Reading Between the Sheets Anna Gunn and Billy Magnussen Star in ‘Sex With Strangers’
Charles IsherwoodJuly 31, 2014: “Who are you?” Those are the first words spoken in Sex With Strangers, a twisty and timely new play by Laura Eason, and they cut right to the core of this two-character drama about lust, love and the complex nature of identity in our digital-dominated era. When a persona can be tweaked, primped or entirely fabricated online, it may be a little tricky to figure out exactly who is lying in bed beside you: a sympathetic soul, or just a brand with a hot body? That opening line comes from Olivia, played by Anna Gunn (of Breaking Bad), a writer holed up in a remote bed-and-breakfast, spying a car out the window. She is idly wondering who would brave a snowstorm to reach this informal writers’ retreat in rural Michigan. The visitor turns out to be Ethan, played by Billy Magnussen (best known as the Boy Toy of the Chiseled Abs in Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike). The simmering rapport these two talented actors develop quickly lights a fire under Ms. Eason’s drama of good sex and bad faith, which opened on Wednesday night at Second Stage Theater in a production directed by the actor David Schwimmer.
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