Strategic Love Play

STRATEGIC LOVE PLAY

“Strategic Love Play” by Miriam Battye, directed by Katie Posner and produced by Audible Theatre and Chase This Productions.
Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane, NYC. Nov. 18 – Dec. 7, 2024. Sunday – Monday at various times. Tickets $71-87 at Ticketmaster, https://www.ticketmaster.com/strategic-love-play-tickets/artist/3269639?did=slptcw.
Reviewed by Glenda Frank

Photo by Joan Marcus

The setting (Arnulfo Maldonado) is perfect for romance. The dim lighting, a starlight ceiling and lighting fixtures that look like floating moons, and stage right an attractive, brightly lighted bar. Woman and Man, generics in the script for characters who take the names of the performers, met online. This is their first face to face and they have both arrived with attitude to spare. Michael (Michael Zegen) is ready to flee. His last long standing girlfriend dumped him. In her own words, she has never been chosen.

Welcome to “Strategic Love Play,” a sharp, comic two-hander by Miriam Battye, the ups-and-downs of the evening directed by Katie Posner. Heléne has arrived with an agenda. No small talk, nothing but what she wants and how to make him want it too. He wouldn’t mind a little sympathy or stroking. She is as overwhelming as a gestating spider with her mate. Coming on strong and direct is how Heléne masks her insecurity.

It's a powerful concept and the mostly young audience was eager for the confrontations. The theatre was abuzz before the lights dimmed on the audience. The first lines set the tone: “ Should we just hold hands and start promising shit now so we don’t have to do this bit?” Heléne asks. He laughs and she’s encouraged. “Oh, shit! That was easy!” But when she extends her hands, he frowns. The miscommunication soon turns into avoidance, then verbal duels. She accuses him of being optimistic. He needs an explanation. “Cos you’re sitting across from a stranger, hoping to form a relationship out of talking shit? Like, don’t you have any dignity?”

They connect. They brush past each other, they bristle, they push each other’s buttons, they decide the date is done, and they return. It’s a love dance. It’s boring and exciting by turns as they reach deep within themselves for the reason they are dating -- the hunger to build a life with someone. They are both wounded and lonely, frustrated by brief encounters with strangers.

Why does he stay? Maybe some of us watching want him to go. She is a little crazy. She admits it. But she offers deeper contact than any first date he’s been on, and she wants him to stay, to talk to her. Maybe she’s not his ideal. Maybe he’s not hers. But as they talk, they step beyond the meat market vibe and become dimensional. She makes promises we know she won’t be able to keep. He accepts her promises. It ’s easy to see what they are going to fight about. But fighting is contact too, and she has opened the door to honesty. Are you messy, he asks. Yes, she says without hesitation.

And hence, the sold out runs, here and abroad. The play offers lines and moments that taste good for days afterwards. It is decidedly not a museum piece.