Stop Kiss... no seriously, stop it.

 Stop Kiss 

    A review by a native New Yorker living in not-New York City watching a play that takes place in New York City written (and student-directed) by someone who is not from New York City. 

2.5/5 stars 

    Maybe it’s a little unfortunate for the cast and crew that I was in the audience last night. 

    Now, I did my research beforehand: I knew this play was going to take place in New York City in the 90s. I didn’t know where the playwright was from (spoiler: she is from Philly), but from the first “Rudolph Giuliani” (which was also the first time I’ve heard Giuliani referred to by his full name) joke, I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be the love letter to the Big Apple I had assumed it would be. My fault, my fault. 

    My diminishing hope was expedited by the fact that every third line was referring to how filthy and misfortuned the Bronx was. The characters probably brought up the fact that the families in the Bronx definitely don’t have/cannot possibly have cars about five times, to which I say: the Bronx is connected to mainland United States, unlike the rest of metro NY... it is most definitely a drivable borough, and they most definitely have cars there... because I will be the first to tell you that taking the trains in the Bronx, in Queens? It’s self-harm, and it’s not like the characters think the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) is this godsend by comparison. 

    The digs are constant. Sarah moves to New York City because of a fellowship she was awarded, and so many times it is implied that this position teaching at a public school is worse than no fellowship at all. That Sarah is a “nut” for pursuing anything she is actively pursuing throughout the show. If she’s a nut for pursuing this job, could it also be implied that she’s a nut for pursuing Callie, albeit subconciously? It’s proven to be that way, what with the both of them being punished in some way for their attraction to each other. 

    I couldn’t pay attention to the parts of the story that I’m sure were meant to get more attention (I though this was a story of lesbianism, not New York City).What does the playwright have against New York City that there isn’t a single comment about grabbing a slice of pizza but there are several comments referring to how (everyone besides Callie’s) (who, as the play progresses, blatantly appears to be a Diana Son self-insert) quality of life in the city is nothing short of horrifying, no, doesn’t matter how much Sarah loves her job and the oh-so poorly, dirty kids from the Bronx.  

    Why is it that, in the cast of seven comprising this intermission-less show, the one character who is beat within an inch of her life (and they do not hold back in showing, rather than telling, just how gruesome this gaybashing was) was played by a Black actress? The Director and their choices...

    It’s not like Sarah’s role is traditionally written for black women, because that was the first thing I googled on my out last night. Sandra Oh originated the role,  diverse casting was encouraged throughout the shows run. It was one aspect I could not shake from my mind, especially as things began to ramp up in the show, and we see the night unfold as it did. 

    A few times, it’s actually implied that Sarah provoked the attack, that though she is a victim, she had it coming... not even because she was a lesbian, but because of everything else. Though Diana Son's implications may have been one thing, Director Gabi Farr's implications were definitely altered by their casting chocies. She’s loud, she’s brash in that she just tells the assailant to “fuck off”-- all tropes that have consistently been bestowed upon black women over and over again(that would not have necessaily come to fruition if the casting was different). Everyone thinks Sarah’s nutty for wanting to live in New York, but because there’s a black actress playing her, the implication there to me is that of course she loves it, she fits right in with the poor Blacks and Hispanics (verbiage pulled directly from the show)! 

    Then again, if Sarah was played by a white actress, I’d be calling her a white-savior ... which isn’t better! The difference is that that would be the writing itself, the playwright herself; it’s sad how little there is that actors can do with the material that is given to them, of course. So many weird, racist comments written into the show made it hard to not question the casting decisions, some of which I've quoted directly here. 

    With Sarah being played by a black actress, too many loose ends revealed  themselves to me. Callie doesn’t exactly defend Sarah when the Detective begins to imply that she brought the bashing on herself. And, by the end of the play, there is no resolve for current day Callie and Sarah. It’s up in the air as to whether Sarah is to return to “quaint” (Callie’s words, not mine) St. Louis to be in the care of her family and ex-boyfriend, or if she is to remain in the city with Callie taking care of her. Sarah’s agency is plainly taken away, her assault a plot point in Callie’s quasi-coming out story. Callie, who, in the span of 32–pages, looks at lesbianism from the outside and is able to do this because Sarah was the one that got beat up, not herself. It mimics the unfortunate white-feminist trope of black characters only existing to teach their white counterparts what they need to know about themselves.   

    Opening night of Stop Kiss by Diana Son. Blue Devil Lounge. A Christian fellowship meeting in the MPR? Great scheduling there. TW: Gaybashing. Gabi Farr’s directorial debut. Two randoms, cutting through the lounge mid-show, clamoring through the exit doors on their way out.  

    The actors on stage didn’t do a terrible job, no—there were plenty of moments that had the audience in stitches... though, there were equally as many moments where the audience was a little unsure of how they should be reacting. Not the actors’ fault! I mean, “All the countries that sound like skin rashes?” is meant to be the punchline, but is it funny in this socio-political climate? At a liberal arts school? About Indonesia? At least say that about a country that isn’t a classic vacation destination. Jokes such as these and “Australia is an English-speaking country, isn’t it?” make it seem like they are all making fun of Sarah's, forcing her actress to be there. I call into question, again, the casting choices made here. I call into question the desire to put this play on at all, simply due to its surface-level obtusity. 

    Again, maybe I’m nit-picking; maybe I’m just from New York City, the Big Apple, I can’t help that I’m sensitive... but then I think about the fact that there are dangerous aspects of living in The City... In any city! It’s not like I didn’t grow up with my parents’ stern talking-tos about not falling asleep on public transportation. My dad would take the 6 train in the wee hours in the morning, so many times he’d return home that afternoon with a story about how a knife was pulled on him. It’s not that the city isn’t dangerous, it’s that Diana Son has an opinion that she let bleed out all over her work. Homophobia is (and most definitely was) rampant... it wasn’t something that needed to be proven to the extent that it was. The digs at the Bronx, at the “crackheads”, were too much. This story could have happened anywhere, in any city. In terms of creative liberties, it would be cruel to ask Farr to take out every line referring to New York City, and so again I say, it’s unfortunate that I was in the audience last night. This work is for non-New Yorkers about non-New Yorkers written by not a New Yorker.  

    And nobody had an accent: radiator was ray-diator, not ra-diator... you’d think that Callie, who totes and boasts her status as a New Yorker (she isn’t one, she’s just lived there for some time) would have a little bit of affectation to her voice. Actually, Callie reveals she’s not a real New Yorker in so many ways, the previouslymentioned just being one of them, the second being that when Sarah accuses her of not spending any time in the Bronx, Callie responds with, “I fly over it every day, more than most New Yorkers.” To me, that’s a non-answer. To me, that’s an admission, as well as ownership, of Callie’s own white-feminism as she sits next to Sarah. Even if Sarah was being played by a white actress, Callie's admission is still one of slightly classistic value. 

    To me, the Fredonia production of "Stop Kiss" is a gay-for-pay culmination of Diana Son’s opinion on New Yorkers, that they’re ungrateful to the city they were born in, that someone from bumfuck-upstate NY such as Callie would be the better choice for the varied opportunities the Native New Yorker may be privy to. When it's revealed that Callie is from somewhere like Fredonia, essentially, my eyes nearly rolled out of my head. It’s too much, because of course everyone in the SUNY Fredonia Blue Devil Lounge laughed at the idea of Sarah’s 3rd-grade student, Malik, standing up to a “crackhead” for her. It’s a caricature that made me uncomfortable.  And it was all perpetuated by the fact that I'm sitting there not knowing as to whether this is an attempt at racial commentary or just a poor casting decision made by the Director or Son‘s own prejudices as a Straight Korean-Amercian woman that grew up in Philadelphia. The bottom line is that this would not have been my first choice in terms of how I’d make my directorial debut... perpetuating someone’s prejudiced opinion through lesbophobia, racism, and violence. The worst part is, I don’t know if this is something that anyone in the cast or crew was thinking about, or if it was just me. But maybe there was an Ethnic and Gender studies major in the room doing similar mental gymnastics to my own... 

    I can’t remember the first time I laughed out loud at a line or a choice made by the actors. That’s not to say it didn’t happen at all! I laughed a few times, there were times when I thought Sarah was adorable, like each time she tried getting Caesar to come out of hiding. I thought Mrs. Finsley was great, I laughed at any double entendre involving food--“She eats meat, why wouldn’t she?” “Cmon, I need a sushi fix!”--I got over myself, though, once the show finally waned on how dingy and dangerous New York City was and started being about how homophobia ruins lives, how it kills. It took a while to get there, though, because even though I think Callie is supposed to get off her high horse in terms of  where she's been living for the past 11 years, by curtain call there isn't a clear resolution: Is Callie out and proud by the end of the show, confidence bolstered by the brutal attack on her new love-interest, Sarah, or scared into submission by Sarah’s newfound disability, as well as her own realization that this is the 90s, and being gay is hard? It’s unclear as to which one she is meant to be, especially when Callie frequently looks disgusted instead of flustered, is floundering and clammy rather than stammering endearingly. It was hard to tell which parts were  the actors’ choices and which parts were poor storytelling, the fault of Diana Son herself... Who is to be credited then, with any sort of accolade or insult? It’s almost as though there was so much to the show that it ended up being about nothing, that we sat for 90-minutes and heard about the way this black girl was beaten to pulp, speculated as to what injuries she had, whether it be stroke, concussion, straight-up brain damage (it’s not confirmed in the show), and watched her remain unresponsive even out of the coma. My two and a half stars are for the actors, who did fine job of reciting the lines on stage... there was just so much subtext there that was impossible to ignore.