‘Sex With Strangers,’ theater review

“Sex with Strangers” is a juicy summer beach play.

You can’t savor it surfside, but just like a page-turner, this smart comedy pulls you in and keeps you wondering what’s coming next. The characters are fascinating, the coitus is hot — and, most important, there’s plenty of it.

It’s a very entertaining play and showcased with a sure hand for Second Stage by director David Schwimmer, a theater pro before and after “Friends.”

Describing the play in publishing terms is fitting, since it concerns two writers. Unsteady Olivia (Anna Gunn) was stung by critics’ reviews of her first novel. She’s finished a new work, but won’t let anyone read it.

A decade younger and relentlessly cocky, Ethan (Billy Magnussen) is an open book (in this case, a blog). His best-selling e-memoir — its title give the play its name — recalls dozens of nameless girls he casually bedded and recklessly discarded.

Ethan’s a jerk. Or he was. He maintains he was playing a role for his book, which he’s adapting for a film. Olivia isn’t sure that he’s changed one bit. But she still accepts his help to jump-start her literary career.

It’s an age-old story of opposites attracting and dealing with differences made fresh by playwright Laura Eason, who raises interesting ideas about ambition, ageism, sexism and the state of the Great American Novel.

A couple of scenes clunk, including a cliched overheard phone call. And the author doesn’t sidestep the inherent danger in every story about authors — someone’s got to declare another’s prose “brilliant.” Despite these minor stumbles, the play is well-crafted, with sly wit and perfect-pitch dialogue.

 

Schwimmer’s cast is as good as the script. Gunn, an Emmy winner for “Breaking Bad,” is believable and natural as she takes Olivia from mousey to ambitious. Magnussen, a Tony nominee for “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” again displays some of the best and most out-there comic chops — and abs and pecs. He also brings shading to Ethan that makes you question what he’s about.

That’s the point of the play, which begins with the line “Who are you?” “Sex With Strangers” reminds how hard it is to really know another with certainty. Or, for that matter, oneself.