THE HANGOVER REPORT – A long day’s journey into night of absurdity: Denis Johnson’s DES MOINES parties at the end of the world without inhibition

Arliss Howard, Hari Nef, Johanna Day, and Heather Alicia Simms in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of “Des Moines” by Denis Johnson at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center (photo by Gerry Goodstein).

Before leaving town for the holidays, I had the opportunity to attended Des Moines by Denis Johnson. Presented by Theatre for a New Audience (lovingly referred to simply as “TFANA”) in association with Evenstar Films, the production – which just just extended into the new year through January 8 at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn – marks the New York premiere of Johnson’s final play, which was written before the playwright’s passing in 2017. Set in the titular city in Iowa, the play depicts a drunken night that transpires between a motley crew of characters.

In essence, the play calls to mind a sort of modern day version of Eugene O’Neill’s alcohol-soaked masterpiece A Long Day’s Journey Into Night. The piece begins innocuously enough, but before you know it, the evening begins to impromptuly devolve into a messy, obscenely drunken night of debauchery. The beverage of choice? A wickedly potent concoction known as a depth charger, which is basically a variation on an “Irish car bomb”. Despite the characters’ specific idiosyncratic tics, there’s something chillingly and hauntingly existential about the whole affair. Indeed, the purposefully confounding play comes across like a love child between the spiritually desolate works of Conor McPherson and the aggressively absurd plays of Will Eno.

The production has been directed by TFANA usual suspect Arin Arbus, whose organic staging is an ideal match for Johnson’s unpredictable sensibility. The ensemble cast of five – Arliss Howard, Hari Nef, Johanna Day, and Heather Alicia Simms, and two-time Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon – collectively deliver fearless performances that present humanity in all its contradictory, irrational glory. With their guards thoroughly down, they face a broken, topsy-turvy world – with utter freedom and thrillingly without inhibition. Now that’s how to party at the end of the world in Des Moines.

RECOMMENDED

DES MOINES
Off-Broadway, Play
Theatre for a New Audience
1 hour, 40 minutes (without an intermission)
Through January 8

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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