DANA H. tells the harrowing true story of a woman held captive in a series of Florida motels for five months. Told in Dana's own words and reconstructed for the stage by her son, playwright Lucas Hnath, this groundbreaking work shatters the boundaries of the art form and challenges our understanding of good and evil.
Despite its well-honed beauty (Paul Toben sends a perfect sunset through those curtains), it's hard to measure Dana H. as a theatrical object. You can say O'Connell's performance is piercing, since it's dazzling on an artistic level, but there's also a quality of witness in what she's doing, which moves it beyond evaluation. The 'story' too has suspense, motion, revelation, exposition-all the components that critics like to tick off with their little pencils-though I came away staggered, finding that mode of critique very thin. Yet the truth isn't the whole story here either: This is not just a podcast or a dressed-up episode of This American Life. Waters, Hnath and O'Connell have made something intensely theatrical that reaches devastating emotional heights. All their distancing strategies have the paradoxical effect of drawing us close. We see the mask, but it makes us even more aware that somewhere, reality is crying out beneath it.
It is not just lip-syncing, though, which implies a very basic act of impersonation or mimicry. For one, O'Connell masters every rustle, movement of the body, caught breath, laugh, rise of emotion. Every sound that is on tape, every pause, everything is replicated by her. But she also inhabits the character of Higginbotham commandingly too, sitting there, facing us.
| 2020 | Off-Broadway |
Vineyard Off-Broadway Premiere Off-Broadway |
| 2021 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Awards | Deirdre O'Connell |
| 2022 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Play | Dana H. |
| 2022 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Play | Les Waters |
| 2022 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Deirdre O'Connell |
| 2022 | Tony Awards | Best Sound Design of a Play | Mikhail Fiksel |
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