Stage Kiss

by Sarah Ruhl

"Wickedly clever. . . . Ruhl's unique, breezily elegant dialogue is fully present, as is her pleasingly loopy logic."—Variety

"In the smart, rollicking Stage Kiss . . . passion and fidelity engage in a kind of elegant pas de deux. . . . The play manages to be both wholly original and instantly recognizable . . . with its combination of hilarity and trenchancy."—John Lahr, The New Yorker

Award-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl brings her unique mix of lyricism, sparkling humor, and fierce intelligence to her new romantic comedy Stage Kiss. When estranged lovers He and She are thrown together as romantic leads in a long-forgotten 1930s melodrama, the line between off-stage and on-stage begins to blur. A "knockabout farce that channels Noël Coward and Michael Frayn" (Chicago Tribune), Stage Kiss is a thoughtful and clever examination of the difference between youthful lust and respectful love. Ruhl, one of America's most frequently produced playwrights, proves that a kiss is not just a kiss in this whirlwind romantic comedy.

Sarah Ruhl's other plays include the Pulitzer Prize finalists In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) and The Clean House, as well as Passion Play, Dean Man's Cell Phone, Demeter in the City, Eurydice, Melancholy Play, and Late: a cowboy song. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Her plays have premiered on Broadway, off-Broadway, and in many theaters around the world.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Romance, Contemporary, Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2012

About the author

Sarah Ruhl (born 1974) is an American playwright. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career.

Originally, she intended to be a poet. However, after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University (A.B., 1997; M.F.A., 2001), she was persuaded to switch to playwriting. Her first play was The Dog Play, written in 1995 for one of Vogel's classes. Her roots in poetry can be seen in the way she uses language in her plays. She also did graduate work at Pembroke College, Oxford.

In September 2006, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. The announcement of that award stated: "Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York City. Playwright creating vivid and adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of daily life with mythic themes of love and war."

Reviews

[Yourfiendmrjones · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting play in which two actors go through an affair while rehearsing a 1930's sophisticated melodrama in the first act and a 1970's "gritty" melodrama in the second. Mostly I enjoyed the jumps back and forth between the "plays" they're rehearsing and their own offstage drama. But it's the ending that is so sincerely touching in a very simple way, that makes this a play worth reading and producing.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This play was really funny. It had a very noises off feel where the play within the play becomes more and more entangled with the real lives of the actors. I wasn't particularly fond of the abrupt (or what i felt was abrupt) ending but the actual resolution was nice.

Update: I actually got to see this play performed at the Hippodrome and was laughing out loud. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it come to life with real emotion and pain and thought. the ending on stage is less abrupt and actually ends up being a really funny punchline to the whole second act, but also very poignant.

[Raechel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny little play about love, devotion, what-if, and nostalgia.

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

funny, witty, thoughtful, heartfelt. incredibly well-constructed

themes:
-the separation between fiction/reality, on-stage/off-stage
-love, marriage, desire
-commitment

[Himali Kothari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic one by Sarah Ruhl. A play within a play where art imitates life when one-time lovers reunite as leads in a story that appears to follow the same path as their own. Will it end different? Do they want it to end different?
The quintessential question for me was in life would we make the same choices that we admire in the stories we see and read?

[Alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah Ruhl, you are so weird and perfect.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where is the line between acting and real life? This play is about an actor and actress who were lovers in the past and they mirror the play they are performing in.
Meeting after many years and being thrown together on stage with romantic kisses thrown in, blurs the line for these two old lovers.
I am a great fan of the work of Sarah Ruhl and this play is another great example of her work.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adore Sarah Ruhl's writing, and this play was no exception. It really got me thinking about how easy it is to fall back into old habits with people. How easily we can get distracted by lust, and can ignore abuse when we are consumed by it. It's a great think piece and yet another great play by Sarah.

[It's Jess✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still collecting my thoughts...

[phoebe]

this is like if la la land, past lives, and the great gatsby had a baby. loved it!

[Sophia Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

“i wish that you love each other a lot, but not too much, not too much right away, but slowly, so it doesn’t explode, like a star”

feb 6/3

[Ulana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the first act so so much, and the second act was so absurd that i was like,,, what did i just read lmao

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fell a bit off courses not the middle but came together for a rather exquisite ending. No one does wistful like Sarah Ruhl.

[Hallie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this playful, theatrical play. When I say theatrical, I mean (and this is very characteristic of Sarah Ruhl) it reads like an A-B acting exercise where you have a script of lines wholly open to interpretation. There is a lot of leeway in this script and I think for this one it works well. Lots of opportunity for broad comedy and the deepest of intimate confessions and the psychological mythologies, the outing of the subconscious, that are practically unique to Ruhl's plays.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

I realize it's hard to review a play just reading it, as a lot of times a play just doesn't come alive until on the stage... but yeash! This reads horribly ... and can't imagine it'd be much improved in the playing.

[Misti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weird. And not in a good way.

[Jack Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this wasn't the strongest play I've read from Ruhl, I still think it worked well. The first act moved a little slow for my tastes, but I think it'll be better live than in print. The fake plays the playwright came up with were hilariously bad, and I enjoyed seeing how He and She became so wrapped up in each other to the point where the 1930's drama consumed them. Ruhl brings up good questions on how we view stage kisses, romance, and why falling face first back in love with an old flame could lead to losing touch with the life one has built. She also created fantastic parallels with the actors in the play and in He and She's real life.

[Maria Becker]

A comedic and farcical play about the blurred lines between performance and reality within the theater.

The problem with reading scripts is that I only get a shadow of what seeing the actual play performed would be like (hence no star review). This play is weird and funny, and I think it would be fascinating to see it performed. The script is sparse, but so much development and characterization comes across nonetheless.

I don't read a lot of plays, but I like Sarah Ruhl's stuff so much that maybe it will lead me to seek out other contemporary playwrights. Or maybe I should just go see more plays because that really is the better way to take this material in!

[mya alvarado · Rating 3 out of 5]

“ I want you to take me to a theater and kiss me once a week, and pretend I'm someone else.
Once a week I can be whoever you want me to be, and you can be whoever I want you to be. Kiss me in a place with no history, and no furniture. “

INTERESTING? not where i saw that going particularly. had some nice lines that made me go oh. BUT ALSO JUST HAD SOME WEIRD MOMENTS I GUESS??? the back of the play says “ the plays asks us to consider what is real, both in love and in art. “ but it also just makes me more confused. maybe the truth is that it is all real. i dunno know.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ruhl is in my top five of contemporary American playwrights for sure--reading any one of her plays is what I imagine taking a swig of Willie Wonka's fizzy lifting drink must be like. Here Ruhl is in a particularly light and playful mood as she maps the border between stage romance and real romance while in the process sending up any number of theatrical cliches. The staging required is particularly tricky, but anyone feeling ambitious should check it out.

[Jennifer Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A writer recommended I read this play since I'm working on a book about actors in a play. I loved the fresh writing and the premise of Stage Kiss. There's a lot of history given but solely through dialogue. One of my favorite scenes is when She's husband and daughter enter. Their opening lines are hilarious and revealing. I haven't ever read Sarah Ruhl before, but I can see why her work is so revered in theater. Fantastic play! Quick and easy read too.

[NoraDawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quarantine Read # 7
I love this play. The roles are so juicy and interesting. Ruhl knows writing and knows acting. I haven't read anything that felt so clever and also so real. My community theater was planning to put it on this coming season, but everything's up in the air right now, because of the pandemic. There is a lot of kissing in this play! I hope someday I'll have the chance to be in this play.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“no one does false exits in real life. that’s why they call them false.

people do false exits all the time in life.

no they don’t!

yes they do! they can’t say the really important thing until they’re halfway out the door! that’s how it is! as soon as you leave someone you can finally say something half-way true!

no, people leave. they leave and they change their numbers. they leave in terrible silence. they leave you.” (119)

[Paige Felger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love Sarah Ruhl and her writing style. This is a farce reminiscent of Noel Coward. I just don’t care for this notion that people fall in love while playing romantic leads. I get that she’s asserting that the line is blurry but we need to normalize that these are people doing jobs and those jobs require them to kiss someone else and it is a job and nothing more. So not my favorite subject matter but a well written fever dream of a play.

[Mark Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruhl goes meta here. She makes theater the play. She blurs the boundary between art and life by including them in the same kit. It's a form of hyper-realism.

Staging this would be fun IF with the right ensemble cast and the right resources. It's a gutsy play and the ending--a little too much of the deus ex machina for me--stopped it before it went too far.

[Gabi · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun play within a play. Touching, meaningful and also hilarious and poignant.
2 ex lovers unbeknownst to the other are cast as love interests in a new play. Old feelings are stirred up and wreak havoc on her current home life and ultimately forces both of them to grow up and out of their lustful former selves.

[zan :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

adding this to the list of plays that center unrequited love. the idea of two people perfect for each other that were never meant to be together always intrigues me. fate is a tricky thing. this was hilarious.

[carenza · Rating 4 out of 5]

so cool to read a sarah ruhl play with more modern language than i’m used to hearing in her dialogue! this was an exercise for my brain in picturing all of the cutoffs and character changes and blocking within the blocking and i’d really like to see a production of it onstage!!

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favorite Sarah Ruhl play, but she's a master and a joy to read always. Even her missteps are pleasurable.

[Chris Mixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Such a fun and whip-smart play!