Max Wolf Friedlich has returned with "The Holes," a new play that arrives as his follow-up to "Job," and according to the review headlined "Benediction in the Back Room," it trains its satire on the world of men's wellness and men-only spaces.

The review, published under that pointed headline, describes the result as "gleefully weird." That phrase carries the critic's voice, and it sets expectations precisely: this is not a solemn state-of-the-nation drama but a play that enjoys its own strangeness while it works over its targets.

Friedlich's subjects are specific. He takes on what the review calls "the men's wellness niche" — the commercial ecosystem of self-optimisation, ritual and recuperation marketed to men — and, alongside it, the phenomenon of men-only spaces. The play, per the review, subjects both to a "skewering."

The pairing is deliberate. Men's wellness has grown into a recognisable cultural sector, complete with its own vocabulary, retreat formats and commercial paraphernalia. Men-only spaces — clubs, groups, gatherings pitched as refuges or corrective spaces — have drawn both enthusiasm and skepticism in recent years. Friedlich, on the evidence of this review, lands firmly in the skeptical camp, and he does it through comedy rather than polemic.

The title itself, "The Holes," signals the play's willingness to be strange. So does the headline's image of "benediction in the back room," which suggests the play locates its satire in a physical setting where men gather to receive or perform some version of blessing, healing or affirmation. The back room is where the wellness niche's promises meet the reality of the spaces that house them.

For Friedlich, "The Holes" marks the next step after "Job," the play that established his name. Writers who follow a breakout hit face a familiar question: repeat the formula or strike out somewhere new. The review's account of "The Holes" indicates Friedlich chose the second path — weirder, looser, more openly comic — while keeping his eye on contemporary American obsessions with work, selfhood and belonging.

What connects "Job" and "The Holes," on this evidence, is a method: take a bounded environment defined by contemporary culture — the workplace in "Job," the wellness back room here — and let the pressure inside it build until the absurdity shows through the earnestness. In "Job," the setting was the world of employment and its psychic costs. In "The Holes," it is the world of men trying to feel better, together, on purpose.

The review's verdict, compressed into a single headline and a two-line notice, is that Friedlich has pulled off the transition. "Gleefully weird" is a compliment of a particular kind — it praises energy, risk and tonal control all at once — and "skewering" leaves no doubt about the play's critical direction.

Whether "The Holes" travels beyond its initial run, and whether Friedlich's satire deepens with repeat viewing, will determine if "Job" was a debut or the first entry in a sustained body of work about the rooms — office, back room — where Americans now conduct their inner lives.