Birmingham, Alabama is like many cities across the United States. There is an abundance of theatrical talent (most of it untapped and under-utilized). Decisions for what plays and musicals to perform are generally safe. Though there are local playwrights (myself included), the idea of a World Premiere probably wouldn’t interest most local theatre companies. Just as in New York, betting your money on a well-known stage work leads to a more attractive economic outlook for the company in question.
As with the rest of the country, community theatres are experiencing small houses and are struggling to limp along. So, to some of you, it may seem cruel to offer a critical review of any community theatre production. In my mind, observant criticism enhances everyone to do their respective jobs better. The fact that any company, full of volunteers who work full time during the day, get together and mount a show at night is a miracle of its own and I would never tread on such an endeavor except out of love and care for the art form.
Although it’s late in the game, I highly recommend you support local theatre and go see Craig Lucas’ Prelude to a Kiss at the Encore Theatre and Gallery in a production by the itinerant company Theatre Downtown (click here to donate so they can find a permanent home).
I first came across Lucas’ play in my early teens. I learned reading so many plays a semester would be required at the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA) and, in their small library, I came across a slim paperback with a picture of Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan in a “movie-tie-in” print of the play. I read Prelude and I fell in love. Who wouldn’t? With smart, punchy, stichomythic dialogue and an enchanting, romantic tale, I was spellbound. Many years later, my mentor David Henry Hwang introduced me to Lucas and I’m proud to own a signed copy.
Prelude premiered on the West Coast in the late ‘80s. On the surface, it is a “normal” (except for the fairy tale aspect) heterosexual love story. Beneath it, however, is an entirely different meaning that most critics picked up on, if not audiences. Lucas, a gay man, was watching an entire generation die of HIV/AIDS and Prelude was a commercial response to the epidemic. Peter, a yuppy from New York, finds that the soul of his beloved Rita has swapped into the body of an old man dying of cancer. In the early days of AIDS, it was, of course, a death sentence. Young men quickly got cancers that mostly affected the elderly and animals and aged/died with frightening alacrity.
As many people now live entire lives with the syndrome, Prelude is mostly seen as a breezy, facile comedy with funny dialogue. But, beneath all that, there is still a seriousness about the horror and beauty of living. When I first read it, I assumed it was to be played at the speed with which Theatre Downtown delivers it—a rollercoaster ride of riffing. That’s why, when I saw the film version, I was utterly devastated at its slow pace. Why was this breezy play turned into such a wooden movie?
As a young teenager, though, I didn’t understand the depth of the play—the way certain lines need to breathe and be savored by both the actor and the audience member. Theatre Downtown’s version was the version I had in my head as a kid, but, as an adult, I wanted it to breathe a little, allowing the story’s deeper meaning to wash over the audience. Suddenly, I wanted something in between the pace of the film and the pace of this production.
While it is perhaps wrong to criticize a production based on its locality, Encore Theatre and Gallery, at least on the night in question, had backed-up sewage in the restrooms, loud, whirring fans in the performance space, and such dim lighting in the lobby areas I was amazed no one in the audience fell. Those fans in particular made hearing the play almost impossible in certain instances. Working with a few actors miked and most not, one had to strain to hear lines I know so well I could probably quote them. Again, this is not the fault of the production. The staging, however, is.
Carron Clark is the director and the resulting work smacks of a trend I’m seeing more and more: directors are not using the performance space to its full potential. Oh, there’s a lot of movement in this Prelude, including actors walking around the audience and exiting through aisles, but when the action is back onstage, the blocking works against the material, obscuring some potentially beautiful moments. I sat in two different sections for each act and still found myself missing small moments which (again) went by so fast I might have missed them even if the stage space had more room.
While the script used is an updated acting edition from the playwright, Prelude is very much a play of its time and, perhaps, should remain a period piece of the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. To have left the lines alone would have been best as the early political discussion between Peter and Rita no longer applies in the contemporary climate anyway. Why playwrights revisit their work after they are established classics, I'll never understand.
Tim Seale plays Peter with an urgency and earnestness that is much admired. Sometimes, however, that urgency results in him speaking over other people’s lines. While the piece does call for overlapping dialogue, when Seale is miked and others are not, a lot of the scenes are lost or confused. Seale keeps the piece moving so hurriedly that some of Peter’s character trajectory (his confusion on the honeymoon) is not given its due course. So frenetic were his impulses that his great line at the end of the play (“Never to be squandered…the miracle of another human being”) became a directive for Rita to “never be squandered” the night I saw it.
Sara James’ Rita is fine when she is playing the real Rita, but when her soul is swapped with that of the Old Man (Jack Heidt), James comes off as much too abrasive. One could argue this is a good choice because the Old Man wants to continue inhabiting Rita’s body and Peter is getting in the way of his happiness, but changing tone alone is not enough to sell the part. I wonder what kind of performances we would have gotten from the leads if they were allowed to fall in love and learn about each other rather than race through Act One as if the theater was about to be leveled to the ground.
The supporting players are a lot of fun to watch, particularly Alex Williams in the small roles of Thom and the Jamaican waiter and Lesli Johnson as Peter’s friend Taylor. Rita’s parents are played by Bates Redwine and Penny Thomas, the latter of which I saw recently in a production of How I Learned to Drive. While she was miscast in that part, leaving the theatre, I found the scenes with the Boyles were perhaps the best realized and I walked away with a great respect for Thomas’ performance. Debbie Smith plays both Aunt Dorothy and Leah with tremendous utility and is a delight to watch, particularly in the wedding scene.
The principal problem with the show is its production design. While the props can and perhaps should be minimal (and they are), sound design is not used to its fullest extent. While the production has a great song-score (though, oddly enough, neglecting to include the song which inspired the play’s title—a classic from Duke Ellington), there is a great lost opportunity in not including the rumbling and the wind that Lucas requires in his script for the magical moments which would have elevated this production consequentially. Instead, when the soul-swapping occurs, we have a simple brief black out in silence. It’s a missed opportunity to conjure the kind of real magic the play exudes.
With all that said, one can have a nice night at theatre if not an enchanting one. The play deserves more than that and yet, it was nice to be in a place where people are keeping theatre alive. Support Theatre Downtown and its endeavors and all the other players in the Magic City.
Prelude to a Kiss has two final performances: Friday and Saturday, July 26-27 at 7:30
Prelude to a Kiss
by Craig Lucas
Directed by Carron Clark
Theatre Downtown
At Encore Theatre and Gallery
213 Gadsden Hwy; Suite 108
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