken) tries to derail the UN's Kyoto Accords by sabotaging a decade of negotiations aimed at preventing the climate disaster. His story's compressed but true. 1/5
November 4, 2025 at 5:38 PM
In Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson's "Kyoto" at Lincoln Center Theater, the real-life oil lobbyist Donald H. Pearlman (played by Stephen Kunken) tries to derail the UN's Kyoto Accords by sabotaging a decade of negotiations aimed at preventing the climate disaster. His story's compressed but true. 1/5
The first section, when Move and the two former Graham dancers Catherine Cabeen and PeiJu Chien-Pott enter silently, moving in elegant and sorrowful hieroglyphics, was stirring; the section when Graham/Move is explaining the company exercises, demonstrated by the two dancers, was illuminating
October 29, 2025 at 1:26 PM
The first section, when Move and the two former Graham dancers Catherine Cabeen and PeiJu Chien-Pott enter silently, moving in elegant and sorrowful hieroglyphics, was stirring; the section when Graham/Move is explaining the company exercises, demonstrated by the two dancers, was illuminating
Move and Lisa Kron (as Walter Terry) reenact the pair's 92nd Street Y interview from 1963. Martha Graham never knowingly under-dramatized. Asked about how to deal with repetition, she says, graciously, head bowing like a lily, "Don't get bored—think of yourself as dancing towards your death." Right.
October 29, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Move and Lisa Kron (as Walter Terry) reenact the pair's 92nd Street Y interview from 1963. Martha Graham never knowingly under-dramatized. Asked about how to deal with repetition, she says, graciously, head bowing like a lily, "Don't get bored—think of yourself as dancing towards your death." Right.
Richard Move's bewitching "Martha@BAM—the 1963 Interview" continues Move's long history of "becoming" Martha Graham—what started at a nightclub (Martha@Mother) in 1996 arrives on the BAM Fishman stage at last. Of course the eye makeup is TIGER, the hair is ARCHITECTURE, the torso is CANTILEVERED 🧵
October 29, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Richard Move's bewitching "Martha@BAM—the 1963 Interview" continues Move's long history of "becoming" Martha Graham—what started at a nightclub (Martha@Mother) in 1996 arrives on the BAM Fishman stage at last. Of course the eye makeup is TIGER, the hair is ARCHITECTURE, the torso is CANTILEVERED 🧵
I've been thinking about Keanu Reeves & double-acts, and I got overwhelmed all over again at the loss of River Phoenix. My Own Private Idaho is so similar to Godot, though there Reeves plays the knowing Didi-type and Phoenix's narcoleptic ingenue is Gogo...I can see their version in my mind's eye
October 3, 2025 at 6:10 PM
I've been thinking about Keanu Reeves & double-acts, and I got overwhelmed all over again at the loss of River Phoenix. My Own Private Idaho is so similar to Godot, though there Reeves plays the knowing Didi-type and Phoenix's narcoleptic ingenue is Gogo...I can see their version in my mind's eye
The tremendous Morgan Bassichis show "Can I Be Frank?" at Soho Playhouse has added a show tomorrow at 9pm! Everything else is sold out out OUT
Bassichis is the funniest and most entrancing comic performer out there; if you don't take that last ticket, I'm gonna www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/m...
Bassichis is the funniest and most entrancing comic performer out there; if you don't take that last ticket, I'm gonna www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/m...
September 9, 2025 at 12:49 PM
The tremendous Morgan Bassichis show "Can I Be Frank?" at Soho Playhouse has added a show tomorrow at 9pm! Everything else is sold out out OUT
Bassichis is the funniest and most entrancing comic performer out there; if you don't take that last ticket, I'm gonna www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/m...
Bassichis is the funniest and most entrancing comic performer out there; if you don't take that last ticket, I'm gonna www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/m...
Crystal Skillman's monologue "Open," starring the great Megan Hill, is a magic act with no magic in it--a woman, the Magician, boasts about the illusions she's doing in front of us (bird, rings, flowers, PRESTO!) but nothing actually appears on the empty stage (1/4)
July 16, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Crystal Skillman's monologue "Open," starring the great Megan Hill, is a magic act with no magic in it--a woman, the Magician, boasts about the illusions she's doing in front of us (bird, rings, flowers, PRESTO!) but nothing actually appears on the empty stage (1/4)
After a killer 1st act, they appear less in the 2nd, which costs the show some circus energy—it's hard to dramatize eroding confidence. Still, designer Alexander Shishkin creates impressive low-budget spectacles, as does Molochnikov, a serious talent, knocked back by circumstance, but not down. 5/5
May 26, 2025 at 7:13 PM
After a killer 1st act, they appear less in the 2nd, which costs the show some circus energy—it's hard to dramatize eroding confidence. Still, designer Alexander Shishkin creates impressive low-budget spectacles, as does Molochnikov, a serious talent, knocked back by circumstance, but not down. 5/5
The show has 2 driving forces: Elan Zafir's Anton, a sidekick and sad-eyed joker, & the hilarious MC (Andrey Burkovskiy), part Bulgakovian devil, part NY producer ("Fantastic!" he shouts, never committing a penny), part Trigorin, part what happens if you hire Russian Ed Grimley as your narrator. 4/5
May 26, 2025 at 7:13 PM
The show has 2 driving forces: Elan Zafir's Anton, a sidekick and sad-eyed joker, & the hilarious MC (Andrey Burkovskiy), part Bulgakovian devil, part NY producer ("Fantastic!" he shouts, never committing a penny), part Trigorin, part what happens if you hire Russian Ed Grimley as your narrator. 4/5
Amid fairground nightmarishness—half Blok, half Lynch—Kon struggles with censorious actors & a producer in love with his Nina. The visuals are hilarious (Putin pops by) & horrifying (A subway platform materializes around Kon and we remember how Chekhov's Konstantin acts after he feels forgotten) 3/5
May 26, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Amid fairground nightmarishness—half Blok, half Lynch—Kon struggles with censorious actors & a producer in love with his Nina. The visuals are hilarious (Putin pops by) & horrifying (A subway platform materializes around Kon and we remember how Chekhov's Konstantin acts after he feels forgotten) 3/5
The plot combines "Seagull" and Molochnikov's own exile: successful director (Kon), a LGBTQ-friendly avant-gardist, flees Moscow when Putin's crackdown stops him from working freely. In New York, though, all his fame evaporates. Can he even put on a show? A rich city assures him it has no money 2/5
May 26, 2025 at 7:13 PM
The plot combines "Seagull" and Molochnikov's own exile: successful director (Kon), a LGBTQ-friendly avant-gardist, flees Moscow when Putin's crackdown stops him from working freely. In New York, though, all his fame evaporates. Can he even put on a show? A rich city assures him it has no money 2/5
Seagull: True Story by Eli Rarey, dir. by Alexander Molochnikov, produced by En Garde Arts @ La Mama, is a grotesque carnival, exploring parallels between Russia's murderous repressiveness & U.S. anti-art callousness. Both expect artists to dance, while the Big Boys laugh & throw pocket change 1/5
May 26, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Seagull: True Story by Eli Rarey, dir. by Alexander Molochnikov, produced by En Garde Arts @ La Mama, is a grotesque carnival, exploring parallels between Russia's murderous repressiveness & U.S. anti-art callousness. Both expect artists to dance, while the Big Boys laugh & throw pocket change 1/5
Agree 💯 with Sara's rec of Lobster, Kallan Dana's A+ highschool comedy-turned-drama.... young Nora (Cricket Brown!!) stages Patti Smith & Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth with fellow students who struggle to channel the original's chthonic ambition. The Tank 'til 5/17... www.vulture.com/article/what...
May 13, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Agree 💯 with Sara's rec of Lobster, Kallan Dana's A+ highschool comedy-turned-drama.... young Nora (Cricket Brown!!) stages Patti Smith & Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth with fellow students who struggle to channel the original's chthonic ambition. The Tank 'til 5/17... www.vulture.com/article/what...
I talk in this piece about the posters---right now at the Skirball at NYU, the lobby is full of them, copies of beautiful posters donated to the archive by Mimi Johnson. Remember when New York looked like this?
January 9, 2025 at 9:39 PM
I talk in this piece about the posters---right now at the Skirball at NYU, the lobby is full of them, copies of beautiful posters donated to the archive by Mimi Johnson. Remember when New York looked like this?
April 19, 2024 at 3:39 AM
