Her strange, intimate podcast,Appearances,feels like a breakthrough for the form.
Appearancesis available wherever you get your podcasts.
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Midway into the narrative podcastAppearancescome three of the most compelling minutes of audio Ive ever heard.
She meditates on how much pee can drip out of you if you sit on the toilet long enough.
Seconds tick by; suspense builds; pee drips audibly.
I listened, rapt, as I watered a friends plants.
My body was sweeping up dead fern leaves, but my mind was entirely in Melanies bathroom.
Okay, Melanie finally whispers, picking up the stick.
Mashihis performances as vulnerable, scathing Vida and dull, hidebound Bobbak create characters who sound immediately distinct.
Apart from Melanie, Vida isAppearances most vivid, sympathetic, and maddening character.
She loves Melanie fiercely while refusing to accept almost anything about her.
At its core, the show is about a mother and daughter who love but repeatedly damage each other.
Let me play them out sucking.
Let me play them out wonderful.
Let me say things I perceive that are not said.
Mom, Im a good little Persian girl.
I know to stick to blowjobs and anal, Melanie says flippantly; Vida bursts into tears.
News of its existence has spread mostly via word of mouth among the audio cognoscenti.
Is it possible to be an art-podcast star?
The only thing separating her from auteurs like Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Michaela Coel may be the medium.
Despite its current financial boom, podcasting is still a cultural niche without TVs reach or literatures prestige.
Mashihi is dressed too lightly on the day we meet, in a vintage red cloth coat.
She has giant eyes and a thick rope of brown hair slung over one shoulder.
While Melanie eventually gets pregnant, Sharon is 37 and still figuring out how to have a baby.
Her hormone levels, she says, are those of a woman ten years older.
The tea is an excuse to take off our masks.
Mashihi describes herself not as an actor but as an act-y person.
I have three mediums: film, performance, and audio, she says.
She has worked in film production, collaborating with her friendJosephine Decker (Shirley).
And if someones voice is insincere, she says, no one wants to listen.
Meeting Prest was a turning point in Mashihis career and her life.
After becoming roommates eight years ago, they settled into an artistic collaborationslashbest friendship.
Prest and Mashihi soon forged a deal whereby they would trade off working on each others projects.
When Mashihi started pitching what would becomeAppearances,Prest discouraged her from taking a deal with Luminary.
The subscription-based company made them an offer for six episodes.
It was not bad, says Prest, but it was one persons salary.
She was also put off by the idea of the shows being behind a paywall.
I imagined seven people listening to it and Sharon falling into a pit of depression, Prest says.
If the timing works out, Mashihi will, ideally, be a single mother by then too.
He points to Mashihis work ethic and her preference for being alone.
I think Sharons child will get recorded a lot, and there will be art made about the kid.
If she had unlimited funds for season two, Mashihi says, she wouldnt just make a podcast.
Shed hire actors to play her family.
Wed live as a family in character, and there would be documentary cinematographers shooting us.
I mention theres a more straightforward medium for manipulating reality without collaborators the novel but shes not interested.
I want to micromanage my audiences experience, she says.
OnAppearances, she worries aloud about what performing her family could do to those relationships.
The Mashihis havent listened to the podcast, and she has mixed feelings about whether she wants them to.
I wish my mom could listen and be like, Wow.
Our relationship is so complicated, but youve rendered what we have with such beauty.
Its unlikely to happen in reality, but thats what art is for.
