Sobriety Finds Its Moment Onstage

Plays about addiction and recovery are filling Manhattan stages this month, depicting points on the recovery spectrum from harrowing to serene. Three productions are Off Broadway — The Dinosaurs, Blackout Songs and The Reservoir — while the immersive Anonymous has returned to a small Greenwich Village space.

Jacob Perkins wrote The Dinosaurs during the pandemic after getting sober in December 2019; the play, now at Playwrights Horizons, follows a recovery group that meets weekly in the same spartan room as members keep personal tallies of time since their last drink.

He recalled attending a Zoom anniversary where people were celebrating sobriety lasting “one minute” or 60 years, and noted that “that person who had 60 years could come back tomorrow with one minute.” Joe White’s Blackout Songs, at the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, grew out of an interest in dementia and memory.

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