Excuse My Dust (A Dorothy Parker Portfolio) is created and performed by Jennifer Engstrom with honesty, rawness and empathy. Parker, American poet and writer who died in 1967, is portrayed as a woman misunderstood by society and in constant despair of her loneliness and self-created isolation from friends and romantic interests.

Engstrom's script is witty and daring. It takes the audience to a dark place where a woman, past the acceptable marrying age of the 1930s era, is simultaneously yearning, begging and groveling on her knees for a chance of love and romance. She is wishing and hoping for the phone to ring from a potential romantic interest, the pleading is heart wrenching and desperate, and this is essentially Parker's daily existence. There is a feeling throughout the piece that it is taboo for a woman to confess her loneliness, and yet that is exactly what Parker needs to do and she pours out her soul to the audience with intensity, sincerity, and at times amusing self-deprecation.

The play follows Parker at social events and in her apartment reminiscing about her past lovers. Engstrom has succeed in building a very vivid image of the woman Parker was, with the monologue having Parker’s poems dispersed throughout. Engstrom’s performance is emotionally provocative and dynamic, and the audience is effectively used as a medium for her confession. Parker constantly battles with accepting her fate as an outcast from society and attempting not to dramatize her life and give in to self-pity. Her ability to remain composed and sure of herself as a woman who is desired and wanted by men doesn’t last more than a few moments in many scenes, and then we witness her breakdown and how she picks herself up. We see Engstrom on her hands and knees reaching out to us in a cry of injustice; she can't stand or accept that no one wants her.

The direction and staging of this production by SoHo Playhouse Artistic Director Darren Lee Cole, allowed for clear and clean transitions between scenes. The intimate space where this piece is performed allows for the audience and Engstrom to connect to the story and the emotions throughout the entire performance.

What was also enjoyable to discover in Engstrom's performance was the opposing maturity and childishness with which she approached building this character. The complexity is created as this intelligent, sophisticated, and outspoken woman slowly becomes drunk and jealous when her friend, with whom she is in love with, discusses his new companion with her. The tragedy and the comedy intermingle in this piece, leaving an altogether bittersweet impression of Parker's life.

Excuse My Dust “A Dorothy Parker Portfolio” is playing at Soho Playhouse till November 9.