A fundraiser at a Brooklyn queer bar featured a joke impersonating Debra Messing, portrayed as a prominent face of a liberally Zionist wing of Hollywood politics. The impersonation frames Messing’s public “crashouts” over Zohran Mamdani as a foil for Morgan Bassichis, a queer, nonbinary, anti-Zionist Jewish performer and organizer. The bit imagines Messing delivering a final message before joining a radical armed struggle operation and includes a line about being wrong to blame antisemitism for causing a blizzard. Bassichis’s stage persona blends showbiz timing with organizing experience, including work with Jewish Voice for Peace. Their humor stays light while preserving social justice focus, and they return with a solo show that restages routines from Frank Maya.
"“I was wrong when I accused Zohran Mamdani of being so antisemitic that he caused a blizzard,” Bassichis-as-Messing explains. “It's wrong to blame Muslims for the weather, or anyone actually. And I am not asking for your forgiveness or ... grace.”"
"Bassichis pauses to let the room laugh, scream, groan. They have that showbiz sparkle: snappy and light with an alert presence and an angular physicality. They're a unique performer in that they have also spent much of their life as an organizer, notably as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, the Palestine solidarity group. While their work has a core of seriousness, their onstage persona is free of the pedantry leftists get maligned for, more hapless millennial than Marxist lecturer."
"In Bassichis's bit, Messing is delivering her final communiqué before she joins a radical Weather Underground-style operation "committed to dismantling the U.S. settler-colonial state through armed struggle." She has become a founding member of SAG-AFTRA for a Free Palestine. Her series of spectacular crashouts over Zohran Mamdani, including accusing him of "celebrating 9/11" (he was 9), made her a perfect foil for Bassichis, a queer, nonbinary, anti-Zionist Jewish performer."
"This month, Bassichis returns to the stage for the third run of their solo show, Can I Be Frank?, at Soho Playhouse. They put solo in air quotes because Bassichis restages routines by another performer, Frank Maya, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1995 on the cusp o"
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