It’s hard to imagine the perfect audience for Neil LaBute’s world-premiere play, If I Needed Someone, at City Garage. It’s late at night and we’re in Jules’ studio apartment. She invited Jim over after a night out. They stopped at a bodega on the way home to get beers that they probably don’t need (she certainly doesn’t). They chug one anyway. It’s not really a first date, but it is their first time. It’s more of a, "Hey, we just hooked up at a party. What now?" The "What now?" is familiar to any love story and this play is really about the "What now?" in the age of consent. Even saying this is a play in the age of consent indicts what came before — the age of no consent. Neil LaBute’s breakout title was In the Company of Men, which he originally wrote as a play and then adapted and directed as a film in 1997. As one summary frames it, “Two business executives — one an avowed misogynist, the other recently emotionally wounded by his love interest — set out to exact revenge on the female gender by seeking out the most innocent, uncorrupted girl they can find and ruining her life.” Cheery, right? LaBute’s work is designed to push buttons. If you look at it charitably, his work is an unflinching look at sexual politics and misogyny. If you’re a little less charitable, it’s just misogynistic. If you give voice to a character who says awful things, are you championing that character? Those thoughts? Or by revealing the ugliness are you helping us to recognize how brutal our world is? At its best, LaBute’s work plays more in your mind than it does on the stage or screen. Do you identify with what’s being said? Do you agree? Are you like them? Do you judge them? Those questions running through your head are part of the dance. If I Needed Someone isn’t nearly as challenging as some of LaBute’s early work. In many ways, it’s quite tame. The 90-minute play is consumed with how two late 20s/early 30s people navigate a world where #metoo, consent, and boundaries are as much a character in their romance as the man and woman. Jim is consumed with what it means for a man now. One false move and he could get fired, or at least called into HR. Jules is up for being very upfront with her boundaries: "You can come in, but you can’t stay over." Neither one of them is a particularly likable character. Jim’s concerns about being misread or making one innocent mistake pale in comparison to Jules’ concerns about actually being the victim of physical or sexual violence. She isn’t drawn in the most flattering light either, a vomiting drunk mess who seems to be sending mixed signals at every moment. You might have moments of feeling empathy for one of them but LaBute doesn’t let you get too close for too long. You feel like there’s going to be some major plot twist, some reversal, or maybe an act of violence or passionate love. It’s a bit like one of those horror movies about the quiet, awkward trip to the lake that ends up being... just a quiet, awkward trip to the lake. The subheadline would seem to be, "Gosh, it must be hard to date after college in the current climate of sexual politics." Here’s where the question of audience — "Who is this play for?" — comes to the fore. This isn’t quite a play for folks in their 20s or 30s. It’s written with an odd nostalgia or awareness of a time "when guys could just be guys." For folks amid this reality, I imagine the play is a bit like explaining how to use a rotary phone to someone who’s only ever used an iPhone. It’s not a struggle that’s even familiar, much less relevant. And it’s not really a play for your typical 2 AM-beer-trip-the-bodega theater audience. On the walk to the parking lot, I heard two different couples asking a version of, “Did you identify with her?” or “Do you think like him?” but not shocked or offended — more in a "Thank god we weren’t like them." way. Perhaps the oddest twist of the whole night is that it actually has a happy ending. If I Needed Someone plays at City Garage in Santa Monica through September 8th. This is Anthony Byrnes Opening the Curtain on LA Theater for KCRW.

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