Stop Kiss too legit to quit

By Timothy Faust     3/19/09 7:00pm

"I can do this, you see! Choose me!" urges one of the main characters in one of the most emotional scenes of Stop Kiss. So pleads the Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts Theatre Program as its production opens this weekend alongside four college productions (Martel College's I Took My Gun And Vanished, Baker Shakespeare's The Tempest, Sid Richardson College's The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) and Wiess College's West Side Story) and, of course, Beer Bike. After one of the program's strongest years in recent memory, its plea is a legitimate one.Stop Kiss, a 1998 play by Diana Son, might be summarized as the story of a relationship between two women and the tragic results of an act of gay-bashing, but while such an explanation captures the play's main events it oversimplifies the depth of the script. The play is fundamentally about risk-taking and squeezing the most out of life and love - you know, that sort of carpe diem stuff which we're all supposed to love - and its place in the lives of two women, panicky traffic reporter Callie and no-nonsense Midwesterner Sara, as they live their lives in New York City.

The Theatre Program's guest director for this show, Atlanta and Houston freelancer Matt Huff, has certainly earned his keep. He lends the production a level of precision and polish refreshing in campus theater's ocean of amateurs, well-indicative of his substantial experience. Aspiring directors would be wise to watch Huff's staging: While the setting and events don't lend themselves to a lot of movement, each of the show's 20 scenes, free from unintentionally repetitive blocking even in a necessarily static set, look distinct and real. As the show progresses we jump back and forth through time, gaining velocity until we crash breathlessly into two final scenes.

Stop Kiss has a small cast, consisting of only a few supporting actors besides Callie and Sara. As Callie, Martel sophomore Sigrid Owen brings a rejuvenating enthusiasm to her performance which is much appreciated by the audience, but has not yet trained the frenetic energy behind her acting. Her performance might benefit from greater variance. By staying so consistently in top gear, Owen appears to speak her lines as they sit in the script instead of as a reaction to the lines spoken before hers. Owen shows sparks of promise; her few quiet and tender moments late in the show are stellar. If she could move across the spectrum more easily, Callie might seem more believable.

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Brown College junior Caroline Turner, as Sara, maintains a likable earnestness in a generally-convincing performance. She delivers her lines well but, surprisingly, it is in those moments in which Turner is unable to speak that elevate Stop Kiss the most. Her grasp of physicality, particularly late in the show, evoke greater emotion than the rest of the show put together.

However, in a play in which the women's relationship is so central and crucial, the two can't quite consistently find a common level - their flirtations are full of awkward pauses but not necessarily those thrilling, terrifying silences which pepper the games of an emergent relationship. There are moments when we believe their delight in their discovery of reciprocated attraction, and moments when we scratch our heads.

Delivering the soundest performance of the night is Lovett College senior Trevor Pittinger as George, Callie's friend with benefits. Son's script is not kind to George: He might very easily be played as a caricature when such a basic characterization would stand out as an ill-fitting joke among sincere performances. Pittinger falls into no such trap. He expertly uses the tools available to him - eye contact, physical reactions, those little quiet spaces in conversation - to develop a character fleshed out between his lines who shares a hint of vulnerability and a lot of humanness.

Sid Richardson senior Gloria Chang's set is not flashy or very complex, but it's gorgeous and functions superbly. While the set serves primarily as the messy interior of Callie's apartment, a few sheets of transparent fabric, some metal chairs and the routinely-fantastic lighting direction of Theatre Program Production Manager Matthew Schlief seamlessly transforms it into a hospital or an interrogation room.

Schlief's design is similarly reserved, but by no means simple: He leads us from gorgeous backgrounds of swollen purples to aggressive industrial lighting and everywhere in between, precisely-timed by stage manager Abbie Falk and board operator Shira Polster, a Lovett senior.

Stop Kiss suffers most when its cast is not actively performing. Martel junior Cait McMillen has supplied Callie and Sara with intimidating closets and a wide range of costumes. They look good, but the time Owen and Turner need to change into them stretches each of the transitions between scenes into a fight for the audience as they struggle to maintain any sort of energy, much less the hair-trigger ups and downs Stop Kiss brings.

Stop Kiss has a genuinely moving script, an experienced director, capable technicians and skilled performers. While its parts are sometimes slightly disassembled, the show is certainly a legitimate option for weary Beer-Bikers to relax this weekend or eager audiences to enjoy the next.

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