Cort Theatre

Notwithstanding the fact that no play with the word "sex" in its title has ever won a Pulitzer or Tony, the first play of Lincoln Center Theater's 12th season was a wild and wicked comedy by Christopher Durang, provocatively titled SEX AND LONGING. In his first full-length play in almost a decade, Durang (the author of Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, The Marriage of Bette and Boo and Beyond Therapy) skewers both the Religious Right and the radical Left in America today - pouring gas on the already heated national discussion about morality triggered by this year's Presidential campaign. Nothing is sacred and no one is spared in this send-up of extremism in our society. Whatever your politics, Durang's hysterically funny play probably provoked a good deal of after-theater debate about where America is heading. SEX AND LONGING follows the outrageous and comical exploits of Lulu Dubois, a nymphomaniac, who with her gay roommate Justin, has just published an 'art' book called "Explicit Photographs of the Last 300 People We Slept With". In hilarious pursuit of their next 300 partners, Lulu and Justin encounter a randy U.S. Senator, his sexually repressed wife (who leads a campaign to ban Lulu and Justin's book) and a lustful, evangelical minister who's after Lulu's soul. Oh, and there's a serial killer on the loose who attacks Lulu, leaving her for dead. And that's just the first act.