‘Strategic Love Play’ Review: A Slightly Dark, Not-Quite-Romantic Comedy

There comes a time in some adults’ dating lives when the search for love slides down the priority list, and with it the pesky urge to be particular about who might qualify as life-partner material.

What’s far more vital, suddenly, is simply to couple up — less as a bulwark against the world than as a defense against the paired-off friends who fret about your singleness. So what if you and your new plus-one aren’t besotted with each other? At least you’re not alone.

This is where Jenny (Heléne Yorke) and Adam (Michael Zegen) find themselves in “Strategic Love Play,” Miriam Battye’s slightly dark, not-quite-romantic comedy at the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village. Directed by Katie Posner for Audible Theater and Chase This Productions, it unfolds over the course of a single rocky date.

For both Jenny and Adam, who evidently matched on an app, the prospect of having a default person to stand with the next time they go to a barbecue is a potently soothing thought. Which is maybe why they persevere through this awkward first encounter in a charmingly lit bar, where sconces hang on the bare brick walls. (The set is by Arnulfo Maldonado, lighting by Jen Schriever.)

Reserved and wary of Jenny’s big personality, Adam wants to bolt pretty much immediately, while Jenny is the kind of person who reacts to silence by trying to rile things up, get a reaction, be outrageous. From his rigid posture, his lack of interest is clear, but she is all about leaning in.

“Two-drink minimum,” she stipulates, meaning he’d better not leave before then. “Anything less would be — rather unmerciful.”