Ovation Fellows are current students or recent alumni from Los Angeles area universities. Fellows are paired with a Mentor, currently serving as an Ovation Award voter, and see productions and meet artists around Greater Los Angeles throughout the year. Their articles, posted on LAStageBlog, are intended to be their personal responses to their experiences, and not as critical reviews or representing the views of LA Stage Alliance.
Ashley Walden is an Ovation Fellow from the California Institute of the Arts.
Rogue Machine Los Angeles Premiere of
Stop Kiss
Written by Diana Son
Directed by Elina de Santos & Matthew Elkins
Produced by John Perrin Flynn & Matthew Elkins
Sunday, October 18, 2009
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This weekend I had the opportunity to see for the first time a play I absolutely love, Stop Kiss by Diana Son. Stop Kiss chronicles the events that surround the moment when two women, Sara and Callie, have their first lesbian kiss which leads to an attack that leaves Sara in a coma. The most intriguing feature of the production was the scene transitions. The piece is heavily reliant of the pacing of the show and demands very quick and clean transitions. This may seem as something trivial but the six member ensemble was also the crew and quick changers and the minor characters who may not have had many lines were present throughout the piece working during the blackouts in character.
After the show, I had the opportunity to talk with producer and co-director Mathew Elkins who had filled in for the role of Peter on this night. Asked the reason for this decision, he explained although the actor only had two scenes and it would be easy to get someone to fill in, it would take an additional eight hours of rehearsal to teach the scene and quick changes. It was an interesting choice and raises the question of making an artistic decision driven by other reasons besides the art. How much does time and monetary constraints affect the artistic shape of productions in our theater community?
The branding and marketing of this production of Stop Kiss gave me competing ideas of the tone of the piece. On the Rogue Machine website, the poster image depicts a close up shot of two women who lips are ready to kiss but are not yet touching with the New York City skyline on the bottom with the normal credits. On the cover of the program, there is the words STOP KISS in huge red letters; in between the two words are lips (like the ones you see on The Rocky Horror posters and the Dairy Queen commercials) with multi colored “bubble gum” lips and the normal credits. The image was very much rave in the 1980s.
The production I saw was warm, powerful, modern and at times comedic. The aesthetic of the image on the Rogue Machine website captured the essence of the piece with its color pallet, images and tone whereas the cover of the program (when I sat down) made me think for a moment it was not going to be the Stop Kiss I know and loved so much. In the end, it did turn out to be as charming and heartbreaking as I remembered.
For more information on Stop Kiss or Rogue Machine, click here! It runs until Oct. 25, 2009.
