“Let’s Love!” – A Dramedy About Connection

By Alix Cohen

With Let’s Love! Ethan Coen gives us a contemporary La Ronde, the French anthology film directed by Max Ophüls. Seemingly disparate chapters on sex/love/attachment unexpectedly bleed into one another through characters. Do not attend unless you’re sexually open. Lenny Bruce had nothing on Ethan Coen’s casually described, soft core porn.

We open in an almost empty bar In New York, second home to The Broad (Mary McCann) who lives next door. Hair is big, blonde and sprayed; ample breasts almost rest atop the counter.

Caroline- we learn her name- is mouthing off to an otherwise occupied bartender when a well dressed business Man (Dion Graham) enters. He orders a drink, keeping to himself. She focuses like a guided missile, immediately offering to take him upstairs for a night of heaven he’ll never forget, then proceeds to detail sexual prowess and past relations.

McCann is completely believable from New Yawk accent to bawdy, uninhibited persistence.

Chapter two finds Susan (Aubrey Plaza) negotiating with a Tough (Chris Bauer) she’s hiring to beat up her ex-boyfriend. That we never know what’s what the ex has done to provoke the action is an unaccountably missing link. Her $20,000 is not enough, so she offers sex in graphic terms. The Tough is put off. To Susan, it’s no sweat, like shaking hands.

Plaza is good, though a bit over the top with unnecessary shouting. Bauer is superb. We can guess everything about him from speech, manner, and expression.

We meet Dan, the ex (C.J. Wilson) at his new girlfriend Faye’s (Mary Wiseman) apartment. He’s Charlie Brown sweet and worried about “Susie.” Insecure Faye doesn’t want him going anywhere near her. Cue more sex talk- and sex. He does, of course, go see Susie. What ensues between Susie, the Tough, Dan and Faye in successive scenes is farce.

Chapter three. Susie welcomes Howie (Noah Robbins) into her home. He’s something of a nerd, naturally inarticulate, and especially nervous. A dating site brought them together. Howie’s purpose is to find a mate, his hostess’s is to get laid.

Chapter four The Boy (Howie by any other name) is on a first date with a Girl (Dylan Gelula) at a restaurant. His special gift to her has broken the ice, though she’s warm and easy going in any case. What would have ruined his chances in any other circumstances endears him to her. Go figure. (Sight gags are wincingly funny.)

“Aren’t they sweet?” Nellie McKay declares from the piano where she acts as palate cleansers between chapters. “They’re rescues. You can sign up in the lobby to adopt.”

The curtain call is cheery and imaginative.

Director Neil Pepe has a handle on the playwright’s sensibility. We actually observe nothing sexual but reference abounds. Neither invisible italics nor quotes bracket descriptions. Actors are low key and believable. Timing is excellent.

“One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.” (Paul Simon) Sex, love, and communication are different for everyone.

Costumes by Peggy Schnitzer fit each character. The Tough Is inspired.

Nellie McKay- no surprise she knows Coen- in a variety of costumes, plays piano and briefly sings between chapters. There’s some American songbook and a few quirky originals. McKay has a tremulous, thin voice and pixieish quality.

Photos by Ahron R. Foster
Opening: Chris Bauer, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Wiseman,

Ethan Coen, with his brother Joel, has created such iconoclastic films as Fargo and The Big Lebowski. In his spare time, he likes to write short comedies for the stage. This is the third Neil Pepe has directed for Atlantic Theater Company.

Atlantic Theater Company presents Let’s Love!
By Ethan Coen
Directed by Neil Pepe
Through November 22, 2025
The Linda Gross Theater 336 West 20th Street https://atlantictheater.org/