Slyly shifting into five wickedly distinct characters that are simultaneous products of exaggerated achievement and lost hope, actor-writer Alex Lyras and director writer Robert McCaskill, astutely capture the post-modern alienation of the "just do it" life plan in desperelics.

The theme of desperelics emerges as both comic and sobering: life plans lead to chaos. The fanatic characters are portrayed as running over the very thing they're chasing. Their desperation to achieve fossilizes their true aspirations, making them no more than a relic.

Cultural victims include a genius philosophy prodigy with a penchant for hard tasks and pedophilia, a fitness trainer whose weakness for gambling keeps him pumped-up, a drug-delivery messenger whose knowledge of CPR help save a victim he dealt to, a corporate lackey whose career maneuvers enslave him to a copier, and the inventor of the first Greek diner in America.

A live musical score enhances this thought-provoking show.

Even if you vowed that you would never go to another one-person show, a newcomer named Alex Lyras provides some pretty compelling reasons to withdraw your pledge... Catch a refreshing young talent in the making in Desperelics.
Desperelics, introduces us to seven vibrant, intriguing, and passionate characters that a typical New Yorker will find none to familiar. But what is most uncommon about this refreshing evening of theatre is the care and effort that Lyras and McCaskill have invested in the show. The term self-indulgent, all too frequently descriptive of solo productions, has no place here.
The fanatical characters are portrayed as running over the very thing they’re chasing. The desperation to achieve freezes, if not fossilizes, true inspiration. The play, co-written by Alex Lyras and Robert McCaskill, who also directs, lands with full force as characters struggling with the central theme that life plans lead to chaos.
Desperelics is a show that will elevate your pulse and stir your imagination. Lyras is an actor capable of subtlety and nuance, so it’s ironic that his lowbrow New York characters are the most complete. It’s all too refreshing to experience the unexpected, and Lyras, under the skillful direction of Robert McCaskill, who co-wrote the show, is perpetually surprising.
Lyras’ effortless transition was nothing short of jaw-dropping. And thus began the journey that is Desperelics...The show contains no less than seven different, fully realized characters each one more hilarious and poignant than the last. It is a tribute to Lyras’ acting and McCaskill’s so-writing and direction, that while each scene is a monologue, he manages to convince you that you are watching a dialogue between two or more people. Even more remarkably, the other person frequently seems almost as real as the character actually on stage.
Desperelics, which follows in the path of Leguizamo, Glaser and Hoch, is a highly worthy evening of character monologues by newcomer Alex Lyras. Nearly all seven vignettes deal with urban working stiffs, be they pushing paper on Wall Street or pushing lunch hour drugs to the people who push paper on Wall Street. Lyras energy and compelling situations keeps eyes off wristwatches and on the stage.