Robert O’Hara’s Mankind, now playing at Playwrights Horizons, is a gonzo nuts completely off-its-rocker laugh-out-loud tragedy, and I mean that as a compliment. It was near impossible to predict how the plot would unfold from scene to scene. By intermission, my guest and I just decided to stop trying and just let O’Hara take on his roller-coaster ride of work.

I won’t say much about the plot, so you can enjoy the thrill of the ride yourself. Suffice to say, the publicity material for the show is accurate but reveals little. Hundreds of years into the future, women have died off. In order for the species to survive, men have had to adapt and so have altered the male body to support pregnancies. The dark comedy dissects media culture, religion, and, most importantly, the permanence of patriarchy. What intrigues is how many of society’s worst instincts flourish without the presence of women. O’Hara slyly builds a world where men continue to speak for women, even if they are not present.

Mankind comes at an opportune moment, and, whether intentional or not, comments on the conditions that created the #metoo movement. The men of Mankind, while not the embodiment of evil, are short-sighted, vain, narcissistic, officious, mercurial, uncaring, and unaware. They damage all they touch, and rather than seek a better way, they try to weasel out of things. They are the bull in the china shop that, after having demolished the first shop, has been taken to a second. It is a searing indictment.

The ensemble of six men is uniformly excellent, and they fulfill the most important rule of an actor appearing in a satire: to play with absolute seriousness the most ridiculous lines and actions given to you. Bobby Moreno as Jason stands-out in particular. He portrays Jason as a somewhat dim man who is also eager to exploit any opportunity for profit. Again, not wanting to give anything away, the costumes, sets, and props do justice to O’Hara’s bat-shit crazy vision. Which, again, is a good thing.