It’s boy-meets-girl time at the Geffen Playhouse, where Laura Eason’s Sex with Strangers is having its West Coast premiere (after debuting at Second Stage Theater, New York in 2014). The love story, which is more raunchy than romantic, dissects the relationship between Olivia (Rebecca Pidgeon) and Ethan (Stephen Louis Grush), two writers from dissimilar worlds who fall for each other in an unlikely but passionate way. How to keep the flame burning, despite misunderstandings and squabbles, is the question posed by the playwright. Eason, long a fixture on the Chicago theatrical scene and now a TV writer (“House of Cards”), shows a flair for humor; her dialogue is snappy and witty throughout, making for continual laughter, laughter which helps mitigate the story’s boy-loses-girl/boy-gets-girl predictability. To go with her skill at being funny, Eason writes sharply delineated characters. Olivia is not only older than Ethan (by some ten years) but is a serious (if failed) novelist, one who truly loves literature, books —especially the feel and smell of them. She’s idealistic, thoughtful, and old-fashioned in many ways: she’s lived in Europe, doesn’t do Twitter, and thinks most blogs are written by semi-literate idiots. Her idea of heaven is having the silence and peace to read the classics. Ethan arrives (in a writer’s retreat in Michigan) from a very different world, the digital world. The internet is his domain, the key to his success. His blog, “Sex with Strangers,” a semi-fictional account of his many amorous conquests, not only gained him a huge following but led to a book contract, a best-seller and a movie sale. He’s rich, cocky and a real stud, one who has seduced hundreds of women, but guess what: he’s also got a sensitive, caring side. He appreciates good writing, especially hers (having read her novel), and wants to become a serious writer himself. Ethan, after quickly bedding Olivia and falling for her, announces that he wants to help her. Give me your second novel, the one you have written for yourself, and let me put it out there on the internet, as an e-book, he tells her. I’ll promote the hell out of it and turn it into a best-seller. The offer has a profound effect on Olivia. Should she trust Ethan, she wonders. Although she knows she feels love for this young, incredibly sexy guy, there is still something about his brash, macho behavior that troubles her, makes her doubt him. She also can’t help but feel apprehensive about publishing again; what if the book gets bad reviews, fails to sell? Why should she subject herself to that kind of humiliation again? These are just a few of the problems Olivia and Ethan must resolve if they are going to end up in each other’s arms by the final fade to black. Thanks to Eason’s captivating, laugh-filled script and above all to Grush and Pidgeon’s splendid performances, the journey to resolution is a happy and satisfying one.
