Sarah Ruhl’s comedy plays by its own rules. As we settle in our seats we note one person on stage. Looks odd, as stage hands begin to move about bantering casually. Many in the audience turned to the person next to them asking “has it started?”. My companion nudged me equipping “yes, this is the play”.
This was the first intended subtext that the playwright goes about her business bending the rules of how life co-exists with art and she piles on the theatre tropes culture using throw-away lines that uphold love and respect for the craft. She explores in her eminently clever way about the eccentricities of comedy in the theatre which doubles as a social commentary on how we navigate the relationships that define our existence. The actors have a tall order to accomplish to segue smoothly between playing comicly bad actors who are in a play-within-a-play, an arguably awful 1930’s melodrama by playing those characters, which i must add, fulfil their task to sparkling affect.
As STAGE KISS opens, using an audition as her point of entry, Ms Ruhl dives head first into her conceit of giving a behind the scenes glimpse into how badly some actors, playing a character act, and how badly some actors, as their real selves, behave. As lead character, the wondrous Emma Dell-Vedove, referred to as “she”, barges into the audition, apologising for being late, and proceeds to become a hotter mess as the audition stumbles along. Opposite her, as the other auditioning actor, Frank Shanahan plays Kevin and other roles who is marvellous as a thoroughly inapt actor whose ideas of a kiss bears a striking resemblance to a big-mouth fish yawning. His wordless moments are priceless. “She” and Kevin reoeat that audition kiss again and again under the watchful eye of avuncular Nicholas Papademetriou, as the play’s director, who seems to make it up as he goes along. He perfectly captures the Shaker directorial persona that many an actor has encountered.
Once cast, at the first rehearsal, “she” is flummoxed to find her co-star is none other then her ex, named “he”, brought to vivid and rakish life by Lyndon Jones. He and Mrs Bloom make an impactful one-two punch, both delivering strong stage presence, comic timing, and sustained energy to their roles. Their chemistry, which by the way, runs hot snd cold, per the script, is palpable. The more “he” and “she” kiss on stage the more they both give in to the magnetic pull of falling back in love, sometimes with dollops of lust.
Helping to put things in perspective is their daughter Angela. In the role, Nicola Denton totally nails the monologue dressing down calling “he” a bad actor snd sn all-round ass. As the second act unspoilt there is a deft sleigh-of-hand shapeshifting to what we are seeing–where does an actor’s character end and their true self begin? Directed by Alice Livingstone, the play weaves its lure of our theatricality of it all. As the play moves from bare stage to full set at opening night, designer Merle Leuschner has compiled an elegant accumulation for the setting of the dirty room of the ex-lover played by Jason Spindlow, fittingly maudlin. There are many ways to analyse the meanings in STAGE KISS, but for me, its a deliriously diverting way to say that life itself, after all is said and done, is an act.
Sarah Ruhl’s STAGE KISS, directed by Alice Livingstone, is playing the New Theatre, 542 King Street, Newtown until the 11th April 2026.
Production photography by Bob Seary
