Off-Broadway play by Halley Feiffer stars Reed Birney and Betty Gilpin in unsettling family story

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. After all, you don’t need a professional critic to tear you down when your father will do it for nothing. Ella, an up-and-coming New York actress, knows that, but nonetheless goes to the sprawling Upper West Side apartment of her playwright father, David, as she anxiously awaits the reviews of her performance in an Off-Broadway revival of The Seagull. She’s playing Masha, not, as he would have preferred, Nina. But Daddy Dearest isn’t really interested in Chekhov or Ella’s achievement. He upstages her, turning her moment into a chance to relive (again) his own dramatic and troubled life. Ella listens intently, like a well-behaved poodle. Or a robot programmed to be dutiful — and to swill wine, smoke dope and snort cocaine when Pop pulls it out.