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| Alexia Vernon and Cameron
J. Oro |
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Photo Credit: David Anthony,
2006 |
| Sex farce has always been, to
paraphrase Oscar Wilde, a trivial genre for serious
people. Part of the reason is that the arch, ironic
sensibilities of literary playwrights—from Aristophanes
to G.B. Shaw to Joe Orton—cannot easily stomach the
cheese of traditional romantic comedies.
Sex
farce subverts romance, displaying the black caulk
behind love's gilded mirror. At the same time, its
distorted caricature of courtship often lets us see more
accurately the gross outlines of passion's truer
features. Kiran Rikhye's smart yet lighthearted frolic
Stage Kiss is no exception: it playfully teases
out the tension between high-minded sexual mores and
one's dirty-minded wish for more sex. In fact, Stage
Kiss sends up the genre of sex farce itself with a
gentle parody of its conventions.
Neptune's
annual rape and sacrifice of a small Grecian island's
most beautiful virgin has both Phyllida and Gallathea
fearing for their lives. Rather than lose their
chastity, they each separately strike upon a scheme to
cross-dress as dashing gents and hide out in the woods.
Upon meeting, both maids quickly fall for each
other—thinking the other is a man, of course.
However, both are too timid to give either their
disguise or their virginity away. Venus, Neptune's lover
and rival, tries to get each maid to make the first
move, but to little avail. Neptune finally discovers
them—but, in the end, Venus has her own tricks to keep
Neptune from turning his.
Intentionally redolent
of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and
As You Like It on the surface, Stage Kiss
has its real inspirational roots in Charles Ludlum's
"theater of the ridiculous." Ludlum's work reveled in
outrageous polysexual high jinks whose version of camp
derived as much from the cheap thrill of its spectacle
as from its whip-smart downtown wit.
Trashy glam
rock and drag queens informed the quirky sensibility of
Ludlum's stage shows, which delighted in extravagance of
all types—whether it was glitter poured over an actor's
entire body or the silent lilting of a single leaf
falling from the rafters. But Ludlum's travesties were
also knowing theatrical pastiche: they plundered genres
both high and low, casting an ironic wink on their
historical context even as they kept one eye wide open
on the contemporary underground scene.
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| Postcard |
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Photo Credit: Horse Trade Theatre
Co. |
| Stage
Kiss is reminiscent of Ludlum's work, noticeably
The Mystery of Irma Vep, in the way Jon Campbell
and Layna Fisher, the actors playing Neptune and Venus,
run through a series of accelerating costume changes as
they comically race around the stage also portraying
Gallathea's and Phyllida's respective—though hardly
respectable—single parent. Director Jon Stancato does a
wonderful job pacing the play with lively blocking that
veers into the madcap.
Likewise, the costumes,
designed by Merav Elbaz Janowsky, provide another
piquant source of humor because Gallathea is played by a
fey Cameron J. Oro dressed obviously—but not too
obtrusively—in drag. The effect can be dizzying as Oro
negotiates the postures of gay and straight
simultaneously while bending and blending genders.
The play undercuts any bombast the deliberately
archaic blank verse may be presumed to have with nonstop
sex jokes. Neptune's trident, for example, is composed
of three dildos, and, at one point Venus somersaults
into Neptune's arms for some acrobatic cunnilingus.
In fact, the constant quips and double entendres
come off even better for their vestige of anachronism
because the meter heightens the play's atmosphere of
artifice without detracting from the dialogue's
intelligibility, thanks to the concise yet colorful—and,
quite often, off-color—verse.
Campbell and
Fisher manage to get in cahoots with the audience during
several scenes that demolish the fourth wall, which they
milk for the giddy humor that arises from the
awkwardness that audience interactions bring. (If you're
not game to being put on the spot, though, make sure you
sit well in the back of the small theater.) Fisher,
especially, gains our affections as Venus, the slut who
stumbles around in a drunken stupor but always slyly
manages to come out on top—and over the top.
David Bengali's set design bedazzles with
AstroTurf, chintzy blow-up trees, and fallen, Day-Glo
leaves. But one of the best touches in this gaudy,
disco-like diorama was a minimalist gesture: Venus pulls
down a small blind center stage with the words "The
Woods" written on it as she sprays some pine-scented air
freshener for comic effect.
Unlike romantic
comedies, where the inevitable happy ending is too often
sickeningly predictable, the "happy ending" of Stage
Kiss has a delightfully tongue-in-cheek twist.
Audiences should walk away charmed by the play's
escapades, gleeful with a guiltless spring fever. One
feels thoroughly emancipated from serious concerns of
laws, politics, and wars—as well as the unwritten rules
of romance, sexual politics, and the battle of the
genders.
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Red
Room |
Category:
Comedy
Written by: Kiran
Rikhye
Directed by: Jon
Stancato
Produced by: The Stolen Chair
Theatre Company
Opens: May 3,
2006
Closes: May 27, 2006
Running
Time: 1 hour 45
min
Theater: Red
Room
Address: 85 E. 4th St.
New York,
NY 10003
Yahoo! Maps Directions
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Tickets:
$15.00
Students/Seniors: $10
Phone:
(212) 868-4444
Online Ticketing: Smarttix
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Creative Team Stolen Chair Theatre Co.
and Horse Trade
Written by: Kiran
Rikhye
Directed by: Jon
Stancato
Set & Light Designer: David
Bengali
Music and Dramaturgy by: Emily
Otto
Costume Designer: Merav
Elbaz
Makeup Design by: Jennifer
Wren
Props and Management by: Aviva
Meyer
CastLayna Fisher as Venus and
Puritanus
Jon Campbell as Neptune and
Veneria
Cameron J. Oro as Gallathea
Alexia Vernon
as Phyllida
CrewSet Builders:
David Bengali & Christine Scarpeto
Costume
Builders: Amanda Brandes, Merav Elbaz, Layna
Fisher, Aviva Meyer, & Jennifer
Wren
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