Photography by Maria Baranova

Photography by Bill Uhrich MediaNews Group via Getty Images

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REVIEWS:

NO GOOD THINGS DWELL IN THE FLESH

Inside an unassuming storefront somewhere in Queens is a woman you wouldn’t notice if you saw her on the street. The drape, fit and feel of clothes are her passion and her living, but her own outfit is pallid, frumpy — a kind of camouflage.

 “This is Agata, who at 64 is a self-taught tailor with the skill of an artist and an unforgiving eye. When her apprentice, Janice, shows off a photo of her new fiancé, the unevenness of his pant legs is a flagrant red flag.

“If you’re ignorant on pants, you’ll be ignorant on wife,” says Agata, a brusque Russian immigrant who married the same man twice by the time she hit 30, divorced him for good, then built an independent life. “Why you wanna take care of this loser?”

In Christina Masciotti’s keen and unflashy new play, “No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh,” Kellie Overbey gives a beautifully supple, subtle performance as Agata — a survivor whose wariness of men and their havoc is a defining stance, like her willingness to reject customers if she disagrees with their requests… Masciotti.. is also characteristically drawn here to the richness of language, Agata’s in particular. As when she tells Janice, ‘The heart shape is kind of my enemy shape.’..That’s another thing this play is about…: the siren song of men and coupledom. Agata has spent her whole adult life trying not to get shipwrecked on those rocks.” - Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times (Critic’s Pick, September 2023)

A playwright’s dream! And Masciotti has the ear for it. As a woman with piles of hard-earned experience, and as an immigrant and a service worker who has frequently been looked right through, Agata has plenty to say, and Masciotti skillfully renders her distinctive way of saying it. I sometimes found myself thinking of Alex, the criminally charming translator who narrates Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated. The novel’s vitality comes from Alex’s voice, with its buoyancy and confidence, its slightly jangly English and wonky figures of speech. Agata would no doubt class Alex as she does “taller men”—“more stupid. Certain amount proud of themself. For nothing.”—but her own particular idiom is likewise the bedrock and the delight of her author’s story.. If a play is for the most part powered by a single and singular voice, then it needs an actor who can provide that engine — and Overbey can. She flows through Agata’s outpourings of opinion and pronouncement at speed (which is necessary to give them their bite and their humor), and she furrows her brow and hunches her shoulders just the right amount for a woman who’s usually bent over a sewing machine… No Good Things catches Agata at a contemplative moment. She senses the end of her career looming, and she’d like to pass on her shop to Janice, in whom she sees talent and potential. But poor Janice isn’t just talented — she’s also 30 and single, nervous about those things, and dangerously desperate for affection…The sad incompatibility of Agata’s and Janice’s individual yearnings is the real substance of No Good Things. …It brings Masciotti back to her happy place—the detailed observation of character...” - New York Magazine, Vulture (September 2023)

Masciotti places a captivating character… center stage… Agata, the heroine, is… a woman of decision, surprised by nothing life throws at her, and ready to roll up her sleeves to deal with any eventuality …she’s fascinating…Agata is a steady source of crisp, acidic amusement. A Russian tailor operating out of a shop in Queens, she is both a wizard and a kind of Slavic Ann Landers, handing out bitter life lessons culled from her own dark history.. she makes mincemeat of anything that carries a whiff of nonsense; her accent thick as borscht yet thoroughly intelligible, carries its own whiff of doom. To a young associate mooning over Hugh Grant, she snaps, “That guy? He’s British asshole like Winston Churchill…Dispensing altogether with the idea of romance, she pronounces, “Instead men, I prefer spend time with my cat. Very independent, too. Don’t want to be held too much. I respect that.” - Lighting and Sound America (September 2023)

Photography by Maria Baranova

The excellent No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh easily holds its own against – and bests – many Off-Broadway productions… the story of 64-year-old Agata (Kellie Overbey), a master tailor from Latvia and former citizen of the Soviet Union, who came to the States when the USSR collapsed. We see the struggles she’s endured being an immigrant starting a tailor shop in Queens, and are awed by the expert craftsperson/artist she has become. “No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh” is thought-provoking, tender, economical, at times funny, sometimes sad, poignant, and always accessible and engaging. Based on a woman Masciotti knew in life, every word from Agata rings true… I hope this show lives beyond its initial run, it deserves to be seen by a wider audience.” - Cameron Hughes, The Front Row Center (September 2023)

“…Intriguing…Masciotti is…clearly a talented writer with a long career ahead of her.” - Theaterscene.net (September 2023)

RAW BACON FROM POLAND

“Masciotti’s vital… Raw Bacon From PolandWith great empathy and precision… shows just how limited life’s options can quickly become for returning veterans… a compelling and richly detailed portrait of an antihero emblematic of his country, at once ferocious and fragile… Masciotti is fond of letting the seams of language show. She writes dialogue that is heavily salted with unexpectedly evocative malapropisms and other linguistic slippages that remind us of what an intensely personal, malleable, and imprecise tool language is for positioning ourselves in relationship to others, for making ourselves known and understood.” - Jessica Rizzo, Project MUSE Theatre Journal, Johns Hopkins University Press (Volume 70, September 2018)

"Ms. Masciotti’s distinctively awkward dialogue has never sounded more organic, or more revelatory of character. [She] has an ear for the quirks and imperfections of everyday speech...There’s an urgency, as well as a spontaneity... that suggests someone struggling to pull confidence out of chaos.... it is the language... that truly lights up the ashen world in which the play is set... priceless." - Ben Brantley, The New York Times (Critic's Pick, September 2017)  

"Christina Masciotti’s best tool is her ear. She hears the twists and malapropisms that give language its occasional wrong-foot poetry, and her work (such as the extraordinary Social Security) always features linguistic filigree. It’s there again in Raw Bacon From Poland." - Time Out New York (September 2017)

Masciotti has… an unerring gift for speech… The final beat is gutting.” - The Village Voice (September 2017)

"Already angry, violent, macho, and proud, Dennis’s many issues – from divorce and custody battles to drug addiction and poverty – are compounded by PTSD, and the details of his problematic life trickle out beautifully with humor and explosiveness by actor Joel Perez in the lead." - Plays to See (5 out of 5 stars, September 2017)

"A bold, emotionally explosive... searing new play Raw Bacon From Poland... is… intense, fast-moving... calibrated for maximum impact." - Theatre is Easy (A Best Bet Pick, June 2017)

“We all know, intellectually, that the returning veterans from America’s wars in the Middle East are suffering greatly: PTSD, drug addictions, high suicide rates, mental and physical disabilities, difficulty holding down jobs and reintegrating into civilian society. But specific stories always pack a stronger emotional punch than sweeping statistics, and Christina Masciotti’s Raw Bacon from Poland really digs into the details… Masciotti is thorough, unsparing, and precise about the specifics of Dennis’s existence and the one-step-forward-two-steps-back progress he makes… the genuine good intentions buried beneath all the chaos and all the mistakes that make up Dennis’s life… Masciotti also gives Dennis compellingly manic speech patterns, which are rich with slight malapropisms that are like signposts to the inner workings of his mind. (Perez is wonderful in the role, showing the potential in Dennis for both his own salvation and his own destruction at every turn; he’s sincere and earnest but also unpredictable, lacking in self-awareness, and inclined to shirk responsibility for his worst mistakes.)… Masciotti makes it impossible not to feel Dennis’s pain, and to understand the structural and personal obstacles facing him.” - Loren Noveck, Exeunt (June 2017)

SOCIAL SECURITY

"Christina Masciotti's wormwood-bitter comedy about a crotchety old lady falling prey to her landlord needed precise execution, which it got from director Paul Lazar and crackerjack cast Cynthia Hopkins, T. Ryder Smith, and the astonishing Elizabeth Dement. Truthful about how money and society work and funny as fuck, Masciotti is major - she is our heir to Moliere." - Helen Shaw's Best Shows of 2015, Divers Alarums

"Christina Masciotti finds the magic and weirdness among ordinary folk." - Time Out New York (1 of 5 Critics' picks; March 2015)

"This dramatist's implicit thesis is that, if you listen closely enough, there's significant artistry in insignificant talk...Ms. Masciotti mines the banality of everyday chatter for heroic poetry." - Ben Brantley, The New York Times (February 2015)

"Masciotti's writing is superb." - Helen Shaw, Time Out New York (5 out of 5 stars; February 2015)

Photo by Maria Baranova

Photography by Maria Baranova

"Ms. Masciotti's recent plays.... were noted for their poetic command of language and uncommon kindness towards troubled characters." - Wall Street Journal (February 2015)

"Social Security shares character information with subtlety." - The Village Voice (February 2015)

"Among the great many female characters in modern drama... Complex, funny, and heartbreakingly frustrating." - New York Theatre Review (February 2015)

 

ADULT

“The characters’ word misuse is great…Through Masciotti’s insightful writing… seemingly dunderhead word choices oddly make senseMasciotti has an uncanny way of using even the most awkward language to illustrate… messy yet real love.” - Akron Beacon Journal (August 2022)

"Her character work can't be surpassed." - Helen Shaw, Time Out New York (4 out of 5 stars; February 2014)

"Remarkable...ADULT acquires a kind of quiet force." -  Alexis Soloski, The Village Voice (February 2014)

"This playwright has a distinctive gift for finding an original poetry in everyday speech." - Ben Brantley, The New York Times (February 2014)

"Masciotti keeps a deft grip on specificity, resisting the easy out of broad, generational gaps... the playwright's masterstrokes are in fine tip... Everything come[s] from a place of character and world building." - nytheatre now (February 2014)

"Incisively written...a verbal tennis match..fascinating." - Theater Pizazz (February 2014)

 

VISION DISTURBANCE

Imaginative… humorous text that ends with a poetic hope and the different gaze of a woman called Mondo… Award-winning playwright Christina Masciotti based the character - an uprooted person cut off from everything she knows - on her mother who emigrated from Greece.” - Corriere Della Sera Milano (October 2017)

"Christina has a gift for reproducing...language with its 'slips in speech' and fractured idioms... nouns become verbs... images are compressed... Christina celebrates these quirks of misspeaking... She has carved out a space in today's experimental theatre with her real stories about real people." - Theatre Forum (Feb 2015)

"Beautiful characters... sublime." - Le Clou da lans Planche (March 2014)

"Offbeat, probing…Deceptively disarming... absorbing and exquisitely expressive… There's nothing orthodox about these characters.... Masciotti is a writer of promise, not least because she understands there is no single way of seeing." - The Boston Globe (Feb 2013)

Top 10 of 2010 - Helen Shaw, Time Out New York (December 2010)

"Powerful little gem... severely lovely." - David Cote, Time Out New York (November 2010)

"A showcase for Ms. Masciotti's gift for writing monologues for hapless people who achieve eloquence, not despite, but because of their awkwardness." - Ben Brantley, The New York Times (September 2010)

"(4 out of 5 stars) Masciotti's language is beautifully wrought, a keen interplay of the boring and the weirdly poetic." - David Cote, Time Out New York (September 2010)

"Brilliant...and unforgettable." - The New Yorker (September 2010)

"Masciotti has a gift for finding small moments and mining them for meaning." - Culturebot (September 2010)

"Truly a sight for sore eyes." The Village Voice (September 2010)

Photography by Maria Baranova

Check out the show pages for more info and archival production photos!