Doctorow’s & Tolstaya’s Russian Love Stories Hit Comedy Gold

by Mary Lou Herlihy

“Assimilation,” two short stories about outsiders buying into the American Dream, leaves us wanting more. 

In E.L. Doctorow’s “Assimilation,” menacing Russian mobsters in Brooklyn mark the wrong man for a green-card marriage scam.

In Tatyana Tolstaya’s “Smoke and Shadows,” a mysterious Russian professor visiting an American college barely endures tedious Americans by using her imagination and magic.

Director Rotimi Agbabiaka delivers dramatic delights with these two short stories. Word for Word takes Doctorow’s and Tolstaya’s stories, giving them a fresh theatrical form. Six seasoned actors masterfully employ their craft, using words from books instead of lines from scripts. 

The Visiting Professor in “Smoke and Shadows,” played with comedic aplomb by Stacy Ross, possesses a rich Russian accent and mysterious manners. In heavy dark clothing, she smokes cigarettes and ridicules her hosts. Her nerdy American crush, Eric the anthropologist, bores her to tears. To great chuckles, she claims, “His main virtues being his teeth and his height.”

As Eric, droll Brady Morales-Woolery makes oblivious self-absorption hysterically believable. He mansplains about esoteric Vietnamese languages and their word for buckwheat, while The Visiting Professor fights her uncontrollable feelings of love.

The Russian professor imagines that Eric’s wife, Emma (enchanting Kayla McConnell), may be a witch. The more she imagines, the more gloriously witchy Emma becomes, eventually growing a wildly funny third eye. Reality softens its grip.

A magical twist allows the Russian and Eric to communicate telepathically. “Sending your thoughts by ESP is a wonderful and truly convenient method of communication,” says the prof. She longs to transcend American banality. 

Bored, she yearns for something material and beautiful. The professor is tempted by a sparkling gold bracelet, riotously played by a lustful actor (hilarious William Rogue), who clutches her in arm-length golden gloves—Word for Word at its wackiest best.

Designer Mikiko Uesugi’s austere set makes brilliant use of red curtains, cafe furniture, and a single window where teachers gather to blow smoke. Cool blue lighting suggests cold weather and chilly relationships. 

In E.L. Doctorow’s “Assimilation,” Morales-Woolery plays a pitch perfect Ramon–an unassuming wannabe filmmaker stuck bussing tables for Russian mobsters in Brooklyn. As he walks home from work, looking out to the ocean, he takes in its beauty. Ramon sees sacred signs where his Russian boss sees dollar signs.

Ramon’s brutish boss Borislav (dynamic, versatile Soren Oliver) runs a restaurant for people like himself: “big people with loud voices and bad manners.” Borislav concocts a green card scheme, designed to marry his Russian niece to naïve busboy Ramon. In stark contrast to his boss and Ramon’s jail-bird brother Leon (brilliant Rudy Guerrero), who think only of themselves, Ramon looks like a patsy.

Borislav’s sexy blonde niece Jelena (bewitching Kayla McConnell) strikes shifting poses to seduce Ramon into a fake marriage. Now working together at the restaurant, the green-card couple wear wonderfully repulsive red and black waiter uniforms. After work, at the beach with his “wife,” Roman still dares to dream. 

Doctorow’s and Tolstoya’s stories feature Russians and Americans defining their own version of the American dream. Laughs come fast and easy as these unlikely pairings kick the ASS out of assimilation. Don’t miss “Assimilation”!

“Assimilation”—stories by E.L.Doctorow & Tatyana Tolstoya, directed by Rotimi Agbabiaka, scenic design by Mikiko Uesugi, sound by Cliff Caruthers, costumes by Alina Bokovikova, and lighting by Ray Oppenheimer, by Word for Word, at Z Space, San Francisco.

Info: zspace.org – to November 8 , 2026.

Cast: Rudy Guerrro, Kayla McConnell, Brady Morales-Woolery, Soren Oliver, William Rogue, and Stacy Ross.

Banner photo: William Rogue, Stacy Ross, Rudy Guerrero, & Soren Oliver in “Smoke and Shadows” by Tatyana Tolstaya. Photo by Rebecca Pierce