Talking with Angels: Budapest 1943
Adapted & Performed by Shelley Mitchell; Directed by Molly Shayna Cohen
TheaterLab | 357 West 36th Street, New York NY 10018
March 6th - 30th
Gitta Mallasz was born in 1907 in what is now Slovenia to Austro-Hungarian parents. She was a champion swimmer who supported herself as a graphic artist, until WWII changed her life and the lives of her friends forever. The story of Gitta Mallasz and her friends Lili Strausz, Hanna Dallos and her husband, Joseph Kreutzer and what happened to them in Hungary during the war would be riveting enough on its own. Fascinatingly, it’s a true story. More amazingly, the four were spoken to by angels.
For 17 months during the war, angels spoke through Hanna. The friends recorded the angels in journals which were hidden from the Nyilaskereszt, the Nazis and the Soviets until Mallasz made it to Paris in 1960. There, she began writing a book, Talking with Angels, about her experiences which was eventually published in 1976 in French. Since then, it has been published in 20 additional languages. In 2011, Gita Mallasz was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations for her work saving Jewish women and children during the war.
Shelly Mitchell has been performing this role since September 19, 2001. She floats lightly from an 84 year old Gitta speaking at a conference to 37 year old Gitta who convinces a Nazi SS Officer to help her save Jews to the heavenly hosts who speak through Hanna. Mitchell is a master of her craft. Going in blindly to this performance, I feared Mitchell was actually a doddering, old women, but really it was 84 year-old Gitta moving slowly, and then there is a slight shift of her body and the lights and a spritely angel appears before us.
The script could be tightened up. Angels are not known for being overly direct, and I’m sure it’s impolite to ask them to get on with it. The play runs 90-minutes without intermission and the dramatic action might be best served by focusing on the building tensions of their circumstances. But honestly, those few minutes are not enough to diminish Mitchell’s luminosity, and nothing could take away from the amazing story of Gitta Mallasz.
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Review by Nicole Jesson.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on March 24th, 2025. All rights reserved.