In the online world, a tawdry title like “Sex With Strangers” could be considered “clickbait,” a provocative teaser aimed to attract visitors to a Web page that belies the true nature of the piece.
As salacious as “Sex With Strangers” sounds, the two-character drama is a robust, compelling study of the complexity of intimacy and personal identity in the digital age, which Arizona Theatre Company, in collaboration with Phoenix’s Stray Cat Theatre, opened Friday evening at the Temple of Music and Art.
There is sex and profanity, but those are not the heart of the play.
Olivia, played by Heather Lee Harper, is a pushing-40 female novelist and teacher who’s alone, sipping wine on a blustery night as she polishes up a novel at a bed-and-breakfast writers’ retreat in rural Michigan. Unexpectedly, brash 28-year-old Ethan, played by Tyler Eglen, barges in hours late for his reservation, and packing boyish cockiness, killer abs and a touch of sleaziness.
Ethan is apoplectic that the Internet and cellphone service are out due to the storm, but reserved, reluctant Olivia is content with her hard-copy books and paper manuscript. Ethan has read and loved her first novel, a literary success and commercial failure, and their meeting might not be so accidental.
Ethan is a blogger who has turned his drunken debauchery and sexual exploits into two best-selling books, titled “Sex With Strangers” and a follow-up. He has come to the retreat under the pretense of finishing a screenplay based on the books.
As the two sip — actually gulp — wine and verbally spar, sparks fly and they get frisky. No surprise here as the script trots down the well-worn romantic-comedy path.
However, Laura Eason’s script takes a fresh, tech-era route, and director Ron May, co-founder of the Stray Cat Theatre, keeps the action quickly paced yet gives the actors time to fully exhale as they deliver their lively interchanges.
Ethan is launching an app to promote writers, and seeks to be a novelist who writes more sophisticated, insightful work than about his detestable escapades with women. Disenchanted Olivia, burned by the nasty criticism and poor sales of her first published novel, is hesitant to risk breaking herself or her new book from her cocoon.
The two develop a sexually charged relationship, and Olivia hesitantly collaborates on a project with Ethan. The play asks “who are you” several times as it explores the difference — if there is one — between an online persona and who a person really is.
Likewise, the play probes how trust is created and painfully broken. To a lesser extent, “Sex With Strangers” questions whether something must be an object, say a book, you can hold and smell to be real.
Harper brings Olivia’s vulnerability, frustration and anxiety to the stage. Her body language is impeccable, such as using throw pillows as a shield against Ethan’s verbal and emotional barrage.
Eglen does sleaze well. His sexual postures as he hits on his counterpart are bed-hopping, bad-boy ideal. Yet he is able to bring a seemingly sincere, not-a-jerk Ethan to the surface. The duo has chemistry, and creates sexual tension.
ATC Artistic Director David Ira Goldstein said during opening comments before Friday’s production that the 14-year-old Stray Cat Theatre produces adventurous, new, out there plays. “Sex with Strangers” fits the bill.
The two companies’ collaboration enables Tucson audiences to experience a contemporary play that will leave you wondering what’s real the next time you click on an online item.
