STAGE KISS
Stage Kiss premiered in 2011 at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago, before making its off-Broadway debut at Playwrights Horizons in 2014, under the direction of Rebecca Taichman.
Purchase Request License
Excerpt
1) A woman—SHE--in her mid-forties. Plays the role of Ada Wilcox.
2) A man—HE--his mid-forties. Plays the role of Johnny Lowell.
3) A director, Adrian Schwalbach.
4) Kevin, the reader, also plays the understudy and the doctor and the butler
5) The Husband
6) Angela--An actress in her early twenties who can believably play a teenager—plays the maid in act 1 and Angela in act 2
7) An actress in her late twenties or early thirties, plays Millicent in act 1 and Laurie in act 2
SET:
The set has three modes which should easily transform.
A red curtain would be nice to set off the plays within plays.
1) A raw theater space (emptiness)
2) A 1930s stage set (artifice happy to be artifice)
3) A naturalistically messy east village apartment, as real as possible (artifice ashamed of its own artifice)
Act One
Scene one—audition.
Lights up on a raw, empty theater space.
Three chairs and a piano.
SHE:
Sorry the train was—I’m so late—I’m so sorry--
Do you still want me to--?
DIRECTOR:
No problem.
SHE:
Is this--?
DIRECTOR:
Yes, that’s Kevin.
SHE:
Nice to meet you, Kevin. Do you want me to actually kiss Kevin, or Kevin do you mind if we kiss; you look young, I don’t want to traumatize you.
KEVIN:
No—please, go ahead.
SHE:
Could you position your chair this way then? I had sort of pictured your chair this way. Should I start?
DIRECTOR:
Whenever you’re ready.
SHE:
Okay. I’ll start then. Wait, I’ll just move my chair. Is that all right?
DIRECTOR:
Great.
A pause.
SHE:
Sorry—can I ask one thing?
DIRECTOR:
Of course.
SHE:
I just got the sides because my agent blah blah blah and I didn’t have time to read the whole thing, so do you mind just telling me the plot a little bit because I only have these four pages—
DIRECTOR:
Sure. You’re told in the first scene that you have a month to live. You have a rare degenerative disorder. And you say to yourself: I need to see my old love before I die. And you cable him and he comes for a visit, he lives in Sweden. He’s a painter, and there is nowhere else for him to stay, and he has no money, so he stays with you for a month, in your penthouse in Manhattan. It’s a very nice apartment as your husband is a very wealthy train mogul. You and your first love pick up right where you left off, but your husband is so noble that he doesn’t object. He gardens more, while you and your first love are sort of copulating under his nose. But seeing your old love again has reversed your disease and you are becoming healthier and healthier. In the third act your daughter comes home from Paris and you all realize that she looks precisely like you did when you fell in love with your first love, when you were eighteen, and your first love falls in love with your daughter, and takes her to Sweden.
So you are left alone, to pick up the pieces. And there are some really very funny bits in the middle when you’re all living together under one roof but some really sort of sad bits, you know, when you’re ill, and the generosity of your husband in letting your old lover stay with you. Which I find very moving. So it’s tonally, very you know, slippery. And it was a flop on Broadway in 1932 when it was written but we think with the proper cast and some judicious cuts that it will be really very well received in New Haven.
SHE:
Got it.
DIRECTOR:
What else…there are one or two musical numbers.
You do sing, don’t you?
SHE:
Oh—yes.
DIRECTOR:
So, have a go?
SHE: (to Kevin)
Are you playing the husband and the lover?
KEVIN:
Yes. Both.
SHE:
All, right so I’ll just pretend the husband is here ( pointing in another direction, away from Kevin) and you’re there. (pointing to Kevin)
KEVIN:
Okay.
AS ADA: (Looking at an imaginary person off to the side)
I can’t bear cocktails anymore, I’m afraid.
KEVIN: (AS THE HUSBAND)
Water then?
AS ADA:
Yes.
KEVIN (AS THE HUSBAND)
In the solarium or in the study?
AS ADA:
The study I think. Have Jenkins put everything out.
The imaginary husband exits in the play, but of course, Keven just sits.
SHE:
You just exited right, right?
KEVIN:
Right.
She follows the imaginary husband out with her eyes and turns back to Kevin, with passion.
AS ADA: (To Kevin, as the lover)
God, I love you. I love you I love you I love you.
They kiss.
AS ADA:
Your lips taste like—let me taste them again.
She kisses him again.
Of cherries? No.
She kisses him again.
Of chestnuts.
Oh, God, I want to kiss you all day!
KEVIN: (AS LOVER)
And I you.
She kisses him again. She starts laughing.
SHE:
Sorry—there was a little crumb in your mouth.
KEVIN:
Oh, sorry.
He wipes the crumb.
DIRECTOR:
Should we take it from the top? You don’t have to kiss this time, you could just indicate the kissing—with a gesture of some kind.
SHE:
A gesture?
DIRECTOR:
Sure.
SHE:
Okay. Fine.
(Turning towards Kevn as the lover)
God, I love you. I love you I love you I love you.
Ada sits on his lap and makes a strange gesture substituting for the kiss.
AS ADA:
Your lips taste like—let me taste them again.
Strange kiss gesture, still sitting on his lap.
Of cherries? No.
Strange gesture, still sitting on his lap.
Of chestnuts.
Oh, God, I want to kiss you all day! Until I am breathless with desire. The way I was when I was eighteen. Do you remember the lake?
KEVIN: (AS LOVER)
I think I hear your husband.
AS ADA:
Hang it all!
KEVIN: (AS LOVER)
Oh, darling. How can we have been apart this long?
AS ADA:
I do not know.
I do not know.
She stops and looks at the director. A pause.
DIRECTOR:
Very nice work.
SHE:
Really?
DIRECTOR:
Yes.
SHE:
Do you want me to do the second side?
DIRECTOR:
No, that won’t be necessary.
SHE:
I memorized it.
DIRECTOR:
If you’d like to, go ahead.
SHE:
Do you want to tell me anything about it?
DIRECTOR:
Just have a go.
She fumbles with her papers.
SHE:
All right. Side Six? No side seven? Page 43? Right.
DIRECTOR:
That’s right.
SHE: (to reader)
So now—you’ll be Millicent?
KEVIN:
Right.
SHE:
I think I’ll stand, is it all right if I stand?
DIRECTOR:
Whatever makes you most comfortable.
SHE:
I’ll stand. No, I’ll sit.
She sits. She waits for the reader to speak. An awkward pause.
SHE:
Oh, do I have the first line? I have the first line.
AS ADA:
Millicent, I’ve realized the reason it was impossible, so long ago…
KEVIN: (AS MILLICENT)
There is always a reason, isn’t there?
AS ADA:
He was like champagne, champagne, but you can’t live on champagne your whole life, eventually you want bread, my husband is like bread—oh the smell of toast in the morning!
KEVIN: (AS MILLICENT)
You think Jack is like--toast?
AS ADA:
But like the best toast in the world, no crumbs, (sorry Kevin), a toast that feeds you and feeds you in winter and is spread with the most gorgeous butter…I used to be afraid of putting too much butter on my toast, but the first night I spent with Jack, I woke up in the morning, and he put enormous quantities of butter on my toast, and I thought: I’ll love this man forever.
KEVIN (AS MILLICENT)
It’s such a relief to love your husband, is it not?
AS ADA: (saying the word “clear” the same way three times)
Yes! Millicent, do you think that if life were properly understood, it would be beautiful, all the time? Clear, clear, clear!
SHE:
Sorry, can I go back?
DIRECTOR:
Sure.
AS ADA: (saying the word “clear” differently every time)
Millicent, do you think that if life were properly understood, it would be beautiful all the time? Clear, clear clear?
KEVIN (AS MILLICENT):
I think your life is beautiful, darling Ada…don’t leave us…don’t leave—me…
AS ADA:
I shan’t…I feel myself coming into the world again, I feel my strength returning. Millicent, I want to live. And I will live.
KEVIN (AS HUSBAND):
You will?
SHE:
Oh, right—husband—
(AS ADA) Yes, Jack. With you. With you.
This is where I sing?
DIRECTOR:
Yes.
SHE:
Just any made up tune?
DIRECTOR:
Sure.
SHE:
Acapella?
The director nods.
She clears her mouth and sings:
AS ADA:
Love me just shy of forever
Or love me till six o clock
Love me whatever the weather
Love me in afghan or sweater
Whether it’s May or December
Oh love me just shy of forever
Darling
Love me past six o clock
She stops singing and looks at the director.
SHE:
Was that all right?
That was awful, I know, I can learn to sing, and I can learn to act, ha ha…
Thank you, Tom. (looking at Kevin)
KEVIN:
Kevin.
SHE:
Yes, thank you Kevin.
She fumbles to exit.
Kevin and the director look at each other.
She comes back.
SHE:
I think I just left my bag…
She grabs her bag, everything topples out of it.
SHE:
Oh, right, the minor humiliations of life…sorry…good luck with your day, hope you see some good people, I haven’t auditioned for a play in like ten years, ha ha ha…
Everything keeps toppling out of her bag, water bottle, script, hairbrush, lipstick, etc.
Oh, just shoot me now…ha ha ha….Bye, thank you, bye Tom, Devin, Kevin, ha ha you were great, hope I didn’t get lipstick on you, I got this lipstick as a free sample you know and I think it was the wrong color for the character, it’s called Desert Storm, no that’s a war…wouldn’t you love to have the job of naming lipsticks or wars…right, okay, then, shoot me now. Okay, thanks guys, have a good afternoon.
She exits.
She waves good-bye, oddly.
The reader and the director look at each other.
DIRECTOR: (with optimism and sincerity)
She was good.
The reader nods.
Scene 2
The first rehearsal.
HE:
Hello.
SHE:
Hello.
HE:
I didn’t think you were working these days.
SHE:
I wasn’t. I had a child.
HE:
I’d heard. How old?
SHE:
Sixteen.
HE:
That’s great.
SHE:
Great?
HE:
Great.
SHE:
Great is such a—word. You didn’t have them—
HE:
Words—
SHE: HE:
Children. No.
SHE:
Of course I know that. We did at least have two friends in common. Not many but enough to know whether you procreated. Not that I was keeping track. But you run into people. Occasionally.
HE:
Right.
SHE:
But of our two friends, one of them is now dead and the other’s in Berlin.
HE:
Right.
Sad about—
SHE:
Wasn’t it? I didn’t see you at the—
HE:
I sent flowers.
SHE:
That was thoughtful. I mean given that you couldn’t come, or didn’t make the effort to come, it was nice you sent flowers. They were—pungent.
HE:
Mm.
You didn’t know I was—going to be in the play?
SHE:
No. I didn’t ask. I haven’t worked—for a while. When they called, I said: yes. I didn’t ask: can I have approval over who’s playing my lover in New Haven? If you are an actress in this country you are either Juliet or Lady Macbeth and there’s nothing in between, so between the ages of 35 and 40 I had two auditions, one for a maid on Broadway and one for an anti-depressant commercial. I got the anti-depressent commercial.
HE:
Yeah, I saw it.
You were good.
SHE:
Sure.
HE:
I mean—you seemed depressed—and then you seemed happy.
SHE:
Right.
So you didn’t know that I—
HE:
No.
Are they playing some kind of fucking joke on us?
SHE:
No one cares who I fucked a century ago. I have a child. Not a baby. A child biologically capable of having her own child. No one cares who I fucked during puberty. No one even wonders.
HE:
It wasn’t exactly puberty.
SHE:
Emotional puberty.
Enter the director, holding flowers.
DIRECTOR:
Right. You two know each other?
They nod.
DIRECTOR:
Great. That’ll make things easier.
They all look at each other.
SHE:
Flowers?
DIRECTOR:
From your husband.
SHE:
He always sends flowers on the first day of rehearsal.
HE:
Roses.
SHE:
I like the small ones. I don’t like the big ones.
HE:
I know.
DIRECTOR:
Right. I hate sitting around a table. This is the theater, after all! Why hide behind a table! Let’s just get on our feet immediately. Should we take it from the butler’s entrance?
SHE:
Can I have a pencil?
DIRECTOR:
Sure.
The director goes to get a pencil.
HE:
My girlfriend won’t be overly pleased about this.
SHE:
You have a girlfriend?
HE:
Yes.
SHE:
Are you in love?
HE:
I wouldn’t call it love. We moved in. She’s a school teacher. She’s nice. So it probably won’t work out.
SHE:
You could be nicer.
HE:
You could mind your own business.
SHE:
Yes. Well. She could be meaner.
HE:
That’s right. She could. That would be helpful, actually.
Suddenly a butler (Kevin) enters their conversation.
BUTLER:
One whiskey sour for you, sir.
AS JOHNNY: (script in hand)
Why, thank you, Jenkins.
And then I exit? A door?
|
DIRECTOR: |
SHE: (Overlapping) So your girlfriend—she what?— loves children and makes paste? |
The butler exits.
AS ADA: (script in hand)
(in character)
Get out! Get out before I kick you out!
AS JOHNNY:
Ada, darling!
SHE:
The telephone rings.
You want me to mime it?
DIRECTOR:
For now.
Picking up the pretend telephone.
AS ADA:
Yes, Millicent, the old cad is right here with me in fact.
She hangs up.
AS ADA:
Hide.
AS JOHNNY:
No thanks! I don’t mind hiding in a bedroom but hiding in a library seems kind of dry.
A pause. They stand there.
SHE:
Hide.
HE: (to her)
Where do you want me to hide?
They look at the director.
DIRECTOR:
Take ten!
We need to spike the furniture.
She and He both pull out their cell phones.
Meanwhile, the Director frantically puts tape in the places where the furniture is supposed to be.
They look at each other.
They look away.
Strange music.
They turn to the audience.
| SHE: I’ve dreamed of you most nights for the last twelve years. I dream I introduce you to my child. I dream you want to kill me and that you’re trying to climb through my window. I’m frightened. I dream that you introduce me to your lover and I clasp her hand and I like her. I dream that you introduce me to your lover and I hate her, and then I kill her. I dream that you’re married. I dream that you’re dead. I dream that you introduce me To your child and she looks like me and we play quietly by the sea. I dream that you teach me how to play an instrument and it is calm. I dream that I steal your quilt, your childhood quilt. And it’s a terrible act of betrayal. |
HE: I’ve dreamed of you most nights for the last twelve years. I dream you introduce me to your child. I dream you want to kill me and that you’re trying to climb through my windows. I’m frightened. I dream that you introduce me to your lover and I clasp his hand and I like him. I dream that you introduce me to your lover and I hate him and then I kill him. I dream that you’re married. I dream That you’re dead. I dream that you introduce me to your child and she looks like me And we play quietly by the sea. I dream that I teach you how to play an instrument. an instrument and it is calm. I dream that I steal your quilt, your childhood quilt. And it’s a terrible act of betrayal. |
They stare at each other.
Nothing was really spoken just now.
DIRECTOR:
We’re back.
There’s the divan, there’s the grandfather clock, there’s the balcony.
SHE:
Great.
HE:
Where do you want me to hide?
DIRECTOR:
Where do you feel like hiding?
HE:
Wherever you want me to hide.
DIRECTOR:
How about here. Behind the divan.
He hides behind an imaginary divan.
The husband enters, holding a script.
HUSBAND:
Ada.
AS ADA:
Darling.
HUSBAND:
The butler’s having a terrible row with the parlour-maid.
AS ADA:
Oh, bother.
AS HUSBAND:
Is Mrs. Sternhaven coming this evening?
AS ADA:
No. I told her I was too ill. Be a love and be sure the flowers are out in the entry hall, will you?
AS HUSBAND:
Yes, my love.
She kisses him on the cheek.
The husband exits.
HE pops out from behind the couch.
AS ADA:
You must leave.
AS JOHNNY:
Oh, to hell with that! To hell with the past and the future!
They stand looking at each other and at their scripts.
DIRECTOR:
And then you kiss.
HE/SHE:
Right.
SHE:
Today?
DIRECTOR:
I like to get it out of the way—demystify it, you know.
HE:
Okay.
Where would you like that to happen?
DIRECTOR:
What do you feel?
They look at each other.
HE: SHE:
Floor? Grandfather clock?
DIRECTOR:
Let’s try the balcony. Take it from: Oh, to hell with that!
HE:
Oh, to hell with that! Kiss me.
I don’t see how I get her to the balcony.
I could try a sort of…
He awkwardly moves her to the balcony.
SHE:
No.
HE:
Or like this…
He moves her to the balcony.
HE:
Then…
SHE:
I don’t see why he’s moving me, I could just as well move him.
Like this.
She moves him to the balcony.
HE:
That feels awkward.
DIRECTOR:
Why don’t you just stay on the divan.
HE and SHE:
Fine.
DIRECTOR:
Take it from…Oh, to hell with that.
AS JOHNNY:
Oh, to hell with that! To hell with the past and the future!
They face each other.
They kiss, barely.
SHE:
That was hostile.
HE:
What?
SHE:
Did you brush your teeth this morning?
DIRECTOR:
What?
SHE:
It’s weird on the divan.
He takes a breath tablet from his pocket and puts it in his mouth.
SHE:
What if the fight is by the grandfather clock, and then we sort of do like this, and then the kiss ends up being by the window?
DIRECTOR:
Try it.
AS ADA:
You must leave!
AS JOHNNY:
To hell with the past and the future! To hell with all that!
They kiss.
SHE:
I think it’s more of a—
They do another kind of kiss.
HE:
Or I could sort of---
They do another kind of kiss.
SHE:
There’s no transition into the kiss, it feels really odd, what if I slap him first?
DIRECTOR:
Try it.
HE:
To hell with the past and the future! To hell with all that!
She slaps him.
They kiss.
They look at the director expectantly.
DIRECTOR:
I—
SHE:
Or kind of like your one but like this—
She slaps him.
They do another kind of kiss.
SHE: (to the director)
Which one did you like best?
DIRECTOR:
They seemed similar-ish.
SHE:
I liked the third one best.
HE:
I think I preferred the second.
DIRECTOR:
Shall we move on to the next scene? The one where you tell your daughter you’re dying?
HE and SHE:
Yes.
DIRECTOR:
Take five.
HE:
Do you still smoke?
SHE:
No. You?
HE:
No.
SHE:
No one smokes.
HE:
There’s nothing to do on break without smoking.
SHE:
I know.
HE:
Cell phones.
SHE:
Yeah.
HE:
I could use a cigarette.
Someone in the cast must smoke.
(Yelling) Does anyone smoke?
SHE:
No one smokes.
HE:
You used to roll your own. As I remember.
SHE:
Did I? I can’t remember.
A silence.
They remember.
HE: (Shouting to the cast off stage)
Does no one here smoke?
No one answers him.
SHE:
Do you still have my shirt?
HE:
Which one?
SHE:
The one with the--?
HE:
Yes. Do you still have mine?
SHE:
Maybe.
The blue background you see is a close-up of a tile from a production of Eurydice at Second Stage,
directed by Les Waters and designed by Scott Bradley.