Anna Gunn and Billy Magnussen’s opposites are very attractive in Laura Eason’s rewarding comedy directed by David Schwimmer

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.