Katrin Arefy
Playwright, Essayist
I strive to turn my observation of the realities of our daily lives to writing and invite my audience to examine those realities with me. Playwriting has proved my most effective tool for communicating ideas to a wide audience. In my plays, as well as in my essays, I explore themes such as anti-Semitism, terrorism, xenophobia, love, and other absurd or painful realities shape our lived experience.
I don’t aim to offer answers in my writing because as Madeleine L’Engle put it “An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers.”
I hope that even those who come to the theater seeking only entertainment will find that my work sparks questions they'll ponder long after the curtain falls.
Plays
The Elbisnopsers!
Written in 2015
Premiered in 2016 in NYC
Synopsis
Breaking news about a distant civilization turns the prosaic tedium of a middle class household’s day to a tempest in a teapot. Their attempt to overcome their fear-inducing ignorance by turning to their limited resources results in a farcical event.
Using an absurd situation, The Elbisnopsers aims to question the idea of us versus “the other.”
Two men, one woman
Dear Citizens! Dictators Don’t Exist!
Written in 2016
Synopsis
This one-act absurdist play looks at the origin of dictatorship from the angle of accountability. Who is responsible for the genesis and development of an evil presence in a society?
Two men and a crowd of 12 people
Script Sample
A Massacre
Written in 2016
Premiered in 2017 in NYC
Synopsis
Discovering a pile of dead bodies in the middle of their office, work colleagues seem nonchalant about the carnage and instead become embroiled in petty arguments. Their repetitive discussions and responses are predetermined and nonnegotiable.
Written in a surreal manner, A Massacre observes the bigger world we live in, and highlights the limitation of the smaller world in which we live—our minds.
Two women, three men
Love Is a Carrot! or Can You Love the Umbrella?
Written in 2018
Premiered in 2019 in NYC (as part of a trilogy)
Synopsis
Awakened by sounds from a machine that warns of impending danger, six pseudo-intellectual housemates get into endless groundless arguments, contradicting themselves and creating a cacophony of mad unreason.Unable to listen to each other or think outside of their very limited “open” minds, the characters are truer to our own world than we would like to believe.
Like the other parts of the trilogy, Love Is a Carrot explores the question of how to oppose evil, this time by presenting fear and distrust on one hand and suicidal feebleness on the other.
Two women, four men
Peace, a Massacre, and the Umbrella (trilogy)
Completed in 2019
Premiered in 2019 in NYC
Synopsis
Peace, a Massacre, and the Umbrella is a trilogy written in a surreal manner that aims to question the idea of us versus “the other.”
Breaking news about a distant civilization turns the prosaic tedium of a middle class household’s day to a tempest in a teapot. Their attempt to overcome their fear-inducing ignorance by turning to their limited resources results in a farcical event.
Discovering a pile of dead bodies in the middle of an office, work colleagues become embroiled in repetitive, predetermined, and nonnegotiable discussions.
And finally, six pseudo-intellectual housemates get into endless groundless arguments, contradicting themselves and creating a cacophony of mad unreason. Unable to listen to each other or think outside of their very limited “open” minds, the characters are truer to our own world than we would like to believe.
The Portrait of an Angel, a Lion, a Monster
Written in 2020
Premiered 2022 in Manhattan NYC
A lyrical, nonlinear, three-act play with absurdist elements and a strong Jewish backdrop. The play takes the audience through an intimate internal journey that suggests happy families are not all alike.
O Lubvi
Written in 2021
O Lubvi is a thirty minute play with dark humor dreaming about love. The play is a reminder of how often the universal need for love ironically goes hand in hand with our inability to connect.
A Helmet Is a Helmet Is a Helmet
Written in 2022
A Helmet Is a Helmet Is a Helmet is a ten-minute play that considers the subject of identity. The play focuses on Jewish identity, sexual identity, Don Quixote’s identity, as well as Jonathan’s identity.
The Living Room And Death
Written in 2022
Revised 2025
The Living Room and Death is a farcical play that creates a multilayered atmosphere
around the themes of death, grief, and mortality. The play’s humor arises from the absurdity of its characters, who grapple with the profound and the trivial in equal measure, as if mocking their own futile attempts to make sense of life’s greatest mystery. Conversations twist and turn without logical resolution, creating a sense of “meaningful nonsense” that recalls the tradition of absurdist theater.
The narrative unfolds in a domestic setting, with a mix of ordinary and extraordinary characters: five family members dealing with the loss of a loved one who are observed by the Angel of Death and Azazel, a fallen angel bringing a surreal and otherworldly presence to the scene and combining human, inhuman and supernatural in one place.
More Than Thirty Faces of the Rouen Cathedral
Written 2023
A haunting portrait of solitude amidst love, this monologue depicts a grandmother with dementia navigating a landscape of loss, her mind wandering in search of the solace of familiar comforts.
Contact Me
1809 University Avenue,
Berkeley, CA, 94703