"…New York. Pizza, skyscrapers, yellow cabs, Broadway. Yankees, Wall Street, the Metropolitan Opera, Broadway! Queens, queers, pigeons, crime, corruption, the Empire State Building, stand for the pregnant woman on the subway, jump the turnstile on the subway, ah fuck are we going express? The rats, bodega cats, the billionaires, the Democratic Socialists of America, Ocean Avenue, Coney Island, Tompkins Square Park, Hell’s Kitchen, Little Italy, Soho, Noho, Nolita. Hey where did you get your matcha? I got mine at Cha Cha Matcha. The Staten Island ferry, The Apollo, an empanada, Charles Mingus, Latin Jazz, falafel, tourists, dog shit, is this your dog? Tap dance, Times Square, dreams, broken dreams, hell, heaven. New York!…"
In lesser hands this might still be an intriguing Ferlinghetti-style poem or libretto for the ultimate New York, New York tone poem. Protean actor Elan Zafir, however, makes it much more. In his hands this monologue seems to sing from the rafters. It is one of the many script gems brought to us in Seagull: True Story created by Moscow transplant Alexander Molochnikov in his semi-autobiographical work, penned by writer Eli Rarey.
Molochnikov’s avatar of sorts, Kon (played by Eric Tabach) arrives in the New York of this monologue after a quick escape from Moscow where he has been directing Chekhov’s The Seagull. It was falling afoul of the censorship occasioned by the Ukraine War— er, Special Military Operation—-that led Molochnikov’s Kon to flee Russia, leaving behind his famed actress mother, Olga (Zuzanna Szadkowsi) and closest friend Anton (Elan Zafir), who ends up in the updated gulag of Putin’s time.
As the saying goes— you can take the boy out of Moscow but you can’t take Moscow out of the boy. Hence, Kon is driven to bring to life his stamp on Chekhov’s The Seagull in the foreign terrain of the New York theater world— where everyone is an actor and everyone is unemployed. His fellow theater-makers in the abandoned warehouse ever-workshop stage production of The Seagull give Kon a short course on USA circa now political correctness. As he lies next to his happy slut actress girlfriend (Gus Birney), Kon still dreams of Russia. In fact, he dreams of bare-chested Putin (one of many characters played by Andrey Burkovskiy) on horseback (the horse, played by the remaining ensemble).
The Putin dream is one of many laugh out loud moments in this play, which we have already been trained to expect every time actor Andrey Burkovskiy opens up his mouth. In this reviewer’s opinion, Burkovskiy’s performance alone is well worth the proverbial price of admission and our time. (Oh my, it’s tempting to try to find time to see it again!) Reminding of a blond Alan Alda— ever gesturing to us with his large hands working like a comic’s wink, and even at one point giving us a Trump imitation worthy of an impersonators’ Oscar—Burkovskiy is charisma-with-comic-chops-on-steroids. How amazing to later read online of Burkovskiy’s Siberian roots and to think back of how his accent-less voice would fool even the likes of Henry Higgins! You too will likely make a strong mental note to RUN to see anything Burkovskiy lends his talent to.
With so much talent pouring from the stage— from Burkovskiy and the entire cast— the script’s descent into lag after lag, and then into puddle— disappoints. That said, Seagull: True Story will entertain you and then some.
RECOMMENDED
CAST:
Nico: Gus Birney
MC: Andrey Burkovskiy
Kon: Eric Tabach
Olga: Zuzanna Szadkowski
Anton: Elan Zafir
Gorgeous: Ohad Mazor
Cosmo: Myles J. McCabe
Ivan: Quentin Lee Moore
Pickle: Keshet Pratt
CREATIVE TEAM:
Creator and Director: Alexander Molochnikov
Playwright: Eli Rarey
Lyricist: Noize MC (Russian anti-war artist)
Set Designer: Alexander Shishkin-Hokusai
Costume Designer: Kristina K (Project Runway Season 19 runner-up)
Lighting Designer: Brian H. Scott
WHEN:
Thru May 3, 2026
WHERE:
LuEsther Hall at The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street
New York, NY 10003
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About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
