F**KING STRANGERS – Echo Theater Company
Atwater Village Theatre – 7-18-2026 Opening Night
Reviewe by Chris Cassone ccassone@chriscassone.com
Billed as a “dark comedy of love and loneliness,” “F**king Strangers” is funny, deeply lonely and, yes, very dark.
I fought the play for the first 20 or 30 minutes. It did not make sense to me. Here were all these people using sex as a stopping-off place while each tried to figure out how to become human. I wanted to grab them by the lapels and yell, “Dude, sex is overrated.”
But first, there were no lapels. In fact, for much of the play, there was very little clothing.
Second, it seems sex has become more than an act of intimacy. It has graduated into the realm of therapy and, at times, almost a God-given right: life, liberty and the pursuit of an orgasm.
Just hang on, as I did, and a gloriously smart, thoughtful and creative story begins to emerge. It is rather like a Gordian knot that seems impossible to loosen until, suddenly, it slips apart.
Then it all makes sense.
More than making sense, it taught this observer a thing or two about prejudgment.
I must not reveal the denouement, because the fascinating untying of these four stuck people, each locked in a spiral of loneliness, is the heart of the play. To tell much more would spoil it. Suffice it to say: wait for it.
A word about the Echo Theater and its sage, Chris Fields, who directed this gem. Fields has been building his troupe since 1996, premiering more than a hundred plays and collecting the awards to prove it. So, when the title appeared, “F**king Strangers,” I knew I was in good hands.
This is Echo, after all.
Trust them, a voice inside me said.
And I did.
Four marvelous actors slowly unwound Erik Patterson’s unique tale. At times, the experience became intensely personal, as though I were listening through the wall to a therapist and her client. We were voyeurs, occasionally wanting to turn away from intimate details that seemed almost too private to hear.
Tasha James plays Julianne, a devoted wife and mother who delivers her story while massaging a silent, almost captive client. James had some of the best comic lines of the night, and she knew exactly how to land them.
Julianne has the most skin in the game because she has shown the most fidelity. Unfortunately, she is so faithful that she remains unaware of the dysfunction festering around her. In the end, it is her capacity for forgiveness that breaks the cycle.
Someone has to ante up first.
James Tupper finds the perfect angle on the meekness of Mick, Julianne’s husband, a man so buried beneath his lies that he can no longer recognize the truth. Mick supplements his life by paying escorts to follow his direction, as though he were staging a play.
A play about sex.
When his come-to-Jesus moment finally arrives, it comes through the mirror Julianne holds before him. To save her marriage, her family and herself, she must first try to save her son and husband.
Rufus, or Ru to his friends, is the collateral damage. He is so broken that he cannot leave his bedroom. He, too, resorts to escorts, and you will not believe which escort he lands.
Michael Sturgis plays the wounded young man with painful precision. Ru is so distanced from reality that he can meet sexual partners only through FaceTime.
Finally, there is Dylan, a ripped escort played with perfect dispassion by the flexing Sean Luc Rogers. Dylan is simply fulfilling people’s needs. He did not invent the wheel, but he is certainly happy to make a dollar rolling it around.
Of course, amid all the role-playing and pretending, people begin to need one another. Some even fall in love. No one is prepared for that most powerful and unruly of human emotions.
Unfortunately for Dylan, when the music stops, he is the one left without a chair.
We are given a sparse set containing only two simple beds, each representing a different room. Amanda Knehans’ scenic design keeps our attention squarely on the action.
My ears always notice good sound design, and M. Glenn Schuster makes the scenes snap with a series of precise touches: the truck that nearly hits Ru, fireworks exploding in the distance and the ever-present buzz of a cellphone, which repeatedly made me check my own.
What eventually welled up in me was pathos for these damaged creatures, each selfishly retreating into fantasies with one immediate purpose: the next ejaculation.
Just when I thought I had surrendered entirely to the physical, the emotions Patterson had been toying with inside me became beautifully jumbled. A glimmer of spirituality emerged. When the entire family finally took a step toward healing, there was not a dry eye in the fifth row, seat #1.
I am still not sure why I initially resisted the sight of men playing beneath the covers. Perhaps I have some work to do on myself.
I do know one thing: Julianne is a saint.
And if Erik Patterson writes at least one saint into every play, I am down for the next one.
Bravo, Echo Theater.
F**king Strangers continues on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 4 p.m.; and Mondays at 8 p.m. through August 24.
Tickets range from $15 to $42.75. Tickets to previews and all Monday night performances are Pay–What–You–Want starting at $15 if paying cash at the door plus an additional $1.50 per ticket fee if purchasing online or at the door with a credit card. Early Bird tickets to Friday, Saturday and Sunday performances are available through July 3 (online only) for $20 plus a $1.75 per ticket fee. Tickets to Friday, Saturday or Sunday performances purchased after July 3: $40 cash with an additional $2.75 fee per ticket if using a credit card.
Content warning: F**King Strangers contains mature sexual themes and is recommended for ages 18 and up.
Atwater Village Theatre is located at 3269 Casitas Ave in Los Angeles, CA 90039. For more information and to purchase tickets, call (747) 350-8066 or go to EchoTheaterCompany.com.
Editor’s Note: Chris Cassone is a record producer and songwriter who has just released his coffee-table book, Art of the Stompbox, available on Amazon. His next book, Me & Ace, a memoir about his 54-year friendship with the late KISS guitarist, Ace Frehley, will be out this fall.