Des Moines Off-Broadway Reviews

Denis Johnson’s play takes place entirely in a kitchen. But Des Moines, being given its New York premiere by Theatre for a New Audience, is as far from a kitchen sink drama as you can get. Sure, it starts out that way, with a middle-aged couple, Dan (Arliss Howard) and Marta (Johnna Day), sitting down for a snack and debating such issues as butter versus margarine while Dan eats some leftover microwaved spaghetti. But it isn’t long before this unsettling work from the late author of such acclaimed novels as Tree of Smoke and the short story collection Jesus’ Son turns into something far stranger. During the course of the evening all of the characters liberally consume the potent alcoholic drinks known as depth charges, and this play carries a depth charge of its own.

And yet the odd characters in “Des Moines,” which had its New York premiere on Friday night at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, can’t even use the depth chargers (as they call the drink) that they consume as an excuse for their peculiarities. The play, written by Denis Johnson and presented by Theater for a New Audience with Evenstar Films, drops a cast of characters into the depths and doesn’t try to reel them back in. Instead, we’re often the ones lost at sea.