A new off-Broadway play explores the life of a trans rabbi

Rabbi Abby Chava Stein comes from a prominent Hasidic family in Williamsburg and was trained from a young age to be a rabbi. She also knew that she was a girl years before she learned what it meant to be a trans woman.

A new play, “Becoming Eve,” is on now at Abrons Arts Center, based on Stein’s memoir, “Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman.”

Written by Emil Weinstein, "Becoming Eve" was nominated for three Drama League awards, including Outstanding Production of a Play and a Distinguished Performance nod for actor Tommy Dorfman, who plays Stein, known as Chava in the play.

Stein and actor Dorfman joined Alison Stewart on a recent episode of “All of It.” An abridged version of their conversation is below.

Alison Stewart: How did the idea to turn your story into a play come about, Abby? I was going to call you Abby because Rabbi ...

Stein: No, Abby is perfect. I chose that name 10 years ago. I wasn't planning to ever work as a rabbi again, which I am doing right now.

I'm going to be fully honest, the idea came from the commercial producers, who are Brian and Dayna Lee, this amazing Jewish couple from Toronto who I got to work with for the past five years.

They reached out to me and to my literary agent at the beginning of COVID. Our first meeting was on Zoom, when most of us barely knew what Zoom was. They were like, "We think this is a great story."

I knew very little about the theater industry. I trust my agent a lot. I'm like, "Let's talk about it. Let's see what we have to say." One of the things that I told them is that this book and my story are not about “Hasidic people bad.” This is not the story.

Obviously, I have a lot of fundamental disagreements with that community. I left for many reasons, but I really wanted to come across as like, "Yes, there's a lot of struggles. There's a lot of transphobia, there's homophobia, there's a lot we need to work on, but there's also beauty. There's also a lot of intense conversations to have. There's a lot of depth in the Jewish texts around gender and sexuality." I was like, "If we can make this happen, we'll do it."

You wanted nuance?

Stein: Yes. They were like, "This is what we want." I think five years later, Tommy's doing a great job making that happen.

Tommy, why did you want to be involved in this production?

Tommy Dorfman: I was doing "Romeo + Juliet" on Broadway, and was not thinking I would go right into another play after a 20-week run. I read the script, and I fell in love with Emil's writing and poetry. I devoured Abby's book. I thought, "If I had an opportunity to do this, I would do whatever it takes to get that job, and give it my best shot."

I just fell in love with the love in the story and maintaining that love. Even in conflict, there is still a desire to find balance in some way. It felt like a really unique opportunity.

Abby, you come from a prominent family within the Hasidic community.

Stein: For those who can't see me, obviously, I'm breathing a bit intensely. One of the people mentioned in the play that Tommy, as Chava, mentions, is Zaidy, who is my grandfather, who actually passed away three days ago.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Stein: There's been a lot of feelings and emotions. He played a huge impact on me from the day I was born till three days ago, till today, which is why I had this very intense breath when you mentioned that.

We can move on.

Stein: No, no, we can talk about it. We can 100% talk about it. I'm just explaining why — It's not bad. No, actually, it helps to talk about it. It's just like, I'm explaining why I had this intense reaction.

What kind of expectations were placed on you as a young person?

Stein: The better question would maybe be what kind of expectations were not placed? What I mean by that is that everything was written out. I like to joke with people that you were born, you eat and you breathe, and then when you're 3 years old, you have an upsherin, your first haircut. When you're 13, you have a bar mitzvah, another scene that is mentioned in the play as well. When you're 17 and 18, you get engaged and married. It is kind of like what you do.

What I mean everything is prescribed — I mean everything. I know Tommy also knows that from the costumes and from other things, nothing is left up to chance. From the kind of shoes that you wear to the underwear, to the blessings that you make before and after going to the bathroom, how you dress, the kind of food that you eat, literally everything. I think in my family – specifically because of the rabbinical dynasty – that they take it so serious.

Feedback I’ve heard about the play is that, "Oh, there seems to be such a strong focus on the lineage."

I had to tell this person who made this comment that this is still not as intense as I grew up with. There's this intense expectation that you're going to follow a very, very specific path. Even within the community, there were some things that other Hasidic people could do that we couldn't. Even jobs, like most Hasidic people can work in almost any field that they are good at.

I was expected to do something, let's call it Judaica, whether teach or be a rabbi, or be a teacher at a school ... but there is a relatively limited amount of things that you can do from the minute you were born till after your funeral.

Wow. Tell me. You are on stage, as you said, almost the whole entire play. It's very interesting because Chava is portrayed by puppetry. It's really beautiful.

Dorfman: Sure. I think the physical expression of Chava is puppetry.

It really is. It is. You do the voice ...

Dorfman: In the past.

Alison Stewart: Which is ...

Dorfman: Yes, which I think is also performance.

Well, tell me a little bit about learning to do that kind of performance.

Dorfman: It's the closest experience I've had to being a voiceover actor, in a sense, except I am lit on stage and very present. I think the great liberation of it is that I don't have to necessarily detransition to tell Chava's story in this format. To play a character from ages 3 to 25 is one of the big reasons I wanted to do this play. It felt like a challenge that I had never been presented with in my artistry before. It's just really exciting to think about where in the body certain ages live.

Tell me more about that.

Dorfman: I work with Julia Crockett, who works with Sarah Paulson and Rachel McAdams, a bunch of different amazing actors. Julia is this incredible movement acting coach. We just spent a couple hours together playing with each age because I didn't have a lot of time. When you're younger, you talk from a higher space. It's not just in your register. It's an energetic space, like your crown Chakra. There's excitement.

Actually, the same thing happens when you get older again. Your crown chakra sort of opens up, and then your teenage years, you start to get your voice, you start to get some autonomy of thinking, maybe not in the environment you live in, which is an issue that Chava's obviously presented with, but that did not stop her from being a very outspoken teenager and young adult and adolescent and adult.

Stein: I think it exists. It exists even in that community on a different level, but it definitely exists.

Dorfman: For me, I knew transitioning into teenage voice, it was going to come from here. Then when you go into marriage and adulthood, you have a sexual awakening. Stuff starts to come from your root chakra.

I want to get to this before we run out of time, but Tommy, I want to know how it feels to perform in a play like this at this particular moment that we're in right now with trans folks.

Dorfman: It's been an incredibly vulnerable year of being an actor on a stage, in sharing physical space with hundreds and hundreds of people in a political climate that is actively threatening trans people's safety, serenity, peace. But I also think there's been violence perpetrated towards trans people since the beginning of time. Maybe not since the beginning of time, but in my contemporary life and in this nation. It's just being publicized, it's being platformed differently, it's being weaponized differently.

Obviously, that is a really complicated space to try and do anything in. It can be a hard space to wake up in, let alone go on stage and share such a specific story about a trans experience with an audience.

I think I remember feeling this really distinct shift in January, February — we all know why — when I was doing "Romeo + Juliet," because I was the only trans person in that cast. There was a non-binary actor who was my understudy, but at least, company on stage, eight shows a week. Most of the time, I was also very scantily dressed.

It invites a certain type of investigation of body. I don't like inviting that type of investigation of body, but that's also part of the human experience, any actor's experience. It's not specific to being trans. It's just that there's another layer to that, especially when the country's talking so much about us in this negative, deeply violent, violating way. It can be really complicated to somehow move through that, feel safe enough to do my work, which requires me to feel completely unburdened, and so I can be as present as possible, and I'm not worried about the violence that people are wanting to engage with, with me on stage.

I feel great because I had this experience with "Romeo + Juliet" where I kind of had to realize my body was protest in this moment, and then "Becoming Eve" is just like a continuation of my body as protest in this moment. Really, offering that to the people who get to show up and see it.