Zuzanna Szadkowski

Seagull: True Story

May 24, 2025

Now premiering at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre in a co-production with the MART Foundation and En Garde Arts, "Seagull: True Story" is a barbed, meta-theatrical cri de coeur from creator-director Alexander Molochnikov, with a script by Eli Rarey. Drawing heavily on Molochnikov’s own experiences, the piece is not a retelling of Chekhov but a searing dispatch from the frontlines of artistic exile. It charts not only the cultural deep freeze imposed by Putin’s regime but also turns its gaze, with mordant wit, on the subtler constraints of the American arts ecosystem. The production skewers both overt authoritarianism and the velvet-gloved mechanisms of Western cultural gatekeeping with equal parts satire and sorrow. Bitterly funny and disarmingly candid, the play asks whether escape from tyranny guarantees liberation—or whether a different kind of captivity awaits on this side of the ocean. [more]

Arcadia

November 17, 2023

This being Bedlam famous for its experimental revivals, the second act is handled differently. The audience is asked to leave their seats in the amphitheater and when they return are given other seats now arranged on what had been the stage of the theater before. The second act then takes place mostly in the seats that were just vacated. Unfortunately, as both acts are supposed to take place in the same setting this is rather distracting. The opening of the second act is a speech given by Bernard which makes perfect sense in what now looks like a college lecture hall or an amphitheater but the rest of that act makes little sense in such a setting. In each act, a character enters and is made to walk through one of the rows of the audience, not only breaking the fourth wall of the theater so to speak but also inconveniencing everyone seated in that row. [more]

The Crucible (Bedlam)

November 25, 2019

As produced by Bedlam in association with The Nora, Arthur Miller’s 1953 tragedy, "The Crucible," based on the Salem Witch Trials proves to be both riveting and relevant all over again. In the past, the play was seen as a cautionary tale about the McCarthy Era witch hunt that destroyed so many lives. Now in 2019 it becomes a story of truth and lies, fiction and fact. One of the judges refers to the situation in Salem as “this swamp.” In the age of Trump, Miller’s play has new meaning for our time. You could hear a pin drop during Eric Tucker’s unfussy production which becomes more and more scary as the Salem witch trials progress and the townspeople become entirely carried away by the hysteria. [more]

Peter Pan (Bedlam)

November 25, 2017

Such changes as Captain Hook being a woman or Tinker Bell speaking French are neither explained nor meaningful, while some of the doubling simply makes the play hard to follow as the characters are not listed in the programs which are given out after the performance. A voice-over which appears to read stage directions from the original is both intrusive and inconsistent: why some characters but not others? There is a dark psychological story hidden in Barrie’s tale of a boy who refuses to grow up but this isn’t it. Whereas the original play is joyful, Bedlam’s Peter Pan is a glum affair in which no one seems to be having a very good time. Where is the Bedlam which brought such purposeful insight and visual dazzle to its previous work? The actors, mostly playing children, try hard but fail to bring the work to life. [more]

Summer Shorts – Festival of New American Short Plays 2015 – Series A

August 1, 2015

Summer Shorts – Festival of New American Short Plays has returned to 59E59 Theaters for its 9th annual outing offering six world premieres by famous playwrights, as well as some who ought to be more well-known, along with different casts and directors for each. The three plays in Series A are a fascinating grouping of new one acts in which women attempt to manipulate their companions for various ends. Neil LaBute, Vickie Ramirez and Matthew Lopez take very different stories and handle them in distinctive ways. All of these new plays can use a bit of pruning, but they are all works that will get under your skin and stay with you. [more]