Preview Thoughts on The Pain of My Belligerence

It was rather fascinating seeing an early preview of Halley Feiffer's The Pain of My Belligerence the day after I returned to The Band's Visit.  I guess this post is going to get pretty personal and it may not even be that coherent, so you may want to just walk on by.  Here we go...

I was having a disagreement with a pal about Dina (Katrina Lenk's character) in The Band's Visit - my friend thought she was in a situation of her own making and her loneliness was her own fault that she could break free from at any time.  Whereas I think the character truly cannot break down her own walls and is completely gobsmacked by the feelings that overwhelm her throughout the piece.  It was an interesting conversation; I will say that my pal and I are coming at the subject from two different generations (I'm a lot older), but as someone who has more walls than even the idiot who lives in the White House can dream of, and who was nearly destroyed by what I thought was love, and who has had massive fear over trying again, I feel a connection to Dina.  I have the dream that the one person who can make me trust again and try again will maybe someday come.  And I can understand the pain that comes when you dare to try again and you are rejected.  I cried during nearly the whole musical, not only because it's so beautiful, but because it made me think of things I don't normally want to think about.  Interestingly, I didn't have this response during my first viewing, but those thoughts have been swirling as I keep listening to the cast album on repeat.

Then seeing The Pain of My Belligerence just sort of put me over the edge.  I don't know that I can even talk about the play as a play because it was an intensely personal experience for me.  On the Playwrights Horizons website, Halley talks about writing this piece, which she says is inspired by her life, but not completely autobiographical: "How a confident, powerful, successful woman could find herself seduced into her own subjugation to the point that she barely recognized herself. How this happens to so many women."

The first scene is a first date between a young woman, successful, but filled with doubt and lacking self-confidence, and a toxic, charming man who puts out all the warning signals that the young woman should ignore...but she doesn't.  In that scene, I was so intensely uncomfortable, seeing all of my mistakes on a stage, magnified for an entire audience to see.  It was hard for me to be clinical or thoughtful about the play, about the acting or the writing or the direction or the design (which were all good, as far as I can remember), because I was so caught up in memories and recriminations.  Watching a man make everything about himself, yet keep pretending it was all about the young woman; watching an intelligent, funny, engaging young woman lie to herself and subjugate herself to a man - ugh.  Watching that youthful light be extinguished.  It was hard for me to watch.  Adding the level of absolute horror of the current political situation didn't make the viewing any easier.  Even though there was charm and humor in much of the play, most of it just drove me somewhere I didn't want to go.  

I guess maybe that's a good thing.  Maybe my young pal is right and it IS my fault that I'm still struggling with these things all these years later.  (OK, I know it's my fault and that I own my experiences, but I do also blame the man as well.  Clearly.)  Maybe I can get myself out of my own head and I just don't want to.  Maybe I should just be grateful that there's a woman out there who can write what I'm afraid to think about; I will also admit here that the ending took me completely by surprise, which I always appreciate.  It's still early in the preview process - I'm sure there are changes that will be made and I'm wondering if I should try to see the play again.  Now that I know its subject matter, maybe I can distance myself to see the craft instead of the personal.  It's something else to think about, at least...