LOVE SUCKS
The neoromanticism of the 1960s has given way to increasing cynicism about the mysterious ways in which love seems to move, an antiromantic attitude reflected in David Wesley Graham’s two short plays at the Playwrights’ Center. But their collective title, “Love Sucks,” belies their prodigious humor and compassion.
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The first, Maybe Love, opens with a quintessentially romantic situation: Ben and Stormy, the best friend of Ben’s wife Sheila, have been indulging in an orgy for three straight days in a borrowed apartment. Despite fatigue and a diet of take-out food, Ben wants to continue the sybaritic idyll. “Sheila didn’t understand me,” he says, justifying his infidelity. “This is different. This is love.” Stormy, however, is having second thoughts. She points out that she’s neglected the job and housing search that brought her into Ben and Sheila’s lives, wrecked a lifelong friendship, and alienated the rest of their mutual friends. Furthermore, Ben’s stubborn wish for free and unconditional love is beginning to sound suspiciously like a child’s egocentric demands. Then the pizza they’ve ordered is delivered by a mysterious, slightly menacing clown who looks oddly familiar.
