STOP KISS

STOP KISS
By Diana Son. Unlikely Productions, in association with the 2014 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. ATYP Studio 1, The Wharf. Mar 5 – 22, 2014.

STOP KISS is hands-down the best play in this year’s Mardi Gras Festival. Diana Son’s beautiful love story under the inspired direction of Anthony Skuse charms, excites and provokes. Amidst a homophobic act of violence, two women fall unexpectedly in love in what becomes one of the most honest, detailed and heartfelt explorations of same-sex attraction to hit the mainstream stage.

When homegrown New Yorker Callie (Olivia Stambouliah) offers to care for new girl Sara’s (Gabrielle Scawthorn) cat while she settles into her Bronx teaching fellowship, the two find themselves sharing a mutual attraction. Both having had relationships with men, neither know how to address or express their feelings. What eventuates is a roundabout perusal of one another until a fateful attack during their first kiss.

The charm of Son’s play and Skuse’s delicate vision is that Stop Kiss is a love story of the best kind. The kind that gives you warm and fuzzies and makes you want to reach out and hold the hand of your own loved one. The kind that has you smiling and laughing as the characters clumsily and awkwardly work up the courage to act on their feelings. A serious undertone about hate crime and homophobia runs throughout the play, and the subtle political message hits home stronger because we come to care so much for the characters.

Stambouliah’s cool-cat Callie plays brilliantly off Scawthorn’s bubbly Sara. The two have palpable chemistry. The entire cast Robert Jago (Detective Cole), Kate Fraser (Nurse), Suzanne Pereira (Mrs Winsley), Aaron Tsindos (George) and Ben McIvor (Peter) give moving performances.

Gez Xavier Mansfield’s minimalist set design works with ATYP’s peculiar space, enhanced by Skuse’s direction to best utilise audience seating on two sides of the stage.

Stop Kiss proves to be a brilliant start for new independent theatre company Unlikely Productions and perfect billing for the Mardi Gras Festival. Stunning writing, direction and performances. I’m going back to see the show a second time – it’s that good.

Maryann Wright

Photographer: Gez Xavier Mansfield

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