Theatre--Review (ULL Department of Music and Performing Arts)

Diana Son's Stop Kiss is about the unexpected nature of love and its ability to shake us out of our complacency. It's also about the brutal nature of intolerance and the transformative force of a random act of violence.

It's a play built on themes that should generate some theatrical heat.  And that's what makes the UL School of Music and Performing Arts production of Son's 1998 Off-Broadway hit a puzzling one: This Stop Kiss is cool as a cucumber.

First, the story: Callie (Rachel Mauti) is a dedicated New Yorker who offers to cat-sit for Sara (Elizabeth Satterly), a friend of a friend and recent transplant to the city. The two hit it off, and a friendship is born.

Soon, this friendship begins to develop into something more, and these two otherwise heterosexual women must navigate the tricky minefield of their burgeoning romantic interest in each other.

Their relationship narrative is intercut with the more painful story of this relationship's outcome: a brutal attack in a public park, prompted by the couple's first kiss, that leaves Sarah in a coma and Callie struggling to cope.

Son's play is a marvel of construction, bouncing back and forth in time in a way that's almost playful. By toying with the conventional structures we expect in the theatre, Son finds a way to tell a more emotional narrative, one that colors the present with the shadows of what's to come and tempers the future with the softness of what came
before. It all adds up to a beautiful final moment that feels inevitable and leaves us on a happy note tinged with melancholy.

Unfortunately, this production feels oddly detached. The cleverly-written scenes that chart Callie and Sara's blossoming affection are cute, but they never generate any heat. An awkward exchange between Callie and Sara's ex-boyfriend should be painful, but it just feels out of place. Even a tender scene in which Callie lovingly changes Sara from her hospital gown into her own clothes fails to generate a great deal of emotion.

Part of this detachment may come from the show's pacing, which hasn't quite solved the challenges of the play's unusual structure. Scenes don't flow effortlessly in and out of each other -- instead we have sometimes lengthy blackouts to accommodate costume changes -- and we lose the poignancy and power of the scene's juxtapositions. It's a disappointment, because inside individual scenes, the pace is crisp and the direction is flawless.  Part of it may also come from the performances, which don't always dig deep enough. As Det. Cole, who questions Callie about the nature of the attack, Catherine Luchessi seems to ride on one note of anger throughout. As Peter, Sara's ex, Tylor Clark doesn't quite make his pain and confusion believable. Kristen Dubois and Tiffanyjo Ayers are believable and compelling in their small roles as Mrs. Winsley and the nurse, respectively, but their parts seem a little thankless, with not much to chew on.

As Sarah, Elizabeth Satterly delivers beautifully on her character's sweet side -- her wide open eyes and warm smile really do command your attention -- and she's rather affecting in the show's last third, wheelchair-bound and struggling to recover. But there's a spark missing in her scenes with Mauti's Callie, and I never quite believed
that she was, for the first time in her life, slowly falling in love with a woman.

Mauti's Callie is a confident creation, however. She's breezy and believable as another slightly jaded New Yorker, and her scenes post-attack are filled with the right kind of gravitas and emotional weight. Mauti handles a really complicated and challenging role with a real grace, and she's an actress I am looking forward to seeing again.  The show's most exciting performance comes from David Huynh as George, the on-again, off-again romantic interest for Callie. He lands some of the show's biggest laughs and Huynh has a commanding presence on stage. In fact, the show's one short scene between George and Callie after spending the night together is the only scene that generates any sexual heat. Huynh does great work in this show, and someone needs to give this kid a leading role sooner than later.

There's an abundance of talent on stage in Stop Kiss, and the show is beautifully designed and looks as professional as anything I've seen Off-Broadway. But the messy, painful and confusing emotions that reside at the heart of the play never seem to surface. We leave the theatre appreciating the craft involved, but we don't leave thinking about the characters' lives and futures.

I, for one, would have gladly traded the slickness for a show that broke my heart.