Jonathan Dylan King and Sarah Wylie (Photo by Zack Morrison)
Reviewed by F. Kathleen Foley
McCadden Place Theater
Through March 3
RECOMMENDED
Over the past couple of decades, the distinction between fame and notoriety has blurred. When entertainment empires are built on sex tapes and certain politicians remain impervious to the consequences of sexual malfeasances, it’s as if any sense of active shame has been largely eclipsed in public life.
In Sex with Strangers, Laura Eason’s well-plotted, emotionally complex two-hander, Ethan (Jonathan Dylan King) actively courts shame. Indeed, he has built his current fame and prosperity on notoriety. Conversely, Olivia (Sarah Wylie) feels such shame for her first novel’s handful of unfavorable reviews that she refuses to re-enter the public arena for fear that she will once again be humiliated.
A self-proclaimed “hobbyist” author, Olivia is now working on a second novel but has no plans to ever market her new book. She bristles when the bombastic young Ethan braves a blizzard and arrives at an isolated writers’ retreat, interrupting her work. (Wylie contributes the utilitarian set, well-lit by designer Kathi O’Donohue.)
Undeterred by Olivia’s icy reception, Ethan brags that he is a popular internet celebrity whose R-rated blog-turned-book, Sex with Strangers, has earned him fame, wealth, and five years at the top of The New York Times best seller list. Each week, Ethan hooked up with various women he met in bars — then wrote unflinching, often brutally mocking accounts of their sexual encounters. The women were not at all shamed by such disparagement. On the contrary, they clamored to become the latest conquest of this serial seducer.
Olivia is appalled yet fascinated by this glib, charming, decade-younger stranger who is not so unknown to her after all. In fact, he has joined her at the retreat by design. Their mutual acquaintance, a Pulitzer-winning novelist, urged Ethan to read Olivia’s now out-of-print first novel, which Ethan considers brilliant. Olivia warms up under the glow of Ethan’s praise, but it’s when he starts quoting from her book that she melts entirely. All systems are go for a hot hook-up.
The relationship between Olivia and Ethan is no one-night stand. Ethan makes it his mission to revive Olivia’s career and bring her second, equally brilliant novel to light. But he longs to be a successful novelist in his own right. Complications arise when their professional interactions spiral increasingly out of control.
As we learn, Ethan is not the devil of degeneracy he would appear, nor is Olivia a paragon of propriety. She finally voices her disgust over Ethan’s “dangerous” exploitation of women – but only after she has gotten a lucrative book deal through his good offices. And although his attraction for Olivia is sincere, Ethan proves just as exploitative. He wants her to launch his new writers’ app – and the fact that she signs with a powerhouse publisher instead with him prompts him to rash action.
In director Kate Sargeant’s beautifully naturalistic staging, Wylie and King explode with combustible sexual energy. The word “chemistry” has been sadly overused, but their performances, under Sargeant’s sure directorial hand, are nothing short of molten. Despite their characters’ blatant self-interest, King and Wylie keep them richly sympathetic, and that’s no mean feat. They plumb all the possibilities of Eason’s clever and timely play, which highlights the dangers of moral equivocation in an increasingly shame-free age.
McCadden Place Theatre, 1157 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 4 p.m. thru March 3. www.sweet-tix.com Running time: two hours with an intermission.
