Audible Theater Challenges Dating with a Surprisingly Sharp “Strategic Love Play” – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Strategic Love Play

By Ross

“Are you OK?” he asks, as the two face off over beers after matching online. The two strangers sit, grinning and frowning at one another in a bar for a drink, dragging in expectations and a whole lot of online dating trauma (or should I call it history?) and planting it all fully on the table for them both to pick at, like a bag of chips. We will be that proverbial fly on the wall for this dating app-produced meeting, written forcibly by Miriam Battye (Trip the Light Fantastic) that plays with a bent-around reframing that sheds light on all those internal forces that complicate. Even as this date goes miraculously off-center, spinning itself around in an unpredictable aggressive manner, the matching feels compelling, surprising, and somehow true. Yet also unrealistic, as Strategic Love Play somehow interestingly navigates that conflict, while keeping us fully tuned in. Even as the setup rotates into atypical behavior that would never happen in the real world. But that, my dear reader, is not the point.

There’s some bigger fish to fry (or BBQ) here, and as Strategic Love Play spins into some pretty unknown territory, the kind that lives and breaths underneath nervous laughter and smiles, we can’t help but lean in. It’s almost like we are given an invitation to see the conversations these two are having inside their heads forced out loud into the open, to play those thoughts through as if they were real and required, like a video game given three-dimensional life in a well-crafted deserted bar, designed with a strong abstract reframing by Arnulfo Maldonado (RTC Broadway’s Yellow Face), with solid shifting lighting by Jen Schriever (2ST Broadway’s Mother Play), exacting costumes by Dede Ayite (Broadway’s Hell’s Kitchen), and a concise sound design by Tei Blow (PH’s Wet Brain). It takes a minute to engage, just like these two, played with a ton of internal care by Heléne York (“The Other Two”; Encores’ The Grand Hotel) and Michael Zegen (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; RTC Broadway’s Trouble In Mind), with each other, but when they finally start living big, strong, and unafraid, the formula sizzles with excitement.

Produced by Audible Theater and Chase This Productions, the play, as directed with clear intent by Katie Posner (Bristol Old Vic’s You Bury Me), never stalls, even when we reel from the hilariously sharp truths thrown from one to another in defensive stances that truly resonate. None of it feels at all possible in the real world, but it all connects to some inner truths that we hold and understand. That is if we have ever ventured into the world of online dating. It’s a brutal act of courage, if I’m being honest, that rarely brings the results we want or hope for. In Strategic Love Play, a show that sold out in London and solidly stormed the Edinburgh Fringe, the energy is precise, edgy, smart, and determined, especially when York’s firm hand is extended to attempt the impossible.

The dating vibe is off balance right from the get-go, with York’s Jenny, already exhausted from the seemingly “nice, normal person” she is sitting across from, smiling and laughing uncomfortably at all the crazy shit she throws at him. She’s aware, almost instantly, that this is a protective act of defense, but instead of backing off, she digs in, trying hard to knock his charade off balance and off of his game. She’s rather unmerciful to this pretend “happy person” and rightly so, as it’s clear they both have a lot to lose as she explains her idea, to throw caution and old habits to the wind and just “stay“, and not “get out before the smidge“.

Opposing ideas and thoughts spring forth, as the table turns on their positioning, especially as Zegen’s Adam tries to flee. But he can’t quite seem to get out the door. Each lies to their friends through voice messages that are soon deleted, but their hearts remain, sometimes braced for the fear that comes, or the relaxation that may follow. It would be so great if “we could just stay together for, like, ever“, just so they, their friends, wouldn’t have to worry about them anymore. But also, so they wouldn’t have to worry about themselves anymore, questioning their internal selves with negatives that linger in the air between them.

For 75 minutes, the backstories of Adam and Jenny spill out and are unpacked. The details sometimes are distorted or discarded before they are even revealed, and it’s not the most even unpacked match, but the stance of the two, even as they kneel on the bar’s floor negotiating the most impossible of ideas, makes us never give up on them, hoping for a common ground engagement that always feels just a tad out of reach. Deal breakers are tossed at each other, hoping for a negotiated acceptance that sometimes feels harder than we can tolerate, yet it all rings true, even in this alternate reality that is being delivered to us so succinctly by playwright Battye.

The two actors do a fantastic job selling us on a framing that is not entirely tied to reality, Yet there is an honesty that is stuck to the underside of that bar table like discarded gum. The script sometimes shifts almost too suddenly from engagement to retreat, but the act of trying to find your person is a tense, tightly wound game that is forever shifting and spinning out of control. The sharp solid performances make Strategic Love Play satisfying and intriguing, even if the ending feels harsh (but more real than maybe the whole play). It delivers insight into so many unsaid feelings that it’s hard to discard the underbelly once you leave the Minetta Lane Theatre, back into the harsh reality of life in NYC.