Elliot LovesPaperback, 22 January 1994

Elliot is a bachelor in his late thirties whose new girlfriend, Joanna, is everything he ever wanted in a woman--intelligent, beautiful, warm, independent--and yet terrifies him for precisely that reason. A twice-divorced real estate broker who likes order in her life, she is equally scared of the precariousness of having someone matter to her. Their uncertainties come to a head when Elliot takes her to a party to meet 'the guys'--Bobby, who works for Playboy; Phil, a recovering alcoholic; and Larry, who 'is not comfortable with a woman outside the confines of a divorce court.' The encounter becomes an initiation ceremony crackling with witty, barbed, and devastating dialogue that strips the two lovers of all pretensions, forcing them to confront each other anew in a painful awareness of their vulnerability. The result is a bitterly funny play about the ambiguities of being in love, with Jules Feiffer at his most incisive, wise, and wickedly honest.