“Strategic Love Play” at the Minetta Lane Theatre (Photo: Joan Marcus)

In Strategic Love Play, the first word of the title matters more than the second. Miriam Battye’s Edinburgh Fringe hit, now at the Minetta Lane in an Audible Theater production, chronicles the ins and outs of desperate dating after thirty. For singletons Jenny and Adam, the old cliché holds true: Mister- or Miss-Right-Now often looks more appealing than the partner of your dreams.

Unfortunately, clichés abound throughout this thin exploration of conscious coupledom, directed with regrettably slack rhythms by Katie Posner. The romantic comedy genre is not an endlessly deep well, but it feels as if we’ve encountered every plot point under a more interesting guise before. Jenny (Heléne Yorke), staring down the barrel of another year alone, tries desperately to convince herself that love requires compromise. Adam (Michael Zegen), a prototypical nice guy, pines for a female friend now married to a man of whom he doesn’t approve. In the script, the characters are called simply “Woman” and “Man,” perhaps in a nod to universality—but it also underscores the lack of specificity or personality in much of Battye’s writing.

The production largely coasts on the charm of its costars, although even at 70 minutes, it manages to wear out its welcome quickly. (Anyone who’s struggled through a bad blind date might find themselves suffering a bout of PTSD, noting the several moments where time seems to stop.) And although Yorke and Zegen are individually talented, they make an unconvincing pair. Perhaps that’s dramaturgically sound—we are in the realm of a forced encounter—but you sense after a while that you’re watching two siloed performances, without much hope for even a spark of chemistry.

Yorke and Zegen are very different actors. She excels in big and broad moments, but her affect flattens out when she attempts to introduce Jenny’s vulnerability. He finds genuine pathos in smaller moments, but seems to recede whenever he’s not the center of the scene. A viewer can sense a mismatch of styles here rather than a deliberate choice on the part of the director, and it makes for an awkward hour. Perhaps if the material were livelier or more engaging, it wouldn’t matter so.

As usual, the Audible team supplies a handsome physical production, though not one that makes the most ideal use of the Minetta Lane space. Arnulfo Maldonado’s scenic design calls to mind any number of indistinct urban craft bars, but the choice to park Yorke and Zegen at a single table downstage center, rather than moving them around the playing area, creates a static environment. Similarly, Jen Schriever’s lighting doesn’t do enough to telegraph the passage of time. (Whether the action takes place in the continuous moment, or over a series of encounters, remains unclear.) Background noise in Tei Blow’s sound design appears to come and go at will—there is never a sense that Jenny and Adam are really in a crowded, busy bar.

Strategic Love Play will be recorded and released by Audible sometime in the future, and that feels like a smart, strategic choice. The awkward encounter might work better as a podcast dramedy, something to mindlessly consume while jogging or driving to the grocery store. Sitting in a theater, checking your watch every five minutes, it seems instead like a bad date that just won’t end.