She hasn’t worked it through far enough yet.Coastal Elites: Paul Rudnick Rages Against the Right-Wing Machine,Coastal Elites: Red Meat for Blue Staters,Incidental Moments of the Day: Trouble on Zoom with the Apple Family,Incidental Moments of the Day: Richard Nelson’s Latest Socially Distant Drama,Girl From the North Country: Bob Dylan, American Poet,Dana H.: Mother’s Day, with Knives and Tats,A Soldier’s Play: Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer-Winner in Stunning Revival,Jagged Little Pill: Everything’s Gonna Be Fine, Fine, Fine. Mark Wendland’s set is an Asian-influenced marvel, in which pieces slide and retract to transform a dark restaurant into a minimalist apartment into an elegant living room. Playstosee.com is a showcase for talent, particularly young talent, allowing them a platform to share their knowledge and appreciation of drama, musicals, opera, comedy, cabaret, ballet and even the circus. ).In the next scene, it’s four years later, and we’re in Cat’s apartment. The Pain of My Belligerence. The Pain of My Belligerence by Halley Feiffer, directed by Trip Cullman. Cat, seemingly intelligent, a magazine writer who has previously profiled the brilliant chef who is Guy’s business partner and soon-to-be-ex-wife, is sometimes offended by him but never repulsed; in fact, she’s attracted to him, and at the end of the scene she throws herself at him. Contact,Ticket Central © 416 W 42nd Street (Between 9th and 10th),Hours of Operation: 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm 7 Days a Week,16+ for strong sexual content and profanity. She’s been having an affair with Guy, in which she seems to get off by hearing how great his life is with his reconciled wife. Cat, in a wheelchair, says she wants to write another piece about Yuki, but really she’s there to learn about Guy and talk about him, her only connection to the outside world. This is the least comprehensible scene, as Cat has turned into someone totally nonfunctioning, Yuki is kind and beautiful and graceful, and they come to some sort of communion. Mar 29, 2019 - May 12, 2019 Running time: 2:00. WITH: Halley Feiffer (Cat) and Hamish Linklater (Guy) Vanessa Kai (Yuki), and Keira Belle Young (Olive). The TV is turned on as she awaits Hillary’s inevitable victory, and the competent woman from the first scene has become a wreck. (Linklater demurely lowers his pants.
Guy, we learn, is dead. Beyond that, it’s tough to figure out what to make of Halley Feiffer’s latest drama, which opened tonight in the tiny Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons.The short play transpires through three scenes. But there’s another wrinkle: The woman—her name is Cat, though it’s never spoken—remains kittenish. She screams at him, then she begs for him. Linklater, for his part, skillfully deploys his usual warmhearted charm in service of this charmingly nefarious character. She’s also developed a debilitating case of Lyme disease, and so she doesn’t leave the house. Until she meets Guy — magnetic, devilishly charming, and married — … In the first, a bespectacled young woman, played by Feiffer, is on a first date with a handsome but deeply unpleasant man, played by Hamish Linklater. Guy brings her groceries, pays her bills, and belittles her. 4.0 Reviewer's Rating. There is plenty of belligerence in The Pain of My Belligerence. Trip Cullman’s forthright direction allows the mysteries of this story to unfold efficiently, even if they’re never quite resolved. 2019-04-23. He tells the woman what she thinks; he pours her Pellegrino she doesn’t want; he contradicts himself, and sometimes her, and yet always insists that’s he’s right and she’s wrong. This site was made by.. And there is a good deal of pain, mostly for its protagonist but also for its audience. It’s a deeply uncomfortable scene—all that belligerence—and, as a viewer, you start to think that’s the point: Feiffer wants us all to feel what it’s like for a woman facing such toxic masculinity.Also, as is briefly mentioned, it’s the night of Obama’s reelection, and so you wonder if this is supposed to be not merely one asshole but rather the manifestation of a dawning, Trumpian triumph of societal toxic masculinity. (Hence Trump, perhaps? In the final moment, Cat tells one of Yuki’s daughters that when her sister is being mean to her, she can just leave—and it seems to be the first time it occurs to her that she could have done the same when Guy was being an ass on that first date all those years ago.It’s hard to read Feiffer’s performance, but it’s nearly impossible to read her character. The implication, it seems, is that everywoman can’t resist awful everyman. The first scene of Halley Feiffer’s emotionally incendiary The Pain of My Belligerence, now at Playwrights Horizons’ Peter Jay Sharp Theater, puts you right in the middle of a horrific date between bright, vulnerable writer Cat (Feiffer) and the narcissistic, voracious restauranteur Guy (Hamish Linklater). The Pain of My Belligerence. (His, also unspoken, is Guy, suggesting he’s an archetype rather than a person.) VIEW ON MAP | VIEW THEATRE DETAILS. The world premiere of Halley Feiffer’s The Pain of My Belligerence is set to open April 22 at Playwright’s Horizons.
Twenty-something and brilliant, Cat is a journalist at the top of her game: tack-sharp and ambitious, and rapidly establishing her place in the field. He owns the restaurant they’re in, as slowly becomes clear, and he dominates the evening—the conversation, the space, even the woman’s body, which he frequently bites at and nuzzles.