Usual girls

It follows a half-Korean, half-white girl in s Ohio into adulthood, frankly tackling issues of race, sexuality and rape along the way. Kavanaugh of sexual assault, the culmination of a year of MeToo allegations. That is a charmed reception for a young writer getting her first professional production. In an interview on the cusp of the final performance, Ms. Peiffer, 30, reflected on the ride.

Francis plays Kyeoung, who when we first meet her is a child learning a playground game called lava monster. With the blurting unselfconsciousness of the very young all of the children here are played by adults , these three are talking about sex. Overhearing Anna use a vulgarity, an easily offended bully named Rory Raviv Ullman threatens to tell a grown-up unless one of them kisses him. Their exuberance, though, may give you flashbacks of joy. Peiffer has constructed, which gets very dark when it touches on predation and violence. In vivid, time-jumping scenes, we see the myriad ways that Kyeoung and the other girls are punished from an early age — and encouraged to punish one another — for sexual curiosity, desire, experience, attractiveness or lack thereof.

But just before lips can touch, Kyeoung tackles the boy to the ground. The victory is short-lived. Over the coming years, Kyeoung herself is knocked down again and again. By an alcoholic dad. A group of quick-to-judge friends.

It's the cardinal sin of romantic comedies and pop songs to be classified as one of the Usual Girls , the title of Ming Peiffer's no-holds-barred coming-of-age play, directed with just as much daring by Tyne Rafaeli at Roundabout Underground. As Peiffer's main character Kyeoung Midori Francis unloads in a diatribe of revelation, girls are taught to be the gorgeous yet oblivious ones who compel a strapping gentleman to teach them about their own unrecognized beauty — the ones who get the guy to say, "You're not like all the others. Of course, not every girl will grow up in Kyeoung's particular circumstances.