Starting in total darkness with a scary phone exchange between a suicide hotline volunteer and an anguished guy with a gun, Degenerates sheds troubling light upon an underworld virtually unknown to older generations. Playwright Else Went delivers a dark character study of young American males known as incels, and their lonesome yet weirdly connected existence behind screens and alternate personas. Fueled by hate speech especially about women, the unhappy contemporary story is driven by intense performances. Director Emma Rosa Went, the playwright’s creative partner and spouse, gives the drama a shockingly intimate staging within the modest proscenium frame of a 128-seat theater.
The latest work by the author of Initiative (alas, like many, I did not see Went’s well-regarded play last year), Degenerates premiered Tuesday at Playwrights Horizons’ upstairs space. A display in the lobby offers a helpful glossary of dozens of words or phrases the characters will employ, such as: Stacy, hypergamy, mog, femoid, decile, roastie, among others. How many of those do you know? Such lingo signals a subculture populated mostly by sexually frustrated dudes who can scarcely force themselves to venture outside their mancaves.
Running a mostly riveting 1:45 plus intermission, the storyline is relatively simple: Miller, Target, Kemp, and others foully chat by phone and/or video and/or DMs from within the disheveled comfort of their separate bedrooms and basements. Vaping and consuming high-energy drinks, they argue and stew over a misogynistic worldview where everyone is a loser and “No one will love you ever” is their “blackpill” bottom line. Eventually, several emerge from their lairs and meet up in the flesh. In an ironic note regarding this he-man woman hater’s club circa 2026, occasionally a female voice will coolly narrate things.
The drama’s major dynamic involves contrasting figures. Miller (Zachary Desmond) is a pernicious know-it-all in his late 20s; a motormouth top dog who spews specious facts and opinions about everything. Not yet 19, Target (Christopher Dylan White) is a self-described femme-boy who claims to be straight while making money doing naughty Only Fans cosplay. A quietly touching encounter between Miller and Target amid the latter’s rainbow-lit, anime-postered, squishies-strewn environment grows erotic – Target clad as a Japanese schoolgirl – but their post-coital parting turns ugly. Fortunately, another story regarding Kemp (Tyler Nowell Felix), a sweet fellow of seesawing emotions, proves more hopeful.
The exceptionally vivid performances delivered by Desmond, White and Felix, as well as those provided by Juan Arturo and Olivia Rose Barresi as other folk, are directed with considerable sensitivity by Emma Rosa Went to suggest their inner longings. Despite their frequently nasty talk – the playwright churns up some surprisingly funny invective – the characters are not degenerates so much as pathetic in their self-loathing loneliness.
Went’s production looks and sounds good. Two principal interiors – one white and the other pink – are suitably furnished according to their tenant’s tastes by scenic designer Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams. They later merge into one room, thanks partly to mood-making lighting designed by Jiyoun Chang. Like the décor, costume designer Kindall Almond’s clothes are insightful about the characters, including those rumpled shirts in Miller’s hamper. Pop music, electronics, and ambient noise sound just fine in Angela Baughman’s sound design.
Its downbeat nature and frank sexuality make Degenerates an unlikely work for popularity, but likely second stages among the more daring regional theaters will produce it in the future, but probably not as smartly as staged here and now at Playwrights Horizons.
Degenerates opened September 29, 2026, at Playwrights Horizons and runs through October 18. Tickets and information: playwrightshorizons.org
