I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard By Halley Feiffer

This play is a sort of slow-burn, heightened reality character study and disturbing dismantling of a father-daughter dynamic.

Lessons:

1. Be brave in your choices. The dad in this play constantly tells his daughter to be anything but safe. And I think this play does that. These characters are extreme, unpredictable, mean, and they have a very uncomfortable relationship. Plus, the daughter’s lack of forgiveness is really hard to experience but crucial to the themes.

2. Just SAY the important things (at least in key moments). There’s a line in here where the father says, “Your mother getting sick let us get close.” It’s straightforward, but that's what's artful about it. This little line deepens their history, their relationship, and the context of their family so much, it's amazing. It's the kind of backstory goes WHOOSH! It informs everything you've seen so far, and everything you'll see until the end of the play. The reason it works and doesn't feel contrived is because it's organic. It feels like a detail that was born with the concept of the play, not inserted after, not like some sort of shitty development note that was addressed after the fact. Obviously playwrights don't have to deal with development notes so much, but this is what those notes are getting at. This is what they want to feel. So if we get a note that says "what's their history, add one line that addresses this" or "why are they like this," that means that the relationship doesn't feel real. Putting in a line after the fact won't address that problem (which is why it's so easy to pick out dev. note born ideas in pilots and stuff). This problem must be solved pre-emptively. Families have real history, and good writers use that. 

3. Music. It keeps coming up in plays we read, and here it’s used to really interesting effect. A lot of times, music will represent some an emotion, a leitmotif, a character’s attempt to bridge a communication gap when words don’t seem sufficient or comfortable. And here, the father, having had a stroke, must sing all of his words to get them out. To the tune of an old song he once belted more jauntily and flippantly. But it’s like Halley calling out the trope of using music as this kind of connective tissue for when characters don’t know what to say, and taking it to another level, and that's awesome. What a great way to play with that idea, and what a great reminder to always try to put a fresh spin or unique perspective on the devices you use (if they're familiar enough to warrant that).