Des Moines 2022

Opened: November 29, 2022
Closing: January 08, 2023

Des Moines - 2022 - Off-Broadway History , Info & More

Theatre for a New Audience

262 Ashland Pl Brooklyn, NY 11217

Des Moines, the final play by late American author Denis Johnson, is his first at TFANA. It is a sensationally mysterious work. Chance events—including a plane crash, a rescued wedding ring, a frightening diagnosis, and makeup advice kindly offered to a louche Catholic priest—bring a group of lonely and haunted characters together for a debauch that becomes an unlikely communion. Arin Arbus directs the New York premiere of this searing and tender drama about the specter of death and the stubborn pursuit of grace among those who barely believe in it.

Arin Arbus, who has staged Shakespeare and American and European Classics for TFANA, first explored Des Moines in a TFANA workshop with Johnson. She observes, “Denis Johnson was a keen and loving observer of life. He wrote about what’s holy and hilarious and hard in our daily lives and was interested in the eternal human struggle to be awake to life in an uncontrollable and incomprehensible universe.”

FEATURED REVIEWS FOR Des Moines

DES MOINES: KITCHEN SINK NATURALISM, TURNED ON ITS HEAD

8 / 10

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.

‘Des Moines’ Review: Drowning in the Drink

6 / 10

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.

Des Moines FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What productions of Des Moines have there been?

Des Moines has had 1 productions including Off-Broadway which opened in 2022.

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