But Aren't We All Monsters?

by Erin Proctor

a loose deconstruction of the Golem of Prague and Pygmalion and Galatea, 'But Aren't We All Monsters' follows Mazel Vayseblum, a young Jewish woman from a shtetl in the Pale. Mazel is a gifted artist and a bit of a self-taught mystic trying to get out of an arranged marriage, so she steals her father’s rabbinical texts and creates the perfect woman: a Golem named Shayna, to be her lover and protector. We follow...

a loose deconstruction of the Golem of Prague and Pygmalion and Galatea, 'But Aren't We All Monsters' follows Mazel Vayseblum, a young Jewish woman from a shtetl in the Pale. Mazel is a gifted artist and a bit of a self-taught mystic trying to get out of an arranged marriage, so she steals her father’s rabbinical texts and creates the perfect woman: a Golem named Shayna, to be her lover and protector. We follow Shayna from the year 1880 until the end of human life itself; as the Golem herself examines her existence between four generations of a Jewish family.

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But Aren't We All Monsters?

Recommended by

  • Ky Weeks: But Aren't We All Monsters? by Erin Proctor
    “

    So listen. This play is about a six-foot tall woman who can snap people like twigs with her bare hands. If you have not already stopped reading this recommendation and started reading the play, I do not think I know how to communicate with you.
    But if I may try anyway? Proctor writes with notable sensitivity here, using a compelling central character to ponder love, agency, time, labor, family, and so much more. This is a story with a huge scope and a lively pace, yet is always familiar and intimate.

    So listen. This play is about a six-foot tall woman who can snap people like twigs with her bare hands. If you have not already stopped reading this recommendation and started reading the play, I do not think I know how to communicate with you.
    But if I may try anyway? Proctor writes with notable sensitivity here, using a compelling central character to ponder love, agency, time, labor, family, and so much more. This is a story with a huge scope and a lively pace, yet is always familiar and intimate.

    ”
  • E.M. Lark: But Aren't We All Monsters? by Erin Proctor
    “

    I couldn't recommend this piece enough. Shayna as the timeless focus through a world that never stops changing allows us to pay attention to the minutia of each rise and descent. Proctor has wrought a creation-turned-creator story that envelops the senses with sharp dialogue, humor to breathe in between the ache, and a bleeding heart of a family forever divided over their own rights and wrongs.

    (Also the entire second half had me holding back tears. It's cool, we're cool.)

    I couldn't recommend this piece enough. Shayna as the timeless focus through a world that never stops changing allows us to pay attention to the minutia of each rise and descent. Proctor has wrought a creation-turned-creator story that envelops the senses with sharp dialogue, humor to breathe in between the ache, and a bleeding heart of a family forever divided over their own rights and wrongs.

    (Also the entire second half had me holding back tears. It's cool, we're cool.)

    ”
  • Mackenzie Raine Kirkman: But Aren't We All Monsters? by Erin Proctor
    “

    This piece is genuinely so beautiful; the way time moves, the scenes that are all exactly as long as they need to be, the openness for the artistry of the producing company, and the honest complexity of history and the humans that make it. Definitely immediately slid on my favorites list and I'm sure I'll be thinking of it for a long time, waiting to visit Shayna and her world once more with fresh eyes to find what else Proctor so cleverly hid for us there.

    This piece is genuinely so beautiful; the way time moves, the scenes that are all exactly as long as they need to be, the openness for the artistry of the producing company, and the honest complexity of history and the humans that make it. Definitely immediately slid on my favorites list and I'm sure I'll be thinking of it for a long time, waiting to visit Shayna and her world once more with fresh eyes to find what else Proctor so cleverly hid for us there.

    ”
View all 4 recommendations

Character Information

All characters can be doubled except for SHAYNA.

The characters of SHAYNA and YOSSELE can be puppets or actors or both. They are not human.
  • Shayna Vayseblum
    A Golem. She is six feet tall.
    she looks 25 but is immortal
    Female
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      20s,
      30s
  • Mazel Vayseblum Lefkovitz
    A girl from the Shtetl.
    25-28
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Female
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      20s,
      30s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Woman,
      Non-binary
  • Chaim Lefkovitz
    Mazel’s husband. A scholar from Kyiv.
    32-80
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Male
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      30s,
      40s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Man,
      Non-binary
  • Rabbi Meyer Vayseblum
    Mazel's father.
    50s
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Male
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      20s,
      30s,
      40s,
      50s,
      60s,
      70s+
  • Kostyantyn Malinosvkyi
    A gentile colleague of Chaim’s.
    30s
    Male
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      30s,
      40s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Man,
      Non-binary
  • Lyubochka Malinovskyi
    Kostyantyn’s wife.
    30s
    Female
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      30s,
      40s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Woman,
      Non-binary
  • Vladislav
    Servant to the Malinovskyis
    Any age
    Any
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      20s,
      30s,
      40s,
      50s,
      60s,
      70s+
  • Max Lefkovitz
    Chaim’s cousin in New York. An actor, director, and eventually producer in the New York Yiddish Theatre scene.
    30s-50s
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Male
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      30s,
      40s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Man,
      Non-binary
  • Keni Liptzin
    a Yiddish Theatre actress, director, and producer.
    Any age
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Female
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      20s,
      30s,
      40s,
      50s,
      60s,
      70s+
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Woman,
      Non-binary
  • Miriam Lefkovitz
    Mazel and Chaim’s daughter. An actress.
    Infant-70s
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Female
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      20s,
      30s,
      40s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Woman,
      Non-binary
  • Yankel
    An actor playing “Demetrius” in Max’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
    30s
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Male
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      30s,
      40s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Man,
      Non-binary
  • Chanah Lefkovitz Weissmann
    Miriam’s daughter. A professor at Hunter College.
    Child-50s
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Female
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      20s,
      30s,
      40s,
      50s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Woman,
      Non-binary
  • Josef Weissmann
    A German Jew. Chanah’s husband. A professor at Columbia University.
    40s-50s
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Male
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      40s,
      50s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Man,
      Non-binary
  • Jonah Seigel
    Chanah and Josef’s nephew. A Survivor. Has a crush on Shayna.
    16-20s
    Jewish -- Ashkenazi
    Male
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      Teens,
      20s,
      30s
    • Actor Gender Identity
      Man,
      Non-binary
  • Yossele
    The Golem of Prague.
    Immortal
    Any
    Can be played by:
    • Actor Age
      20s,
      30s,
      40s,
      50s,
      60s,
      70s+

Awards

  • Catskill Creative Residency
    Arts & Ecology Incorporated
    Finalist
    2023