Jen Silverman is one of my favorite contemporary playwrights. The dramatic words she builds are filled to the brim with tension and conflict on every level. She crafts characters that feel so deeply that no matter what, their actions (as evil as they may seem) make so much sense. Wink is about a husband and wife, a skinned cat, and their therapist. The husband and wife are having marital issues and the husband just skinned the wife’s cat. The cat in question is not, in fact, dead and visits the therapist both the husband and wife are seeing. The cat and the therapist have a weird relationship and things get tense.

This play was wonderfully hilarious and dark. It’s Jen Silverman in her prime. I fell in love with her play The Moors when I was cast as the mastiff my freshman year of college and Wink continues that trend. The fantastical elements of the play are simply beautiful and so well written. Silverman is a playwright everyone should know.