Zachary Desmond, Christopher Dylan White Photo by Jackie Abbott

I liked Initiative, but at least an hour and a half of it was devoted to the acting out of a Dungeons & Dragons-like game, which for some of us elders in the audience might as well have been a foreign language. No such mystery enfolds Degenerates, which focuses on the incel community, those lonely and often vituperative young men who band together online and dis everyone who isn't them, which is to say, anyone who's getting some. Their growing army hasn't been dramatized much onstage; Degenerates makes a very good case for doing so.

It opens in darkness, with Anna (Olivia Rose Barresi, playing all the female parts and, for some reason I couldn't fathom, reciting a lot of the stage directions), a helpline counselor, in tense conversation with Kemp (Tyler Nowell Felix), a possibly suicidal young guy who feels lonely, worthless, and, most of all, unloved. He thinks Anna might be AI, and "what does it even matter if you're a woman or a robot, 'cause when I hang up I'm just gonna be alone again." His misery and desperation are palpable, but he has one source of support: the fellow incels he kvetches with online.

Most especially Miller (Zachary Desmond), sort of their leader: 28, smart, verbal, able to drop Camus or Goebbels into any context, and filled with resentment for all the people who have all the things he doesn't. Also in the group: Serge (Juan Arturo), older and more confident than the rest, but sharing their misogyny and self-loathing; and Target (Christopher Dylan White), 18 and professing to be straight–but his apartment, strewn with pink sheets, stuffed animals, and girly-anime posters, suggests a more complicated identity.

Most of Degenerates deals with the evolving relationship of Miller and Target, to the point where we tend to forget about Serge and Kemp, until Kemp makes a momentous Act Three appearance (we never see Serge). Target, with a sweeter disposition than his fellow incels and a sturdier income from his online sex work, reaches out to the gawky, chain-smoking Miller, and what evolves is, let's try and avoid spoilers, but I was surprised not to see an intimacy coordinator billed.

Went writes convincing and pungent dialogue for this sad community, and treats them with–not exactly sympathy, they seldom deserve it–but with understanding, and even a lively humor that undercuts their frequent awfulness. Miller: "Foids [female humanoids, and yes, the program should have contained a glossary] using men as pawns to compete with each other, tale as old as time." Target idly launches into "Beauty and the Beast." Miller: "Talk about a movie worth studying. He's a literal monster, but give a bitch a library."

In a helpful program note, Went writes, "This is the premise of Degenerates: If your identity is predicated on being ‘unlovable,' what happens to you when you are offered love? What violent reconstruction of the self must take place in order to receive that love? Is there a point of no return, after which love can only be perceived as an existential threat?" Scary questions, and scary how these guys answer them in destructive, isolating ways. Desmond, having to run the gamut of emotions from Miller's alpha need to dominate discourse to the pathetic lack of confidence he's masking, aces a character both loathsome and pitiable. And White, who was also wonderful in Initiative, can convey myriad feelings with just a vacant stare–Target's longing, vulnerability, panic at interacting with others (he hasn't left his apartment for six months), and swift calculation of what the other person is going through. Felix and Arturo have less to do, but they do it well.

True, we're only getting a limited look at this community, and Went might have filled in more details on their offline lives–we'd understand them better if we knew more about their work, their surroundings, and their social life, if any. And her third-act plotting includes a major coincidence involving Target and Kemp, one that strains credibility, and a surprise fate for Miller that isn't really a surprise. But she lays out an environment that more than plausibly explains these bros' behavior: COVID narrowed their lives, they feel unattractive and can't shake that off, and they spend too much time in a narrow echo chamber that amplifies the prejudices they learned from hanging with one another. It's a silo of an existence, and there are times you want to scream at Miller or Kemp or Target, step out into the real world, will you please.

Emma Rosa Went directs with the same assurance she brought to Initiative, unafraid to let her actors shout past one another or indulge in the big emotions their characters are suffering; and, given how much of the stage time is given to guys staring at computer screens, her blocking is quite robust. Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams's set, two platforms representing Miller's and Target's rooms, tells us something about their occupants, and Kindall Almond's costumes are just the downmarket duds this crew would wear. S. Katy Tucker designed some projections for the final moments, which didn't seem necessary.

These aren't likable people, but they're never uninteresting, and calling them "degenerates"–the term also refers to the sympathetic lefties they despise–feels excessive. A better title for this compelling evening might have been The Lost Boys, but that one was taken.