TheatreReviewHampstead theatre, London
Emilia Fox and Theo James star in Laura Eason’s two-hander about an implausible relationship between writers in a Michigan B&B
The title is certainly titillating. However, Laura Eason’s intimate two-hander, first seen at Chicago’s Steppenwolf theatre in 2011, promises more than it delivers. It is as much about literary life and artificial identities as about sex.
It starts in a snowbound Michigan B&B that acts as a bolt-hole for reclusive writers. Its sole occupant, at the outset, is Olivia: a 39-year-old badly bruised by the reception of her first novel and shy of subjecting her work to public scrutiny. Her peace is shattered by the arrival of Ethan: a bombastic, tech-savvy guy 10 years her junior who has enjoyed huge success with an internet memoir, from which Eason’s play takes its title. He is also an ardent admirer of Olivia’s disregarded novel.
That, along with the fact that there is no TV or internet access, explains why they are soon bonking merrily away.
Eason, whose play spans two years and later shifts to Chicago, goes on to raise a number of issues. I could never, however, believe in its premise. Ethan’s book recounts his experience of having sex with a different woman each week for a year. It started as a blog, has spent five years on the New York Times bestseller list and been optioned for screen. We also discover that it is violently misogynist in tone. Even though written under a pseudonym, it would, in today’s America, have caused a national scandal.
So how come Olivia, unless she’s been living in a nunnery, seems hardly aware of its existence? Eason goes on to offer a series of false binary choices. In her literary world, you are rich and popular or poor and obscure; most writers I know occupy the hazy middle ground. She also suggests the world is divided between those who embrace or reject the digital revolution. But her main argument is that the internet allows us to manufacture fake identities at odds with reality.
It’s an idea Patrick Marber touched on in Closer, but here it is hard to swallow. How could Ethan’s Trump-like literary persona not have infected his supposedly sensitive private self? Lewis Carroll’s Queen could believe six impossible things before breakfast: Eason asks us to believe many more before supper. But the production, by Peter DuBois, generates a modest suspense and the acting is perfectly good. Emilia Fox suggests that within the tremulous Olivia lurks a questing ambition and Theo James does all he can to reconcile one to a bifurcated guy who makes Jekyll and Hyde look well integrated.
For all the couple’s intense grappling on floor, table and sofa, Eason’s play never persuades me their relationship would have survived the melting of the Michigan snow.
At Hampstead theatre, London, until 4 March. Box office: 020-7722 9301.
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