Review Roundup: I'M GONNA PRAY FOR YOU SO HARD Opens Off-Broadway

Atlantic Theater Company presents the world premiere of I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard by Halley Feiffer, directed by Trip Cullman and starring Reed Birney and Betty Gilpin. I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard officially opens tonight, January 20, 2015 for a limited engagement through Sunday, February 15, 2015 Off Broadway at Atlantic Stage 2 (330 West 16th Street).

Ella (Gilpin) is a precocious and fiercely competitive actress whose sole aim in life is making her famous playwright father David (Birney) proud. Over the course of a boozy, drug-fueled evening, Ella and David deliberate over whether to read the reviews of her Off Broadway debut... and things unravel from there.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: Reed Birney...is often cast as a retiring type...Here he whips a 180 without leaving any visible skid marks to portray David...As played with a lacerating intensity by Mr. Birney, who moves from heated ranting to a sociopath's cool detachment with scary dexterity, David exudes a toxic cloud that's almost as dense as the billowing cigarette smoke engulfing him...Ms. Gilpin portrays Ella as a timorous bundle of exposed nerve endings, brought to the brink of hysteria by years of her father's brutality...Ms. Feiffer's portrait of an artist as a rampaging egotist undermining even his dear daughter has an appalling fascination, but after a while, David makes for wearying company...Although the director, Trip Cullman, keeps the pace taut and elicits precise work from both actors, you'd have to have a strong constitution not to share some of Ella's sense of smothering oppression.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: Halley Feiffer, daughter of legendary cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer, has penned a bad-dad play that makes monster-mom plays look like affectionate love smacks. "I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard" is a labored work of meta-theater about an anxious young actress and her doting dad, a successful playwright, awaiting press notices of her performance in "The Seagull." But despite sturdy performances from Reed Birney and Betty Gilpin ("Nurse Jackie") and the slick-as-spit helming of Trip Cullman, this mannered two-hander...is relentlessly repetitive and stupefyingly dull, of little interest beyond its own insular community of self-regarding theatricals.

Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News: The opening moments of "I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard" make the play seem like it's going to be an evening of (yawn) critic-bashing. But this blistering, blackly funny and creepy two-character work by Halley Feiffer chases after and snares something a lot more interesting and unsettling...The play offers two terrifically meaty roles. Reed Birney and Betty Gilpin sink their teeth in and devour their parts as David goes from callousness to contrition and Ella moves from doormat to dominance. Director Trip Cullman guides them through the curves with a sure hand.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post: 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...Tautly directed by Trip Cullman, the interaction between Ella and David is horrifying.

Check back in the AM for updates!

Photo Credit: Ahron R. Foster

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