I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking
for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night …
–Allen Ginsberg, Howl, 1955

In Pulitzer Prize-winning (The Flick, 2014) Annie Baker’s The Aliens, KJ (John Jurcheck) and Jasper (Casey Andree) sit amidst the psychological detritus of their lives, gathered around a coffee shop rear-entrance somewhere in small town Vermont.
After you turn off your cellphone, prepare to dial back the clock and proceed in real time. While Baker’s approach is challenging—Gotham critics were mixed over this issue—it’s well worth the journey. Think “Vladimir and Estragon come of age in Vermont.”

The newest employee at the coffee shop, Evan (Tucker Dally Johnston), a timid, confused high school music geek, emerges one day from the back door and ends up becoming their protégé. Johnston’s subtle transformation gives us hope that Evan may be the one to get out of this town alive.

Putting aside our societal hypnosis on the grandiose claims of those who offer “social progress,” we see what personal development looks like on the ground: incremental changes of the heart. 
