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| Samantha Hanna, Connor Wanless, Neda Tavassoli, and Evan Ohbayashi photo by John Groseclose |
Click here for more information on this production that runs through September 30.
"Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón's Kiss is a political play set in Syria with an unusual and thought-provoking twist. Stray Cat Theatre's production has an incredibly talented cast who maneuver their way skillfully through Calderón's layered plot under Ron May's expert direction. While Kiss isn't a perfect play, with an ending that I wish packed more of a wallop, and it feels overly long in parts even though it only runs 80 minutes, it still makes for an interesting and intriguing conversation about how we possibly misinterpret people and situations that are different from us or beyond our scope of knowledge. Kiss begins as an exaggerated and overly dramatic soap opera set in Hadeel's Damascus apartment...After that 30-minute humorous first act, the play then morphs and changes as facts come out, and everything we've seen so far is turned upside down, with dramatic and heartwrenching touches that change your perspective, views, and thoughts on the characters and their perceived comical romantic entanglements. ...Calderón's work is still topical and offers an interesting question about whether anyone can truly understand the traditions, language and social aspects of those in faraway foreign countries....Director Ron May never fails to impress with his subtle directorial choices and ability to ensure his cast members always deliver committed performances; the group of actors he's assembled for Kiss is no exception....While it isn't perfect, Kiss is a politically charged play that will definitely make you think about how you view people from different countries and backgrounds and if you can really truly every understand their struggles without at least speaking to them or seeing first-hand what they are up against. With a stellar cast, lush creative elements, and spotless direction, this Stray Cat production, like just about every other challenging work they produce, provides a perfect way to test and expose an audience to characters and a world far beyond their own." -Gil Benbrook, Talkin' Broadway (click here to read the complete review)
"...What can you say about a play where almost anything mentioned becomes a plot-spoiler? ...The answer, of course, is you don’t. ......In Syria...one of the most popular and celebrated forms of television entertainment is the Mosalsalat, a name given to a series of Arabic television soap-operas, ...When those four characters, Bana (Samantha Hanna), Youssif (Evan Ohbayashi), Hadeel (Neda Tavassoli), and Ahmed (Connor Wanless) roam around the stage, professing their love, their jealousies, and their desires for each other, all presented in a comical, overly melodramatic and intentionally hammy form, they’re in a Mosalsalat, underlined by Peter Bish’s well-timed stabs of music and sound effects....But then everything alters in a way you won’t expect, and it’s not only a game-changer, you’ll shift uncomfortably in your seat..It’s not simply a case of having the rug pulled from under you, it’s as if that rug was covering a massive black hole, and once pulled, down you go, lost in your own madly careening thoughts of what is really going on as you discover why the play within the play was set in a living room, and what the real definition of the play’s title actually means.... Playwright Calderón ..has clearly succeeded, as, indeed, has Ron May’s production, one that, though discomfiting, once again sticks firmly to SCT’s desire to always present a provocative theatrical experience. ..." -David Appleford, Valley Screen and Stage (click here to read the complete review)
"“Kiss,” the first English-language play by the Chilean innovator Guillermo Calderón, is a challenging work..The first half is a play-within-a-play..From there, “Kiss” delves into darker territory that turns farce intro tragedy and makes a powerful political statement...“Kiss” offers plenty of grist for contemplation. It’s also kind of hard to sit through. The funny part might not be quite funny enough — that short play feels longer than it needs to be — and what follows is confusing and pushes the limits of willing suspension of disbelief. " - Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic (click here to read the complete review)
"As political theatre goes, Guillermo Calderón's KISS, Stray Cat Theatre's 16th Season opener, directed by Ron May, occupies the terrain between parody and reality, melodrama and documentary, laughter and catharsis. It is a play that works on a number of levels: startling an audience out of its comfort zone, engaging it in the shared discovery of uncomfortable and inconvenient truths, revealing the barriers that must be surmounted to achieve cross-cultural understanding....How do we reconcile farce with the gravitas of travesty? How does this soap opera fulfill Calderón's commitment to expose the ruthlessness of the Assad regime and to connect the audience with the reality that is today's Syria?...These are the questions, the answers to which will leave the audience in a far different frame of mind and understanding than when they entered the theatre...." - Herbert Paine, Broadway World (click here to read the complete review)
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