“Degenerates,” which begins in literal darkness and seems to work hard throughout its overly long running time to keep me in the dark, is a play about the incel community: Incel, short for “involuntary celibate”; community, meaning lonely men who chat online. Playwright Else Went doesn’t much like that phrase “incel community,” as she tells us in a note in the program, finding it an insult. But she has clearly done extensive research, giving what sounds like authentic voice to vitriolic characters “who are violent in thought, who are hateful, and who are drawn from real men.” They speak in a language of their own devising – “femoid” (a derogatory term for women, combining “female’ and “humanoid”);  “decile” (a ten point scale used to rank status in the sexual marketplace.); degenerate (a member of the political left, or the off-spring of subpar mating.)

The first scene, the one conducted entirely in darkness, is a phone call to a suicide prevention  hotline by Kemp.

“There’s a gun on the desk in front of me, and I~ I’ve been looking at it for maybe three or four hours, and I’m not scared of it anymore.”
“Okay. And are you thinking of shooting yourself? Or someone else?”
“Me….Nobody cares about me.”

The conversation, which convinces Kemp at least to hold off for another day, is riveting

But it is followed by a scene that seems to go on endlessly, a desultory online chat with four incels: Kemp again (again just a disembodied voice), Serge (another voice) and two men whom we see in their bedrooms – Target, whose room is bursting with color, the floor full of plush toys, the walls covered with anime posters, and Miller, who lives spartanly in his parents’ basement, with little more than a microwave. We eventually learn Miller is the ringleader, the person who organized the group and is the most voluble,  by his own admission,  “if there’s one thing I’m good at it’s going on a rant.”

 It takes a while to learn just how troubled Miller is; his interaction with Kemp is the exact inverse of the conversation Kemp had with the counselor; Miller seems to be trying to convince Kemp to man up and kill himself.

The two disembodied voices eventually sign off – Serge is kicked off when they find out he has a son, so clearly not a virgin, and therefore a  “fakecel” (just pretending to be an incel.) 

Miller, 28, and Targe, 19, could not be more different; Target, a gentle soul who makes a living dressing up as a girl for an online video channel, is just about convinced to start the process of transitioning. But the two attempt something together neither has tried before; they meet in person.

The play from there goes in unexpected directions, and ends up almost as hopeful as it is horrifying.

“Degenerate” is about some very lonely people, and I suspect the unconventional stagecraft – the  pitch black phone call, the hour-long online chat, the voiceovers, a later scene that’s conducted in recorded voiceover  – is a way for the playwright Else Went and her wife the director Emma Rosa Went to emphasize artfully the characters’ detachment from everybody and everything; from three dimensional reality. But we go to the theater to be present, not to be detached.

The stagecraft, and the elongated scenes of casual conversation, suggest that the creative team is committed to verisimilitude at the expense of clarity and audience comfort. It’s not common to talk about audience comfort. A certain kind of prestige theater production seems deliberately indifferent to it; the longer we have to sit through and sift through the theatrical equivalent of cinema verité, the greater the acclaim. (Annie Baker’s “The Flick” and David Adjmi’s “Stereophonic” come to mind.)

Like those award-winning plays, there is much that is well-observed in “Degenerates,” and some moments that are bracingly theatrical. The cast members make the most of difficult and demanding roles, especially Christopher Dylan White as Target.   So it’s probably unfair and inaccurate to think that “Degenerates” would work better as a short story; more rewarding to read than to sit through. Let’s just say I’m thankful that the script is already collected in an anthology, and look forward to its getting its own individual edition.

Degenerates
Playwrights Horizons through October 18
Running time: 2 hours and 45 minutes, including one intermission
Tickets: $68 (for wheelchair seats) to $128
Written by Else Went
Directed by Emma Rosa Went
Scenic design by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, costume design by Kindall Houston Almond, lighting design by Jiyoun Chang, sound design by Angela Baughman, video and projection design by S. Katy Tucker, dramaturg Sarah Lunnie, intimacy coordinator Willow Funkhouser production stage manager Erin Gioia Albrecht
Cast: Juan Arturo as Serge and Chad, Olivia Rose Barresi as Stacy and others, Zachary W. Desmon as Miller, Tyler Nowell Felix as Kemp, Christopher Dylan White as Target.