THE BASICS: STOP KISS, a 1998 play by Diana Son, presented by Subversive Theatre, directed by Kelly Beuth, starring Brittany Germano, Jenny Gembka, John Profeta, Justin Fiordaliso, Brian Brown, and Theresa DiMuro Wilber runs through March 18, Thursday – Saturday at 8 p.m. at The Manny Fried Playhouse, 255 Great Arrow Avenue (use the entrance closest to Elmwood Avenue). Runtime: about 2 hours with one short intermission. Bottled water for $1.00. Volunteers at the entrance will take you to the third floor on an original Pierce-Arrow automobile elevator. It’s fun! (408-0499). www.subversivetheatre.org
THUMBNAIL SKETCH: Two 20-something professional women (Callie is an award-winning traffic reporter, Sara is an award-winning teacher) who still have some ties to their former boyfriends slowly bloom into a lesbian relationship. They keep holding off the “first kiss” and when that finally happens, the ugliness of the gay bashing world crashes down on them. Even though told in vignettes out of sequence, Diana Son’s masterful plotline never loses forward momentum, through tragedy, to a final moment of bliss.
THE PLAYERS, THE PLAY, AND THE PRODUCTION: On a snowy 13 degree night we left our cozy house and flat screen TV to drive over slippery roads to an old factory, take a freight elevator up to a little theater cobbled together out of spare parts, where we sat with our coats, hats, and mittens on for two hours to see STOP KISS. And here was my aha moment. As great at television dramas have become, they are rarely as nuanced as live theater. Even though it’s coming to the end of its run, you might dig yourself out and see STOP KISS. There’s a Kleenex line towards the end of the play – “Choose me!” – which I’ll never forget.
Since writing STOP KISS, her first full-length play, Diana Son has worked on gritty television police procedurals including Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Southland, Blue Bloods, and American Crime (which I had to stop watching because it was so upsetting). First inspired to become a playwright on a senior trip to see HAMLET (doesn’t that tell you something) Diana Son is comfortable with making audiences uncomfortable.
Born in Philadelphia to Korean immigrant parents, she was raised in Dover, PA, a small town with very few Asian-Americans, and has written about her and other’s experiences as a minority and an “outsider.” So, even though she’s straight, married, and a mother of three, Diana Son “gets it.” What is “it?” Read the poem THE CROWD AT THE BALLGAME by William Carlos Williams for some insight.
Director/Sound Designer Kelly Beuth is “the real deal,” a high school drama teacher who organizes the annual Buffalo V-Day Campaign to stop violence against women and girls and its annual production of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES. The entr’acte music was very skillfully chosen and if there were a “Soundtrack CD” I’d buy it! Although there are many fades to black, when we come back in each scene the six actors fully inhabit their roles.
Two slight quibbles: There were a few stumbles on some lines and this was not opening night. If we the audience are to engage in what poet Coleridge called “the willing suspension of disbelief” then nothing jars more than missing a line. The other quibble is that the scene changes dragged. They could be tightened up a bit.
Beuth wisely poached her two leads from the Brazen Faced Varlets which specialize in plays dealing with feminism and LGTBQ issues.
Beuth wisely poached her two leads from the Brazen Faced Varlets which specialize in plays dealing with feminism and LGTBQ issues. Brittany Germano is perfect as Callie, whose life-style is like an old favorite well-worn flannel shirt, robe, or slippers. She goes along with things. She doesn’t date and still hangs out with her college friends, including her old boyfriend. She’s a bit of a slob in her comfortable rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan, and everyday rides in a helicopter as a traffic reporter, not that she wants to do it, but because her boyfriend’s uncle got her the job and she lacks the nerve/drive/grit to make a change. Until the last two scenes.
And Jenny Gembka as Sara also inhabits her role well, which seemed to be, at first, the opposite of Callie. While Callie is just sort of “stuck,” Sara has won a fellowship allowing her to leave the Midwest and come to teach inner-city kids in the Bronx. She’s everything Callie isn’t – proactive, excited to be in The Big Apple, willing to confront, for example, Callie’s noisy upstairs neighbors. But, even though she is the first to realize that they could be a gay couple, she too holds back from more intimacy.
The supporting actors all do what supporting actors are supposed to do – move the story forward believably. They neither steal the scenes nor do they fail to be “in the moment” brief as those moments may be. So, kudos to Brian Brown, Theresa DiMuro Wilber, John Profeta, and Justin Fiordaliso.
The “Three Buffalo” (out of five) rating is accurate (see description below). The extra “half a Buffalo” is there because the play itself is of such high caliber.
Coming up: See Brian Brown in Subversive’s THE TRIAL OF TRAYVON MARTIN at The Manny Fried, Kelly Beuth in THE GREAT GOD PAN at Jewish Rep, and Theresa DiMuro Wilber in THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES.
Lead image: Brittany Germano (left) and Brian Brown.
*HERD OF BUFFALO (Notes on the Rating System)
ONE BUFFALO: This means trouble. A dreadful play, a highly flawed production, or both. Unless there is some really compelling reason for you to attend (i.e. you are the parent of someone who is in it), give this show a wide berth.
TWO BUFFALOS: Passable, but no great shakes. Either the production is pretty far off base, or the play itself is problematic. Unless you are the sort of person who’s happy just going to the theater, you might look around for something else.
THREE BUFFALOS: I still have my issues, but this is a pretty darn good night at the theater. If you don’t go in with huge expectations, you will probably be pleased.
FOUR BUFFALOS: Both the production and the play are of high caliber. If the genre/content are up your alley, I would make a real effort to attend.
FIVE BUFFALOS: Truly superb–a rare rating. Comedies that leave you weak with laughter, dramas that really touch the heart. Provided that this is the kind of show you like, you’d be a fool to miss it!