Prelude to a Kiss, the 1988 play by Craig Lucas, is based in fantasy, an impossible dream. It is a play of looking beyond appearance, of discovering the real person beneath layers of pretense. And in a similar vein, the play itself is a comedy under the guise of tragedy.
Rita (Cassie Beck) and Peter (Brian Sgambati) meet at a party, fall in love, and marry only 6 weeks later. At the wedding a mysterious elderly man (Macintyre Dixon) kisses the bride, and in that brief touch, their souls switch. So instead of two weeks in Jamaica with his young bride, Peter takes the old man who in every way resembles the vivacious, blonde-haired Rita. Peter immediately recognizes the change in his bride as the quirky insomniac suddenly sleeps like a baby. The old Rita, who couldn’t bear to bring a child into the malevolent world, now wants to be a housewife and raise a family.
Peter and Rita fill their roles as the young couple flawlessly. The nervous energy of their initial conversations fills the stage, as they clutch their beers and laugh a little too loudly at the cocktail party. They naturally convey the initial awkwardness of not knowing where to put your hands as well as the suggestive banter, throatily delivered.
When they retreat to Rita’s apartment, the audience is able to share in the thick anticipation preceding their first kiss, that moment of shyness and indecision. Both actors skillfully navigate the complex emotions of their characters: flirtation leading to love leading to arguments and doubts. Rita is coquettish and pessimistic, anxious about the way the world is going. Peter is indulgent and indignant, frustrated that no one else notices that Rita is not herself.
Peter’s frustration, of suddenly finding himself married to a very different person, mixed with his sense of loss, makes for an inherently tragic plot course. Orchestrated banter and sarcasm makes the scenes, even the most heartbreaking, easier to bear. In fact, the audience laughed through most of the play.
The scenery used in Prelude to a Kiss is exquisite. The play opens at a party: the thump of bass abruptly replaces the orchestra music and the amber glow of bar lights descends from the ceiling as small groups cluster around the sparse stage, separated by nervous laughter and the jut of their hands clutching drinks. In fact, the scene is so naturally rendered that the audience broke into applause as the curtain was drawn.
Ken Cheeseman (as Uncle Fred), Cheryl McMahon (as Aunt Dorothy), Cassie Beck (as Rita), Brian Sgambati (as Peter), Michael Hammond (as Dr. Boyle), Nancy E. Carroll (as Mrs. Boyle) & Timothy John Smith (as Taylor) (T. Charles Erickson)
The excellence of the scenery continues throughout the play. Rita’s apartment is cozy and chic in shades of lavender and blue. The only oddity is the two suspended banners of moss-like greenery that flank the stage. Though the rows of leaves help to define the space, they seem largely out of place in the background of sets representing Jamaica and the suburbs.
Most notable is the use of projection screens during the play, which display the backdrop of the city skyline. Large rectangles of white light depict the outside of skyscrapers and smaller squares of golden light frame apartment windows. So when Peter gazes up at the windows, wondering about Rita in the peaceful silence of nightfall, the audience is able to share in his rapture.
The screens are also used to show physical movement. As the couple goes to visit Rita’s parents for the first time, the screens descend to reveal landscapes of trees and highways turning into rows of picturesque colonial houses. As the couple enters suburbia, the screens raise to reveal a husband and wife sitting in their perfectly symmetrical living room, quietly reading the day’s news.
The play requires a certain suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy the Freaky Friday plotline. And if it were only a lightning bolt flash that signified the switching of souls, the play would be successful only as a comedy, a farce.
Heartfelt renditions by Dixon and Beck, however, give the play depth. The Old Man, despite his age, his failing lungs, his ruined liver, is Rita. With his mannerisms, the lilt in his voice, it is by no means a stretch to imagine that a different soul inhabits his body. And Rita, with the brashness to her voice, the boldness of her movements, the careless manner in which she dismisses poverty in Jamaica, truly is a different person, in a way that has nothing to do with her looks, or her clothes, or her well-constructed surroundings.
So in the end, when Peter sits on the couch, doe-eyed in his sadness, listening to “Rita’s” monologue on watching your body age and your friends die, it is easier to see two lovers than two strangers. The love on his face is plain and raw, as is his sadness at the insurmountable distance between them, despite their adoration.
Prelude to a Kiss runs from May 14th to June 13th, with evening performances Tuesday through Saturday and matinées on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tickets are $20-$82, with $15 student rush tickets available. Performed by the Huntington Theater Company, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston.
MacIntyre Dixon (as the Old Man) & Brian Sgambati (as Peter) (T. Charles Erickson)
