The Beatles wondered where all the lonely people were and where they came from in “Eleanor Rigby.” An anonymous writer posited, “but i don’t hate women / i give everyone a fair chance / am i really that unlucky?” Playwright Else Went gives us a deep dive into the provenance of loneliness among incels in “Degenerates,” currently running at Playwrights Horizons. Incels are people who are involuntarily celibate, those who cannot find sexual partners because of their inherent (usually physical) traits and the experiences of those persons. Else Went’s remarkable and dark play includes suicide, sexual content, slurs, and graphic material.

The life of an incel is inherently difficult. The script’s inclusion of suicide, sexual content, slurs, and graphic material reflects that level of adversity in the community. Indeed, in the first scene, we find Kemp (Tyler Nowell Felix) reaching out to a counselor on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline with a gun in front of him. Kemp is a terribly lonely twenty-one-year-old Black man who feels he is not a whole person, and he needs a whole person to care about him. Although he lives with his family, they do not understand him. Even his coworkers have ostracized him. And he tells his counselor Anna that she “sounds like something chatGPT would . . . are you, are you AI?” Kemp has only “Some guys online, who feel the same we talk about it.” This crisis-line scene plays out in near darkness, emphasizing the emotional emptiness of this lonely character and illustrates how loneliness works in the play.

Kemp’s loneliness is shared by guys online who chat frequently on Discord. In the first scene, we see Miller (Zachary Desmond), a twenty-eight-year-old White man and Target (Christopher Dylan White), a White teenager in their rooms. Miller is in his basement room in his mother’s house and Target is in his studio apartment. The divided and movable set is by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams. On the call but not on stage are Serge (Juan Arturo), a thirty-three-year-old Brown man, and Kemp. These incels are terribly lonely, and their shared conversation confirms this. They are also angry and that anger erupts throughout the play. Their conversation also includes homophobic language and language that dehumanizes women (“foids”).

The script for “Degenerates” includes a “limited glossary” of language native to the characters. This list is lengthy and is not included in the program. I wondered whether the glossary is necessary to understand the narrative’s conflicts. Although the glossary is interesting, it is not needed. The play explains its own terms. For example, when Target defines “Sexual Marketplace Value,” and Kemp defines “ascended,” the audience gets definitions inside the scene. And when Serge says, “I don’t know all this lingo,” the audience’s position is voiced onstage.

The loneliness of the incels is not the only theme of “Degenerates.” Taking the risk of stepping out of the cycle of loneliness, despair, and agoraphobia also plays out in the conflicts of Miller, Kemp, and Target. Miller’s attempt to reach beyond his isolation brings his underlying sexual anxieties to a boiling point when he visits Target in person. Before the meeting, Miller masturbates during their online video chats while Target applies makeup on camera. When he arrives at the apartment, unaware of Target’s deeper identity and plans for transition, Miller finds Target dressed in a lavender-wigged Kagome cosplay over a silicone breast form. Their meeting fluctuates wildly between Miller’s knee-jerk hostility—mocking the attire and lashing out in defense of his own identity—and his intense physical attraction to this “new” Target. The two eventually have sex, but the experience only deepens Miller’s guilt and fury regarding his own status. Rather than breaking his isolation, the encounter further entrenches Miller in incel vitriol.

Meanwhile, Kemp and Target embark on a contrasting path of tentative connection after both venture out of their long-standing isolation. Meeting in a bubble tea shop, Target adopts the persona of “Noelle,” while Kemp introduces himself directly, clarifying that he goes by “Kemp,” and “James” is his father’s name. Though far from an uncomplicated or unblemished relationship—the play leaves them cautiously navigating honesty as Noelle holds back unrevealed truths—their dynamic offers a fragile sanctuary where they agree to look after each other. While Miller’s trajectory collapses inward into anger and self-loathing, Kemp and Target manage to build a tentative, supportive bond that opens a door out of their shared solitude. This is the most hopeful thread in Else Went’s otherwise dark and somewhat unsettling exploration into the lives of her complex characters.

Under Emma Rosa Went’s deft direction, the cast develops characters that are believable, authentic, and predictably disturbing. Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams’s scenic design, Kindall Houston Almond’s costume design, Jiyoun Chang’s lighting design, Angela Baughman’s sound design, and S. Katy Tucker’s video and projection design add to the success of the staging of this important narrative. Target’s soft voice and the crisis-line staging in the first scene are examples of this stagecraft.

“Degenerates,” despite its challenging themes, is well worth the visit before it closes in January 2027. The script raises several enduring questions. Can anyone real care about us? This question arises in the crisis-line opening scene. Is being seen the same as being used? This question frames the scene with Target’s sister. Can a community formed around pain offer anything besides more pain? This question leads directly into the final livestream, which ends with Miller telling his stream audience, “You’re not alone. We’re not alone, because you sat down and stayed, and I love each and every one of you degenerate fucks for that. For real. And remember; this, this is only the beginning. I have plans for us. We’re gonna take this so much further. Let’s get into it.”