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True, there are few great dramas from the canon that aren't laced, even riddled, with humor. Shakespeare, O'Neill, Williams, Miller, and plenty of others have understood that the best delivery mechanism for the harshest truths is on a wave of levity. And for a considerable portion of the first scene of her play, Feiffer seems to embracing this idea with both arms. Not that her subject is quite as lofty, at least at first blush, as that of Hamlet, The Iceman Cometh, or A Streetcar Named Desire. On a very real level, it's about the painful realities of working in the theatre, as Ella Berryman (Betty Gilpin) is nervously communing with her father, David (Reed Birney), in his kitchen. It's late on the opening night of the major Off-Broadway production of The Seagull in which Ella is playing Masha. The performance earlier seemed to be a triumph, but Ella can't bear the party or waiting for the reviews, especially since the role of Nina, which she coveted, instead went to a prettier young actress by the name of Clementine—whom, it's strongly rumored, is sleeping with the wunderkind director. David's been here many a time himself, and isn't above sharing stories and lessons well learned about coping with successes and failures alike. Though he's a huge star now—his play The Battle of Long Island won the Pulitzer Prize and two Tonys, and he's as well established as a dramatist as an actor—when he was starting out in the 1950s, he had little but a dream and a deep admiration for the works of Milo Koppler. But when he met Koppler, the author of those immortal classics My Brother Joe and Pigs and Promises, he discovered that a life in the arts is only part talent, and that faith, heartbreak, and independence in the face of betrayal must pick up the slack. (Feiffer derives her title from David's bitter interpretation of Koppler's suggested treatment of an actor who wronged him, something that later turns out to be the single defining event for both David and Ella.) Serious as all this ought to be—and once the second scene arrives, and the action shifts five years in the future to focus on Ella's career in full ascent, it ought to be especially serious indeed—it's not always clear that Feiffer or director Trip Cullman takes it seriously. Yes, Mark Wendland has designed a superb set, realistically depicting a cramped New York apartment and an even more claustrophobic playing space. But Ella and David's behavior veers dangerously between cordial, acidic, professional, and borderline incestuous. Obvious jokes almost invariably lead to angry tirades. Koppler's theatre, too, is outlandish in its details: Pigs and Promises? And My Brother Joe's historic opening line is "Did you turn the heat up?" Really? Worse, so blasé are David and Ella about their lot that their actions belie their stated affection about its most basic precepts. When David instructs Ella on properly inhaling from a bong and then a few minutes later does cocaine lines with his daughter off of what looks like a real Drama Desk award, for example, you can't not howl. And musical excerpts from West Side Story are genuinely comedic when later paired with new words and an underlying situation that are, at best, tragic. Should stifling a giggle be your primary impulse right then? One suspects that this tonal confusion was intentional on Feiffer's part, to highlight the absurdity of how these two people conduct themselves. But it plays so haphazardly that it feels wrong even if it's correct. Ella comes across as particularly off, with Gilpin shrill and overeager early on and locked in a dead-eyed earnestness later, so you don't believe that this young woman is as smart, thoughtful, or talented as she needs to be for her path to make sense. Feiffer does eventually make some solid points about the attitudes we inherit from our families, but there's enough excess and red herrings (no, it's not significant that an entire bottle of booze is emptied seconds before a cigarette is lit) that when they land it's with a breezy uncertainty rather than the haunting effect of careers, spirits, and hope lost. For much of the first scene, Birney is on track in a way that Gilpin is not. His David seems to view his existence and his daughter's as a grand game, and the gusto with which Birney plays it is infectious. Whether ripping into critics, his own youthful ignorance, or the business, it's from a cautious distance that keeps him safe from any repercussions. And when David "turns," revealing a more throbbing hurt within, Birney has you convinced that this man's transformation could happen in milliseconds even if the writing seems jarringly less sure. Birney can't save I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard from the rampant absurdities of its climax, but he invests his work with a genial grin, a ready-for-anything nature, and enough truth that for a few moments you're all but positive he will. That's an estimable achievement here. Ultimately, however, he, Cullman, and Feiffer can't overcome the fact that sometimes a father and daughter's relationship is no laughing matter.
I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard
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