Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Lucas Hnath’s harrowing, mold-breaking DANA H., starring an extraordinary Deirdre O’Connell, unsettles and beguiles

• By drediman
• February 27, 2020
• No Comments

Deirdre O’Connell in Lucas Hnath’s “Dana H.” at the Vineyard Theatre. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Last night, Lucas Hnath’s Dana H. opened Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre. The psychological thriller comes to New York having previously played Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, where it was well-received. There’s no questioning Mr. Hnath’s status as one of contemporary American playwriting’s more notable success stories, both artistically and commercially. Already, he’s been represented twice on Broadway via A Doll’s House, Part 2 and Hillary and Clinton, both starring the extraordinary Laurie Metcalf. Mr. Hnath’s latest almost-solo show at the Vineyard tells the harrowing true story of the kidnapping of the playwright’s mother (while he was in college), and it keeps with his insistence on pushing the boundaries of theater.

You see, Dana H. is a play told through lip-synching. Certainly, notable theater artists like Lypsynka — as well as local drag queens tirelessly strutting their stuff at gay bars — have been using the performance technique for decades, particularly in the service of camp. However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it utilized to convey serious drama as it’s been here. The text has been patched together by Mr. Hnath from a series of interviews conducted by Steve Cosson – the founder and artistic director of The Civilians, a theater company well known for specializing in documentary or “investigative” theater – with the playwright’s mother, who recounted the events leading up to, during, and after her abusive abduction. Absorbing such traumatic firsthand experiences highlights the slippery, distorting nature of memory and the sinuous, heightening power of a point of view. In addition to just being a plain absorbing – albeit unsettling – docudrama, Dana H. is also a mold-breaking exploration of what constitutes a “play” and “performance”.

Which brings us to Deirdre O’Connell’s extraordinary work in the title role. Her lip-synching is so perfectly calibrated to the recording that I often times forgot she wasn’t utilizing her own voice. Ironically, Ms. O’Connell’s disciplined, steely work in Dana H. just may well turn out to be one of the defining roles in her already accomplished theater career. So convincingly does this fascinating actress leverage facial expressions, gestures, and sense of timing in her performance here that I’ve come to reassess the very notion of “acting”.  Director Les Waters has given the production a deceptively simple staging, but his work is in fact quite a sophisticated portrayal of the our courageous heroine’s journey. At the Vineyard, Dana H. comes on the heels of Is This a Room, another piece of documentary theater that thoroughly beguiled audiences. Could the folks here be onto something?

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

DANA H.
Off-Broadway, Play
Vineyard Theatre
1 hour, 15 minutes (without an intermission)
Through March 29