“Becoming Eve” at Abrons Arts Center, New York
Glenda Frank in Manhattan
6 May 2025
Since the groundbreaking Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 1998, there have been many depictions of the transgender experience, but Becoming Eve, adapted by Emil Weinstein from the memoir by Abby Chava Stein, is something new. It’s about parents and children. It’s about barriers that can’t be crossed without breaking something inside. It’s about joy and friendship, and what we unwillingly sacrifice to be true to ourselves. It’s deeply moving, and the production values are extraordinary.
Justin Perkins, Tommy Dorfman and Judy Kuhn.
Photo credit: Matthew Murphy.
Yisroel was born to a prominent Hasidic family, the first of 13 children. He is a descendent of the Baal Shem Tov (“Master of the Good Name,” 1700-1760), the mystic healer who founded the Hasidic movement. Married at 18, Yisroel had a son, but left the community because he felt something was wrong. His wife remarried, and he became Chava, a Hebrew name that translates to “Eve” in English. In 2015 she came out as transgender and received her new name at Romemu, a Jewish Renewal, egalitarian synagogue on the Upper Westside of New York.
The play is set in a make-shift synagogue. Chava (Tommy Dorfman) has shoulder length hair and wears a short, floral dress. Jonah, the young, bearded rabbi (Brandon Uranowitz, Leopoldstadt, Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards) wears tzitzit (a religious undergarment with hanging prayer tassels) beneath his shirt, signaling his observant Jewish roots. But he, too, like Chava, has been cast out by his father, whose Orthodoxy will permit no permissive interpretations of Judaism. Jonah is Chava’s rabbi and friend, and on this day Chava, who changed into gender-neutral clothing, her hair up, is meeting her father, trying to find a way back to his love and the family.
These are appealing, interesting characters, but the play sparks when Tati (Richard Schiff, Emmy for The West Wing, seven seasons as Dr. Glassman in The Good Doctor) arrives – from another world. His community speaks Yiddish, there is no television or social media, his wife had agonized over what colour tights to wear because Tati’s family and hers wore different colors and each has standing in the community. In Tati’s world, not following tradition is not an option.
Chava tries to explain herself to him using Biblical analogies so that her father will listen. She reminds him that the Baal Shem Tov was considered crazy when he proclaimed that the love of God is manifest by joy and dancing. And she talks about the Zohar, mystical Jewish writings, which examines what it means when a soul migrates to the wrong body. She talks about Isaac, who was ordered to be sacrificed by Abraham.
She has built a bridge for her father, but he can’t cross over. He insists on reading the Hebrew. He thinks there is a mistranslation. His longing for Chava to become Yisroel again is palpable. The meeting is painful. But none of the characters can bend without betraying themselves.
The interspersed flashbacks to Chava’s youth introduce us to the women: Mami (Judy Kuhn, Fun Home) and Fraidy (Tedra Millan, The Wolves, Drama Desk and Obie awards), Chava’s wife. They are gentle and loving, content in their lives. Fraidy tells Chava that she accepts her difference but only if she stays in the community. Chava, from childhood to youth, is played by beautifully constructed puppets (Amanda Villalobos, designer; Emma Wiseman and Justin Otaki Perkins, puppeteers).
Direction by Tyne Rafaeli, lighting by Ben Stanton, set by Arnulfo Maldonado, and costumes by Enver Chakartash carry us deeper, emotionally, into the worlds of the play. At the end, Chava’s dress and hairdo offer a sad kind of closure. After her father leaves, she changes back into feminine clothing, walks toward the hall, hesitates at the doorway, and dances.
