Twisted head games, drinking and drugging, ugly crying: Halley Feiffer goes for melodrama at full throttle in her new play, “I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard.” One minute you’re laughing, the next you’re cringing. Sometimes you’re doing both at once.
Flawed as it is, the play sticks in your head like a crazy nightmare.
Two thirds of the action take place late at night in the kitchen where the childlike, eager Ella (a fine Betty Gilpin) and her father, David (Reed Birney at his most unhinged), are awaiting reviews for the play Ella’s in.
Over copious amounts of wine, pot and coke, David regales Ella with stories of his past — the Brooklyn home he left, the “faggot” playwright he idolized, his own award-winning career. Ella’s heard all these stories before, but she’s too cowed, too admiring to do anything but gush anew.
Meanwhile, David, a pot-bellied, narcissistic monster, alternately praises and belittles his only daughter, who’s playing a relatively minor role in a revival of “The Seagull.”
“I’m not saying you’re ugly,” he says. “I’m just saying you’re interesting.”
“Okay,” she whimpers.
“And a little ugly,” he adds.
While this goes on you can’t help but wonder about the relationship between Feiffer — also a talented actress — and her own accomplished father, the Bronx-raised cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer. Yikes.
Tautly directed by Trip Cullman, the interaction between Ella and David is horrifying. Birney excels at playing mild-mannered guys, as in “Circle Mirror Transformation,” but his meek, banal exterior makes him even better in villainous roles — his juicy turn as a scheming transvestite in last year’s “Casa Valentina” earned him a Tony nomination.
Then just when you think things can’t get any more harrowing, they do.
Flash-forward five years later, and the tables have turned. Going from girl to woman, Ella has experienced a physical and mental transformation. When her father stumbles back into her life, she’s more than ready. The same may not be said of the audience after the last scene.
