stopkiss2 What results from my revealing what I want?

This question is taken out for a spin by playwright Diana Son in Stop Kiss, a story about Callie (Kim Bush) and Sarah (Beth Pennington) coming together in New York City and finding out. The idiosyncrasy of the answer(s) they get, and of the nuances of character and conversation as presented by the actors, are the main—but not only—reasons the Garage Theatre production is so successful.

While the story is Callie and Sarah’s collectively, Callie is our access point. A long-gone relationship with a boyfriend left her with a rent-frozen apartment she loves and a TV-traffic-reporter gig she’s not so crazy about. Not unhappy but starting to feel old in the way lots of thirtysomethings do, she hasn’t particularly noticed she’s led a passive life until she meets Sarah. She’s a recent arrival from St. Louis who’s left her “easy” life—a cushy job teaching at a private school, a simple seven-year romance—to live in the Bronx and teach in the ‘hood. (Don’t worry: Stop Kiss doesn’t get even a little Dangerous Minds.)

We meet Sarah just as she is beginning the process of questioning her own passivity, and to reveal to the world—and to herself—what she really wants. That looks good to Callie, and she increasingly moves to do the same.

But revealing what you want—never mind proactively going about getting it—is not part and parcel with dictating what you receive. The thing is, you don’t know. You take your shot and see what happens. You may or may not get what you wish for, but you’re going to get something.

At the risk of sounding much more New Age than either I or the play are, the Universe (including the people in it) will respond idiosyncratically to every little thing you do—and so every different sound and move you make affects your life experience somehow. Callie and Sarah reveal and act, and there are responses.

Stop Kiss is not a play about lesbianism. Callie and Sarah are individuals, not notes of a motif. It is their idiosyncratic nature as individuals—part of which is their attraction to each other as individuals—that drives the plot. Son does well to make it so on the page; Bush and Pennington are right there with her.

When the signature action of your play is two people sitting and talking in an apartment, it better be motherfucking stylized and clever as hell or realistic. Stop Kiss is the latter, and Bush and Pennington nail it. Their characters talk, listen, process; they mumble and fumper and have facial reactions of which they’re not always entirely conscious. We’re not watching characters work themselves only along the big plot arc; they’re just as truly choosing themselves (intentionally or not) in each moment, reacting and self-creating second by second. You know, like you do all the time. We can’t help it; it’s what people do.

At one point Bush’s character is asked a question: her eyes dart to the right for a moment, not looking at anything but away as an idiosyncrasy of how Callie sometimes processes the query. Bush probably does that. I know I do. Much like Callie, the individual. We get that kind of thing all night. Bush in particular, with the role that ranges over the widest range of emotional territory, has countless chances to come off as unrealistic—but she never, ever does. Whether she’s talking on the phone or crying or consulting her Magic 8 Ball, we’re privy to a person living the action, not an actor playing it.

For the most part, the totality of the production hits the same level, as director Kristal Greenlea clearly sees the realism in Son’s dialog and isn’t looking to go against this fine grain. That’s why one recurring sound cue stands out as a mistake. It’s supposed to be a loud noise, and it is—but exaggeratedly so. With life inside of Callie’s apartment being rendered so realistically otherwise, why should our experience of a noise be louder than it would be realistically for the characters?

The only—and I mean only—other aspect of the production I question is having nearly all of the scene changes be done with lights (half) up. This appears to be a clear choice, as Greenlea repeatedly goes for either quietly having the momentum of the just-ended scene carry forward a little further (like a car quickly coasting to a stop) or having Bush’s energy shift our attention to the new emotional ground of the just-beginning scene. The former tends to work nicely, but the latter can be a little awkward, particularly when Bush’s attention is on a scene in the future, where no logic of reflection can be in play—including even to a moment that does not involve Callie. This feels like a slight confusion.

But the play never approaches derailment. Instead, the train gets a-rollin’ so smoothly that at several points on the journey you might be a little more likely than usual while in public to let a tear slip, so strongly evoked is the feeling of living-room intimacy, of you and you alone getting a close-up view of a private world from your own private vantage point. (It’s a lot easier to find that experience through Netflix than it is at a black-box theatre.)

That living room (plus more) has been well fabricated by Gisela Valenzuela and Levi Gadson; it’s an effective cross of nice-looking and functional (and, if I’m not mistaken, wants you to think about if you yourself are asking the play’s Big Question). And aside from the aforementioned miscue, this living room sounds as right as it looks, including the answering machine (which receives a perfect message from some of Callie’s friends trying to cajole her into joining them at a bar). I’ve never acted, but I have to imagine this kind of thing really helps actors do realism. I mean, it’s gotta be easier realistically to inhabit a realistic environment, right? And that they do.

Interestingly, a major portion of the set design “exists” in the world of the play only very briefly near play’s end. It’s a transformative moment for those involved, occurring in its own specific physical and emotional space-time, which inevitably must give way to the future (because we can’t just stay (t)here, we simply cannot)—one way or another, for better or for worse—where other choices must and will be made. As subtle and easily overlooked as it may be, it’s a strong and inspired construct. It’s a right choice.

And a fitting finale.

STOP KISS THE GARAGE THEATRE • 251 E 7TH ST (JUST OFF LONG BEACH BLVD) • LONG BEACH 90813 • 562.433.8337 THEGARAGETHEATRE.ORG • THURS-SAT 8PM • $20; $18; $15 FOR TEACHERS, STUDENTS, AND SENIORS. ALL THURSDAYS ARE “TWOFER SUTHERLAND”: 2-FOR-1 TIX • THROUGH AUG 28TH