“My boyfriend is a registered sex offender.” So begins Offended , written and directed by Chicago-based playwright Elizabeth Lovelady, which just concluded a short run at the Den this past weekend.

And when you start with a line like that, it’s all downhill from there. Hallie Peterson is Hannah, a therapist in her mid-thirties who has finally found the right guy. He’s employed, thoughtful, a great listener, and a generous lover. There’s just that one problem—which he does disclose early on, fully expecting she’ll never want to see him again. What happens then in this emotionally jolting and surprisingly funny one-woman play is that Hannah googles his offense and discovers some ambiguity in it.

Hannah spends the rest of her time justifying her relationship with him to herself (and us by

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