“Degenerates” officially opens Off-Broadway: the reviews of Else Went’s play about the “incel” community

NEW YORK — The world premiere of the play “Degenerates” by playwright Else Went officially opened on the evening of September 29 at Playwrights Horizons, directed by Emma Rosa Went, and will run until October 11, as BroadwayWorld summarizes in its roundup of opening-night reviews. The play dives into the dark world of the “incel” community — young men who gather online around a shared feeling of being undesirable — and unfolds intimate, painful conversations between closed bedroom doors and the digital silos where they find refuge.

At the center of the story is a group built on shared, endless misfortunes — a telescopic, darkly humorous look at the extreme end of the male loneliness epidemic.

The first reviews are mixed. Thom Geier of Culture Sauce judges that Went “has a real knack for putting the audience inside the minds of the excluded and rejected”, and that despite running about three hours, the show “does not drag”, thanks to the writing and Emma Rosa Went’s thoughtful direction. Caroline Cao of New York Theatre Guide calls the first act, which lasts about 100 minutes, an impressive “slow burn” full of psychosexual tension.

On the other hand, Loren Noveck of ExeuntNYC asks the work for more of the “why”: in a week when the news tells of a woman gang-raped by a fraternity brotherhood who suffered minimal or no consequences, she would like more explanation of the reasons that push these men down this dark path. Michael Sommers of New York Stage Review describes it as a work of “grim nature and open sexuality” that “is unlikely to become popular”, but which in his view would surely find “second stages in braver regional theaters”.

Chantal Mann of Washington Square News closes with the most optimistic note: “If live theater is the art of empathy, Went’s greatest triumph is the ability to make these unlikeable characters matter to the audience.” According to BroadwayWorld’s roundup, the average critics’ score is 72.0%.