Review: Deirdre O’Connell Lip Syncs for Her Life in Lucas Hnath’s “Dana H.”

At this point it is hard to go more than a few months without a Lucas Hnath play. “The Thin Place” at Playwrights Horizons closed just a few weeks ago, and now we herald the opening of the wunderkind’s latest work, “Dana H.” Hnath is such a versatile, chameleonic playwright that it seems as if he has challenged himself to master — or at least attempt — every major style of drama. He has given us a literary sequel, a religious critique, an historical allegory, and a spiritualist psychological thriller, to name a few. Expanding this already ever-expanding playbook is his verbatim piece “Dana H.,” playing at the Vineyard Theatre, which is adapted from interview transcripts featuring none other than his own mother, Dana Higginbotham.

While the verbatim theatre trend (sometimes called documentary theatre or theatre of the Real), may seem like a theatrical vestige of former era, in the age of fake news it is making a comeback. The Vineyard Theatre’s previous production, “Is This a Room” was also in this style, and caused quite a stir due to its topical and political nature. “Dana H.,” while not having the current events vibe that documentary theatre often has, nonetheless has a rather compelling subject. In the interviews, Hnath’s mother tells the story of when she was kidnapped for several months by an escaped patient…