Interview: Playwright Erik Patterson of F**KING STRANGERS produced by The Echo Theater Company

The Echo Theater Company is presenting the world premiere of F**king Strangers, a deliciously off-kilter dark comedy by Erik Patterson (pictured), commissioned by the company and directed by artistic director Chris Fields. In this twisted, hilarious and unexpectedly moving story about loneliness, desire, family secrets and the strange ways people try to save one another, we meet Ru, who hasn’t left his bedroom in six years; Mick, who can’t stop paying for affection; Julianne, who mourns the life she never pursued; and Dylan, who sells companionship to anyone who can afford him.

Tasha Ames (Julianne), Sean Luc Rogers (Dylan), Michael Sturgis (Ru), James Tupper (Mick)

As real-life and online obsessions blur into genuine intimacy, long-buried truths begin to surface. What starts as role-playing and fantasy spirals into a wildly unpredictable collision of sex, secrecy, family and redemption — with consequences that are both shocking and wickedly funny.

I spoke with Playwright Erik Patterson (pictured) about the creation of the play, his vision for its production, and how he hopes audiences will react to it.

Thanks for speaking with me today, Erik. What inspired you to explore the themes in this play, and why now?

I see a lot of theater, and so often, it feels safe. I’m ahead of the characters, I know what’s coming, there’s a kind of slackness to the whole experience. I go to the theater to feel something. Surprise me, shock me, move me. Put something onstage that fills me with a burning desire to talk about it after the show ends. I think we’re all a little bit lonely, we all have strange desires we don’t necessarily explore, and if you have a family then you probably have a secret or two.

So, when I sat down to write F**king Strangers, I was thinking about the messiness of life. But more specifically, I went on a date with a guy who had been closeted for thirty years; he explained that now that he was finally out, he was exploring his oats and reliving his lost horny youth. But as we talked, I discovered he’d been secretly sleeping with men during his entire marriage. So that “lost horny” time in his life wasn’t exactly LOST, it just went underground.

And that got me thinking about the ways we compartmentalize, and especially the ways being in the closet forces someone to lead multiple lives, and how this dissembling messes you up. One day you suddenly realize you don’t know how to be a fully actualized human being. That’s a little bit of what this play is about, and I hope we’ve created a night of theater that is dark, funny, and deeply uncomfortable in all the right ways.

Michael Sturgis (Ru) and Sean Luc Rogers (Dylan)
All production photos by Meghan McEnery

Ru hasn’t left his bedroom in six years, while Mick struggles with paying for affection. They’re both deeply flawed, yet surprisingly sympathetic. How did you approach creating characters whose flaws are extreme but still relatable?

I want to see flawed characters on stage. I want to see people make mistakes. Big ones. I want to see the suffering they cause themselves and others. I think the key to making a character sympathetic is showing that they’re struggling with human imperfections we all recognize and trying to do better. Even if they keep failing, if they’re at least trying, then an audience is going to want to go on that journey with them.

How is F**king Strangers a play for our times?

We live in a deeply messed up world. Ru has this monologue where he lists off dozens of reasons why he’s afraid to leave his house. Ru’s decision to stay inside might be an extreme reaction to trauma, but I think it’s one we can all relate to. Haven’t you ever had days, or weeks, where you wished you could hide away from all the bad stuff?

James Tupper (Mick) and Tasha Ames (Julianne)

In F**king Strangers, real-life and online obsessions blur. How did contemporary digital culture influence the story and characters?

First off, I just want to lament our digital culture! I wish we could go back to a time before the internet and cell phones; I really do. We aren’t supposed to know so much about every person in our lives. I have this fantasy that one day we’ll go back to flip or rotary phones. It’ll be this mass rebellion where we, as a society, cherish not knowing so much about our loved ones. But the characters in my play live in a world where it’s impossible to separate the real from the digital.

One of the characters in the play is a sex worker. Someone asks him if his parents know what he does and he says, “The escorting, the camming, or the OnlyFans?” It’s almost a given that his parents would know some of what he does; the question becomes “to what degree do they know?” It’s harder to keep secrets in a digital culture, and there’s endless drama in watching them unravel.

Tasha Ames (Julianne) and Michael Sturgis (Ru)

This world premiere was commissioned by The Echo Theater Company, which has a long history of supporting your work. How does collaborating with them shape your creative process?

I’m obsessed with the Echo. I was talking to my friend Jessica Goldberg the other day. You might know her wonderful play Babe, which the Echo produced a few seasons ago. We were saying how grateful we are for the Echo because they produce complicated, juicy, gnarly theater. Did you see Olivia Dufault’s play For Want of a Horse? I don’t know another theater in LA that would produce that play and it’s upsetting because it’s a great play about an upsetting topic that exists in conversation with Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia, and it makes you look at Albee’s play in an entirely new light.

In terms of shaping my creative process, I know the Echo will never ask me to water down my creative vision. I often wonder if my plays would be produced more if they had less sex in them, and I’ll think that maybe I should write something safer… but then I remember I can’t write something I don’t want to see. When I’m writing a play for the Echo, I know I can be bold and brave.

Michael Sturgis (Ru) and Sean Luc Rogers (Dylan)

Echo audiences may know your work from One of the Nice Ones and Handjob, but F**king Strangers pushes your comedy into even darker, stranger territory. Do you see this play as an evolution of your writing, or simply another corner of the world you've always been interested in exploring?

Writing is a muscle. The more you do it, the better you get at it. I would like to think that I’m a better writer now than I was when I wrote those other plays. So, it better be an evolution. Maybe you can tell me after you see the play? 

Cast members Tasha Ames, Sean Luc Rogers, Michael Sturgis, James Tupper

Do you see yourself in any of these characters?

I remember going out for drinks with a friend after another play of mine, and she said, “I know which character is you.” I said, “they’re all me.” But she refused to believe that. She was very adamant that one of the characters was “more” me. But I still maintain that every character I write is a little bit me just due to the fact that this character came out of my head. I’m not an agoraphobe, I’m not a sex worker, I’m not a closeted husband, I’m not a bored housewife. But at the same time, there’s an agoraphobic, a sex worker, a closeted husband, and a bored housewife living inside me at all times. My job as a writer is to tap into all those parts of myself, and then use my imagination to make those people feel as real as possible.

You’ve written for TV and film as well as the stage. When writing F**king Strangers, were there moments where your screenwriting instincts had to be ignored, or moments where they made the play stronger?

Movies and plays are entirely different animals. I love writing movies; it’s a skill that requires a certain precision. You tell your story visually; a moment that might have been a monologue on stage ends up being one line of dialogue on screen, or even just a wordless close-up on someone’s face. And because you’re telling your story so much more economically, I find it’s essential to outline a screenplay and figure out all the story beats ahead of time.

But when I’m writing a play, I let the play find itself. I go into it blind, without an outline. So, the first draft of a play becomes all about discovery. Like, “oh whoa, I can’t believe he said that, which means THIS has to happen next.” Your story goes in directions you never would have anticipated; it pivots in ways you wouldn’t have put into an outline. You let your unconscious mind take over.

James Tupper (Mick) and Tasha Ames (Julianne)

What do you hope audiences walk away with after seeing F**king Strangers?

I want you to walk outside the theater and immediately start talking about whether the characters made the right choices, and what you would have done in their situation. Then I want you to realize you’ve been talking so long that you should probably leave the theater, but you don’t want to stop talking so you drive down the street to continue the conversation at a bar or a late-night diner. (I recommend Astro on Fletcher.) Then I want you to have such a heated conversation over late-night French fries that the people at the adjacent table ask you what you’re talking about so you tell them to go see F**king Strangers at Echo Theater Company.

Anything else you would like to add about the play, its characters or actors, or the Echo Theater Company?

The cast is incredible. They will make you laugh and cry. Our insanely talented design team has created something special. Don’t miss F**king Strangers. These strangers like being watched…

Thanks so much!

Thank you!
 

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