Overview
Horsegirl & Cowdaddy
world premiere at the Wilma September 22 - October 4
Horsegirl & Cowdaddy. Overview
Horsegirl & Cowdaddy is a new play by Philadelphia-based playwright DJ Hills, directed by Adil Mansoor and co-produced by The Wilma Theater and Soho Rep. Its world premiere at the Wilma is bright, complex, intense, and sometimes confusing — and the level of that confusion depends on how openly you allow yourself to look at what is happening, how much space you give in your mind to what you see, and how far you are willing to go in explaining to yourself what is actually taking place. So the production doesn't just show transformation — it makes you go through one yourself while watching.
Visual
Visually, the production is bright, stylish, and naturally beautiful. For almost ninety minutes, the set barely changes, yet it never feels static. Light does most of the work. A shift in color or direction is enough to move us somewhere else, change the temperature of a conversation, or isolate a detail that suddenly becomes important.
There are only three actors onstage. But that feels like enough. They fill the space so completely that the small cast and nearly motionless set quickly stop registering as limitations.
There are only three actors onstage. But that feels like enough. They fill the space so completely that the small cast and nearly motionless set quickly stop registering as limitations.
Story
The story itself is much less still. It can be told in different ways, but ultimately it feels like a braid of several philosophies woven into one story, where each strand offers a different path — and each path offers a different understanding of freedom.
At its center is a small family — a daughter and father living their quiet, measured life in rural Pennsylvania. The disruption arrives in the form of a teacher from Boston who, together with the main character, makes the entire room feel their attraction from the first seconds of his appearance, pulling us into their sweet romance.
At its center is a small family — a daughter and father living their quiet, measured life in rural Pennsylvania. The disruption arrives in the form of a teacher from Boston who, together with the main character, makes the entire room feel their attraction from the first seconds of his appearance, pulling us into their sweet romance.
intimacy
Everything could have been simple. But it is precisely this relationship that becomes the mirror Horsegirl looks into — and once she sees herself there, she can never unsee it.
You can look at the way their intimacy is portrayed as simply kinky and provocative, or you can see a partner willing to meet her in the form in which she feels most natural, helping her reveal herself in the safest and most comfortable way possible. He creates a space of absolute trust, where the rules are being written in real time, where there are no predetermined boundaries, no pressure, no prescribed form — only feelings and intuition.
It becomes perhaps the most intimate moment of safety and acceptance, of desire and self-revelation. And like water, that trust brings something in her to life and leads to the metamorphosis that follows.
He gives her the opportunity to be exactly who she wants to be, and in doing so creates irreversible changes in her identity — changes she is no longer willing to give up. Naturally, her curiosity only grows.
You can look at the way their intimacy is portrayed as simply kinky and provocative, or you can see a partner willing to meet her in the form in which she feels most natural, helping her reveal herself in the safest and most comfortable way possible. He creates a space of absolute trust, where the rules are being written in real time, where there are no predetermined boundaries, no pressure, no prescribed form — only feelings and intuition.
It becomes perhaps the most intimate moment of safety and acceptance, of desire and self-revelation. And like water, that trust brings something in her to life and leads to the metamorphosis that follows.
He gives her the opportunity to be exactly who she wants to be, and in doing so creates irreversible changes in her identity — changes she is no longer willing to give up. Naturally, her curiosity only grows.
What do you want beyond the life you already know?
From there, the play begins offering Horsegirl different answers. Through Bethel, her father, and even the absent mother who left her years ago, it presents different paths that ultimately ask the same question: what does it actually mean to be free?
And she has to decide which, if any, belongs to her.
And she has to decide which, if any, belongs to her.
Freedom as Consumerism
Is it enough to simply be the person you already are? What will you say at a party when someone asks you to introduce yourself? What about finding your calling? What about social approval?
Bethel gives Horsegirl permission to imagine herself differently.
Bethel's love is tied to possibility. He opens a new door for her, showing her a world in which she could be somewhere else and someone else. There is tenderness in that impulse, but there is also pressure.
And the play gradually introduces a more uncomfortable question:
A person can show you who you might become. Does that mean they know who you should become?
You can always say stop when you feel you want to. Pressure is never freedom. And walking through someone else's door is not necessarily the same thing as becoming free.
Bethel gives Horsegirl permission to imagine herself differently.
Bethel's love is tied to possibility. He opens a new door for her, showing her a world in which she could be somewhere else and someone else. There is tenderness in that impulse, but there is also pressure.
And the play gradually introduces a more uncomfortable question:
A person can show you who you might become. Does that mean they know who you should become?
You can always say stop when you feel you want to. Pressure is never freedom. And walking through someone else's door is not necessarily the same thing as becoming free.
Freedom as Escapism
Long before Bethel arrives, someone else has already found another form of freedom.
Unable to cope with her own trauma, Horsegirl's mother leaves them to find herself somewhere else. Her version of freedom says: when a life becomes unbearable, leave it and begin another one somewhere else.
But the freedom of the person who leaves is experienced very differently by the person who is left behind.
Her mother escapes one cycle of pain while simultaneously passing part of it forward. Horsegirl is left not only with an absent mother, but with her mother's explanation for that absence.
So when Horsegirl eventually faces the possibility of leaving too, departure isn't an abstract symbol of liberation. She already knows what freedom through disappearance costs the people who remain.
Unable to cope with her own trauma, Horsegirl's mother leaves them to find herself somewhere else. Her version of freedom says: when a life becomes unbearable, leave it and begin another one somewhere else.
But the freedom of the person who leaves is experienced very differently by the person who is left behind.
Her mother escapes one cycle of pain while simultaneously passing part of it forward. Horsegirl is left not only with an absent mother, but with her mother's explanation for that absence.
So when Horsegirl eventually faces the possibility of leaving too, departure isn't an abstract symbol of liberation. She already knows what freedom through disappearance costs the people who remain.
Freedom as Being.
And then there is Cowdaddy.
The most surprising thing about him is how uncomplicated his acceptance of Horsegirl is.
The play could easily have made a rural father and his trans daughter the obvious site of conflict. Instead, Cowdaddy has no sophisticated theory of acceptance. He doesn't need the vocabulary, the articles, or the correct intellectual framework to love his child.
His logic is almost embarrassingly simple.
This is his child. She told him who she is. He believes her.
Because he loves her. Unconditionally.
What is striking is how much acceptance and calm Cowdaddy has toward every change his daughter goes through. It is almost as if he has understood some fundamental truth about the world and can clearly distinguish real love from manipulation, fear, ambition, and all the other things that are so often called love.
There is no judgment in him at all. He doesn't judge Horsegirl's mother. He doesn't judge his daughter. He simply lives, enjoying the freedom that seems to exist in the air around him, with an almost absolute understanding that this freedom is the greatest value — and that the important thing is to find your own path toward it.
The most surprising thing about him is how uncomplicated his acceptance of Horsegirl is.
The play could easily have made a rural father and his trans daughter the obvious site of conflict. Instead, Cowdaddy has no sophisticated theory of acceptance. He doesn't need the vocabulary, the articles, or the correct intellectual framework to love his child.
His logic is almost embarrassingly simple.
This is his child. She told him who she is. He believes her.
Because he loves her. Unconditionally.
What is striking is how much acceptance and calm Cowdaddy has toward every change his daughter goes through. It is almost as if he has understood some fundamental truth about the world and can clearly distinguish real love from manipulation, fear, ambition, and all the other things that are so often called love.
There is no judgment in him at all. He doesn't judge Horsegirl's mother. He doesn't judge his daughter. He simply lives, enjoying the freedom that seems to exist in the air around him, with an almost absolute understanding that this freedom is the greatest value — and that the important thing is to find your own path toward it.
Kitchen-Table Conversations in Underwear
Some of the production's best moments are precisely these kitchen-table conversations — people in their underwear talking about enormous things in ordinary language. And maybe somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, these answers are easier to find than in a big city while discussing yet another article from a popular magazine.
We often clutter our minds with endless versions, opinions, theories, and narratives until we forget that pure love has no versions. It is either there or it isn't.
We often clutter our minds with endless versions, opinions, theories, and narratives until we forget that pure love has no versions. It is either there or it isn't.
Horsegirl encounters two forms of love, and they leave her confused.
Being loved exactly as you are can be liberating, but it can also make change harder. Being loved for your potential can make you brave enough to move, but it can also make the person you already are feel insufficient.
This confusion — and the choice it creates — becomes the culmination of the play.
At the moment when Horsegirl's world begins to feel too small, Cowdaddy answers almost like Erich Fromm:
You don't have to do. You have to be.
Maybe this is the most radical proposition the play makes.
Your life does not necessarily have to become a project. You don't have to continuously produce a better version of yourself to justify your existence. Happiness may not be an event waiting somewhere beyond the horizon. Sometimes the field you imagined reaching one day is the field you are already standing in.
Bethel imagines freedom through becoming.
Her mother sought freedom through leaving.
Cowdaddy has found freedom through being.
And Horsegirl has to choose what freedom means for herself.
Being loved exactly as you are can be liberating, but it can also make change harder. Being loved for your potential can make you brave enough to move, but it can also make the person you already are feel insufficient.
This confusion — and the choice it creates — becomes the culmination of the play.
At the moment when Horsegirl's world begins to feel too small, Cowdaddy answers almost like Erich Fromm:
You don't have to do. You have to be.
Maybe this is the most radical proposition the play makes.
Your life does not necessarily have to become a project. You don't have to continuously produce a better version of yourself to justify your existence. Happiness may not be an event waiting somewhere beyond the horizon. Sometimes the field you imagined reaching one day is the field you are already standing in.
Bethel imagines freedom through becoming.
Her mother sought freedom through leaving.
Cowdaddy has found freedom through being.
And Horsegirl has to choose what freedom means for herself.
More information about the performance at Wilma theatre website