{"id":519,"date":"2010-05-20T21:30:58","date_gmt":"2010-05-21T04:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/?p=519"},"modified":"2010-05-22T04:16:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-22T11:16:38","slug":"prelude-to-a-kiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/2010\/05\/prelude-to-a-kiss\/","title":{"rendered":"Prelude to a Kiss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Play by
\nCraig Lucas
\nHuntington Theatre Company<\/a>
\nat Boston University Theatre
\n264 Huntington Avenue
\nBoston, MA<\/p>\n

Directed by Peter DuBois
\nScenic Design by Scott Bradley<\/p>\n

With Brian Sgambati (Peter), Timothy John Smith (Peter), Cassie Beck (Rita), Jason Bowen (Tom, Jamaican Waiter), Nancy E. Carroll (Mrs. Boyle), Michael Hammond (Dr. Boyle), Ted Hewlett (Minister), Cheryl McMahon (Aunt Dorothy, Leah), Ken Cheeseman (Uncle Fred), MacIntyre Dixon (Old Man), Georgette Lockwood (Ensemble), Alex Schneps (Ensemble)<\/p>\n

May 14 – June 13, 2010<\/strong>
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\"Reverse<\/center>
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\nThis Twilight Zone type drama – with some effort towards comedy – touches a sympathetic theme: the question of soul and personal identity. It ambles towards it on a loosely woven fabric of character and plot and creates, in retrospect, a curiosity about the sort of alchemy that Mary Louise Parker and Timothy Hutton must have invoked to put this on the list of Pulitzer Prize finalists in 1990.<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n

It’s about an ordinary couple who meet and fall in love quickly and then something extraordinary – and non-naturalistic – creates the drama of interpersonal doubt that is at the core of this effort. When conveying the significance of its subtext, it highlights the question of personal identity. Who is it beneath the body and the looks that we fall in love with? How can I know who is the real you <\/em>inside that body? What is marriage if not a signing on to a landscape in which identity changes over time? And, in that series of changes, what, if anything, endures? These are real and significant questions and this drama is to be credited with raising them.<\/p>\n

It is remarkable that in this era of strained stage economics (even twenty years ago when it appeared on Broadway), Lucas wrote a play with twelve or so actors, many of whom have extremely limited roles. In addition to this apparent superfluity of much of the population onstage, it seems an indulgence, in this particular production, to put Ken Cheeseman, who starred effectively as Iago a few months ago in the Actors’ Shakespeare Project production of Othello<\/em>, into a very minor role here.<\/p>\n

The dialogue, to say the least, is relaxed, as though the playwright is so focused on subtext that he forgets to tame the text. The attempt is to create a sense of the contemporary vernacular. The effect is a casualness that feels like a ream of snapshots pulled directly from a camera before selecting the good ones. A brash directness results from this refusal of technique, but it confers, along with its laidbackness, a sense of laziness.<\/p>\n

The main feature of the current production that struck me was the majesty of effort (in addition to the census-sized cast) offered to this episodic work. <\/p>\n

I found it curious that the main male character (Peter, played by Brian Sgambati) took off his shirt and pants numerous times during the show. No doubt we were meant to reflect on the distinctions between body and soul, but by the third or fourth time, that particular move began to wear thin. <\/p>\n

The two main characters – Peter and Rita (played by Cassie Beck) are clearly meant to be people of ordinary features and capacities, which is a theme emphasized by this production – to such a degree that their potential charms seem intentionally diminished. I wonder how Mary Louise Parker and Timothy Hutton did it on Broadway to the tune of 440 performances? My guess is that they worked hard to architect characters – amid the ambiguous words – who shone brilliantly to one another, and to the audience – despite their ordinariness – and conveyed the mystery of connection the play wants to portray. Giving a bold dramatic intention but a hesitant linguistic representation, as this play does, incurs the liability that its execution on the stage will easily display its manifest vulnerabilities, even though, on occasion, heroic efforts at acting and direction may rescue its soul.<\/p>\n

It also struck me that the play is mistitled. The weight of the play is not really about a prelude <\/em>to a kiss at all, but about the consequences <\/em>of one. When a kiss comes early on in this play, one wonders whether the substantive moment has passed by, but it hasn’t. Either the tease of the title seems not worth making, or the error of its description betrays a pervasive laxity in the effort to tailor language that honors its significant underlying theme. Or, the author has casually given his play the same title as the Duke Ellington song of 1938 without sweating too much about its meaning.<\/p>\n

This final exhalation of the season at the Huntington Theatre Company is a postlude to a season that had several heavyweight contenders. All My Sons<\/em> by Arthur Miller was a superbly executed production of an epic of modern theatre, and Becky Shaw<\/em> by Gina Gionfriddo, a bitter, contemporary dramatic comedy, was heartless, but very well executed. Unfortunately, I did not get to see StickFly<\/em> by Lydia Diamond, which had a popular run and which I heard was excellent. That strikes me as a production worth reviving in the near future.<\/p>\n

– BADMan<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nPrelude to a Kiss and Other Plays by Craig Lucas (Playwrights Canada Press)<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Prelude to a Kiss, DVD with Meg Ryan<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Prelude To A Kiss, MP3, song by Duke Ellington, sung by Ella Fitzgerald <\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self by Daniel McAdams<\/a>\"\"\n<\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Play by Craig Lucas Huntington Theatre Company at Boston University Theatre 264 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA Directed by Peter DuBois Scenic Design by Scott Bradley With Brian Sgambati (Peter), Timothy John Smith (Peter), Cassie Beck (Rita), Jason Bowen (Tom, Jamaican Waiter), Nancy E. Carroll (Mrs. Boyle), Michael Hammond (Dr. Boyle), Ted Hewlett (Minister), Cheryl McMahon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-plays","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":559,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}