Stop Kiss

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Ironically, the encore production of Diana Son’s play Stop Kiss, playing at Theatre Group’s Phoenix Theatre stands in the midst of strong holiday celebrations and shows. Ironically, Stop Kiss digs down to an intriguing depth of a very real meaning of Christmas. There is no Santa Claus. There is no Babe in a Manager. There isn’t even a Christmas tree.

Scott McLean, Elgin Kelley and Hilary Blair share a moment in Theatre Group’s production of Stop Kiss.

There is, however, a mirror to human nature. Call it what you will, but human nature in all its glory stands squarely in the center of the all-encompassing holiday season.

Directed by Billie McBride, Stop Kiss examines a tenuous growing relationship between two very different women. It’s a love story fraught with misinterpretation, adventure, discovery, tragedy, and stupidity.

Hilary Blair attacks New York Callie with thoughtful, happy nervous devil-may-care energy. A friend of a friend has asked her for a favor.

Elgin Kelley gives Sara wide-eyed excited wonder having climbed out of the Midwest cradle of St. Louis to try the Big Apple on for size. Temporarily staying with friends, her cat, Caesar, needs emergency housing. Callie agrees.

Both baffled by each other’s lives, find the probing of what they like and don’t like intriguing as it leads them back to examining their own. Sara teaches third grade at PS32 in the Bronx. Callie flies a helicopter as a traffic reporter.

Using the delightful technique of short scenes defying time and space, the play moves back and forth from a brutal beating of Sara during an innocent walk in the park with events leading up to the walk.

Obvious conclusions loom over everyone’s head. The hard-nosed, no nonsense Detective Cole comes to life like a slap in the face by Terry Ann Watts. So strong is her performance one wants to stop her in her tracks, insist she take a hard look at the shaken Callie, and demand she shut up and listen rather than shove her professionalism down Callie’s throat. Patty Mintz Figel plays the nosey, lonely, Mrs. Winsley who threw a shoe at the attacker, who wants to help but doesn’t really want to be involved. She also plays the somewhat caring nurse at the hospital where Sara lies in a coma. Somewhat undercurrent caring because after all what are two women doing in the park at 4:00 a.m. kissing?

Sara’s confused midwest St. Louis boyfriend, Peter, guided by Josh Hartwell, wobbles in the mixed-up facts with the terms lesbian and dykes running around loose out their cage.

Scott McLean completes the cast as George, Callie’s close friend. They sleep together, but are free to see other people. Open, honest, straight-forward, George has eyes that see beyond the upside down news reports.

On the small Phoenix stage, Tina Anderson designed a well thought-out set that fits the quick scene changes like a glove from Callie’s apartment, to the hospital where the Detective interrogates Callie, to Sara’s hospital room, to a hallway, to a café where Mrs. Winsley meets Callie.

Stop Kiss explores the relationship of two women filled to the brim with life, eager to discover the rhymes and reason of their likes and dislikes, learning to care about, learning to love, learning to appreciate each other in spite of the narrow-minded know-it-all’s surrounding them. It’s a beautiful story, with unsettling frills interrupting the natural development of a relationship with misunderstandings, nervousness, intrigue and magic. It’s a mirrored story of well-meaning intentions digging a hole for truth. Callie and Sara plunge headlong into discovery with no trepidation of what others think. They’ll think twice next time. It’s a courageous story of willing adventure, strength and hope. It’s a holiday story that reaches into the depth of the soul with its own shining star of truth, warts and all.