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Diana Son's Stop Kiss
Sep. 15th, 2007 06:27 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
pylduck.livejournal.comI read half this play last weekend then stalled out and didn't have time to get back to it until today.
Diana Son's play Stop Kiss is the central text of a conference paper I'm giving at the end of December. I had heard about it a few years ago when my advisor told me there was a student production at UNC. I regret never catching it then because it's always fascinating to see any production of a play to compare to the written script.
What is notable about Son's play is that the characters are not explicitly defined by race. The original Broadway production cast in the two lead roles a white woman and an Asian American woman (our beloved Sandra Oh). As a story of a developing friendship between these two women that becomes something more, however defined (love affair or not), it offers a lot to consider regarding the intimacies of interracial romance. The families and previous partners (men) of the two women hover at the edges of the play, never quite entering fully into the picture to give us more clues within the dialogue for how to conceive of the women's ethnic identities (as much as ethnicity might shape familial relations). As I read the play, I could imagine how much different productions and actors could make of the roles to suggest the dynamics of an interracial relationship. The back-and-forth push of the women to acknowledge their love for each other might then carry an overlay of commentary about how comfortable each is with entering a relationship with someone of a different race (over the question of same-sex attraction).
The play alternates between scenes pre-kiss and post-kiss -- where the kiss becomes this powerfully ambiguous declaration of love between the two women (are they admitting to be in love with each other?). Additionally, the kiss is the catalyst for the gay bashing that puts one of the women in critical condition in the hospital. That kiss, then, takes on multiple, conflicting meanings as both a positive and a negative moment in their lives.
I found myself thinking how difficult it must be for the leads to do these alternating scenes -- to flip back and forth between these very different moments in their relationship. I wonder how productions have staged the scenes, too -- whether there is a visual shorthand for denoting pre- and post-kiss scenes (though some are quite obvious, others take place in Callie's apartment both before and after the kiss). I think in an alternate life, I might've pursued a career in set design or production design more generally. I love to think about the space of the stage and how scenes might be located and differentiated....
Diana Son's play Stop Kiss is the central text of a conference paper I'm giving at the end of December. I had heard about it a few years ago when my advisor told me there was a student production at UNC. I regret never catching it then because it's always fascinating to see any production of a play to compare to the written script.
What is notable about Son's play is that the characters are not explicitly defined by race. The original Broadway production cast in the two lead roles a white woman and an Asian American woman (our beloved Sandra Oh). As a story of a developing friendship between these two women that becomes something more, however defined (love affair or not), it offers a lot to consider regarding the intimacies of interracial romance. The families and previous partners (men) of the two women hover at the edges of the play, never quite entering fully into the picture to give us more clues within the dialogue for how to conceive of the women's ethnic identities (as much as ethnicity might shape familial relations). As I read the play, I could imagine how much different productions and actors could make of the roles to suggest the dynamics of an interracial relationship. The back-and-forth push of the women to acknowledge their love for each other might then carry an overlay of commentary about how comfortable each is with entering a relationship with someone of a different race (over the question of same-sex attraction).
The play alternates between scenes pre-kiss and post-kiss -- where the kiss becomes this powerfully ambiguous declaration of love between the two women (are they admitting to be in love with each other?). Additionally, the kiss is the catalyst for the gay bashing that puts one of the women in critical condition in the hospital. That kiss, then, takes on multiple, conflicting meanings as both a positive and a negative moment in their lives.
I found myself thinking how difficult it must be for the leads to do these alternating scenes -- to flip back and forth between these very different moments in their relationship. I wonder how productions have staged the scenes, too -- whether there is a visual shorthand for denoting pre- and post-kiss scenes (though some are quite obvious, others take place in Callie's apartment both before and after the kiss). I think in an alternate life, I might've pursued a career in set design or production design more generally. I love to think about the space of the stage and how scenes might be located and differentiated....
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