3rd Play - How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them by Halley Feiffer
Katya Campbell (Ada), Jen Ponton (Dorrie), and Keira Keeley (Sam) in How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them. Photo Credit: Hal Horowitz
So, I was the Intimacy Choreographer for a wonderfully fearless production of Halley Feiffer’s I’m Gonna Pray For You Hard in Milwaukee with the Constructivists a few years ago. When I saw this play in my Play folder, I was super-excited to dive into it, especially it being all-female, and about friends and siblings growing up. And, of course, anything with murder in the title is intriguing to me! However, this one was just not my cup of tea. Too much mean spirit and too little reason for me to care about the characters left me cold.
Summary: “Left to their own devices by their alcoholic mother, Ada and Sam cultivate an insular world into which they soon draw a third wheel—a pockmarked, limping wallflower named Dorrie. In the years spanning childhood to young adulthood, these three troubled girls learn to lean on each other completely, finding ways to fill each other up and tear each other down. But when a horrible accident upends their reality, they find they must decide whether to continue to foster their codependent cycle, or to break free, with or without each other’s aid.” Concord Theatricals
Laura’s thoughts in brief: From the very top, I hated Ada, and was annoyed with Sam. Have I been in relationships where you feel like you love someone so much that you want to do anything they say and you’re devastated by any cruelty they throw at you, but you’re so addicted you don’t go away? Yes, on both sides. But only in my very young and pre-teen years - even as a teenager I knew how annoying that behavior is. So, reading those repetitive relationships over and over, even as they aged? Not that interesting to me. I didn’t find it funny either. Ada and Sam reference their aloof, alcoholic mother, which maybe explains some of the behavior, but there’s still nothing that I really liked in either character. Sam has moments when she’s almost free from Ada and you cheer and start to like her, but then she visits that behavior on Dorrie and you want to smack her (and Dorrie for taking it). Do we understand why it happens? Yes, somewhat … but I don’t want to spend time with any of them. And poor Dorrie - there’s almost nothing to like about her except her fierce devotion to both awful sisters. But devotion is not always a good thing … (Also PLEASE GOD STOP WHINING, EVERYONE.) I appreciate Feiffer’s willingness to go into full on terrible fights and get unapologetically wacky icky physical with the characters, but … I just don’t like anyone enough to care. And ultimately without that, I didn’t walk away with a lot from the play. Perhaps if I saw it with really strong actors giving more dimension and vulnerability to each of the characters … This one was just not for me.
READ MORE! Here’s what some of the critics had to say about productions:
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/how-to-make-friends-and-then-kill-them
https://www.theatermania.com/news/how-to-make-friends-and-then-kill-them_66575/