←Recommendations of THE DEFECTORS

A very uncomfortable play in all the best ways. This play is a LOT to navigate through and uses all sorts of creative forms to tell this story. I love that this play creates an everyday look to ED and the never ending journey of recovery on non typical bodies. Everyone is flawed and simply trying to do their best and that's what's so relatable yet heartbreaking.

Malakhow tackles (and succeeds!) in addressing a myriad of issues. Online forums are helpful but humans need contact. Humans need to look into each other face-to-face without a screen. And the road to recovery from addiction doesn’t have a clear ending. We meet these characters after they have “recovered” and Malakhow explores how rocky and tenuous the recovery road is. Theatrical, poignant, and nuanced, this play will keep you rooting for his characters long after the curtain comes down.

Deeply humane, creative, theatrical, with dialogue that leaps off the page. Malakhow's exploration of a timely and important topic - through the lens of online community - is both relevant and relatable. A fresh take on a topic that we don't talk about enough. Bravo.

There are so many things I love about this provocative piece of work from the way it reminds us to be careful of the words we throw away to the way it shows us that recovery isn't a switch to the way it starkly illustrates that for all we've become too attached to our digital worlds, there always comes a point where it's not enough. All that and an education about perfume, too! A really striking and well-crafted piece.

Malakhow's exploration of community, trauma, and eating disorders is wildly inventive and versatile. What begins as a peek into a niche online forum blooms into a full blown spectacle as threads leap off the screen and onto the stage. A fascinating analysis of the psychosocial effects of online camaraderie from the genuine to the performative and it's awkward transition into meatspace. The characters are carefully understated yet bold in their convictions and live deliciously contradictory internal lives. Watching them tumble through two parallel yet extraordinarily distinct journeys is a delight and a testament to the author's narrative prowess.

Okay. I am OBSESSED with the way this play handles “online” language versus “offline” and how each character aligns with Malakhow’s own mission to tell stories with specific identity in his characters. This twisting, turning, dark yet hopeful play captures raw honesty in its characters and is just a delightful read on page. I’d kill to see this on a stage. As a performer as well as writer, the characters are also so delectable I want to sink my teeth into this text and read it aloud myself.

The community of national & local readers for the 44th annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival enthusiastically recommends THE DEFECTORS as a Semi-Finalist this season at Playwrights Foundation out of 755 plays. We were deeply moved by the artistic merits & skill of the writing moving fluidly back and forth between the online world and IRL. We were compelled by this play's promise as it explores characters in the Beehive support group in an honest, vulnerable way, representing characters we don't often see on stage. We hope this play is widely read, finds dedicated collaborators, and moves swiftly towards production. #BAPF2021

This play was incredibly engaging and so creative in the way the story was told. I've not read another play that explored body image and eating disorders in such an honest and truthful way while also showing the characters as complex and not archetypes. It's also very rewarding to see queer characters as part of the narrative where sexuality isn't pathologized but instead an aspect of identity. There are so many great insights revealed through these characters about body dysmorphia, triggering and connection/misconnection that will stay with me long after the final page.

Not since Water By The Spoonful have I felt so engaged in a play that mixes the digital space and the real world. Malakhow does so beautifully. The emphasis on human connection is evident in all of Nick's work, but the concept of digital connection reads just as strong as the physical ones. His manipulation of form in The Beehive is stupendous. The struggle of recovery is handled with such tact, but the characters are still flawed and human. The message is clear, but not heavy-handed. Fantastic piece of writing.

This is a superb piece of theatre. Malakhow’s play is masterful and arresting, but most of all, it is deeply felt, illuminating the daily, seemingly innocent scenarios which cause anguish for those next to us without our realizing. Not only does the play do this with some of the most beautiful dialogue I have seen in a long time, but it proffers complex questions about suffering, addiction, and all of humanity’s preconceived notions about them. Tremendous job. And the Beehive is brilliant. In every way. I look forward to seeing this piece grow.