Synopsis
Boy meets boy. Boy falls for boy. Turns out both guys are dolls. What's a girl to do? In Stolen Chair’s newest collective creation Stage Kiss, a bawdy gender-bent romantic comedy in blank verse, love is blind…and lust is blinder.
Two doting single parents independently disguise their chaste young daughters as men and send them off into a nearby forest to bide time until Neptune has had his fill at the village’s annual sacrifice of young virgins. Gallathea and Phyllida, each believing the other to be a man, fall deeply in love…and lust. In their quests to obtain the objects of their affection, the two newly gender-questioning protagonists learn, with a little help from the goddess Venus, that love is many gendered thing, puncturing a Pandora's box of sexuality and desire.
Production History
January - March 2011
@ The Wings Theatre
Written by Kiran Rikhye
Directed by Jon Stancato
Dramaturgy and Music by Emily Otto
Sets by David Bengali
Costumes by Sarah Riffle
Lighting Design by Daniel Winters
Tech Direction by Adele Rylands
Props & Graphic Design by Aviva Meyer
Stage Kiss Featuring Liz Eckert, Liza Wade Green, Andy Phelan*, Noah Schultz
*Appears courtesy of Actors' Equity Association
May 2006
@ The Red Room
Presented by Horse Trade
Written by Kiran Rikhye
Directed by Jon Stancato
Dramaturgy & Music by Emily Otto
Lights & Set by David Bengali
Costumes by May Elbaz
Stage Management and Props by Aviva Meyer
Featuring: Jon Campbell, Layna Fisher, Cameron J. Oro, and Alexia Vernon.
For his work in Stage Kiss, Cameron J. Oro was nominated for Best Lead Actor from the New York Innovative Theatre Awards.
2003 (Previous Version)
Using music, masks, microphones, and a mannequin, Stolen Chair transformed John Lyly's gender-bending Renaissance classic, Gallathea, into Stage Kiss, a two-woman celebration of sexuality and desire.
Debuted in New York City
Revised for a run at the 2003 Philadelphia Fringe Festival
Written by Kiran Rikhye
Directed by Jon Stancato
Featuring:Katherine Walley and Keetje Kuipers
Press for Stage Kiss
"This spunky production plants a big sloppy smooch on its audience."
- Adam Feldman
TimeOut New York (4 stars)
(Read more of Adam's thoughts on the script and see a excerpt at Scriptease!
"...light-hearted, fun-loving, libido-heavy amusement."
- O'Hagan Blades
Theatre Is Easy
"Racy... energetic...inspired...so much fun! A great play
to bring a date to..."
-Ed Malin
NYtheatre.com
"[A] delight from start to finish: it truly puts the 'play' back in play."
-Martin Denton
NYtheatre.com
"[S]mart yet lighthearted...delightfully tongue-in-cheek...Audiences should walk away charmed by the play's escapades, gleeful with a guiltless spring fever."
-William Cordeiro
Off Off Online (Featured Review and Best of Season Memory)
"Curious and creative...an aesthetic smorgasboard, with nods to the Renaissance tradition of boy actors, Elizabethan-style blank verse, and the Theatre of the Ridiculous..."
-Leonard Jacobs
Backstage
"[B]rilliantly sculpted... has the audience in stitches..."
-David Tenenbaum
Fifth Street Review
2011 Production Photos:
Photos by Carrie Leonard, 2011
(Click here to view Stolen Chair's Picasa album if the gallery does not appear)
2006 Photos:
Photos by Aviva Meyer, 2006 (Press Photo by David Anthony)
(Click here to view Stolen Chair's Picasa album if the gallery does not appear)
Excerpted from Act 1, Scene 3 of Stage Kiss
Copyright ©2006, Kiran H. Rikhye. All rights reserved.
Enter Phyllida and Mother.
Phyllida: Nay, Mother, upon my honor I shall not.For to do as you say would be ruin and misery both!
Mother: “On thine honor!”Wouldst thou but listen to me and thou should have no honor to swear on.‘Tis a heavy burden, honor.Do as I did and let it go.Thou shalt sleep better once ‘tis gone.
Phyllida: ‘Tis the very thing, Mother.I would fain keep it.
Mother: Thou wouldst keep it?Oh, woe the day that e’er I bore thee, for I have taught thee nothing of the world.
Phyllida: Nay Mother, thy brain is most addled.‘Tis I who know all and thou knowest but little.Thou fearest Neptune, so thou sayest…
Mother: Fear him as thou wouldst fear him thyself, were thee not a winkling devil of a girl.
Phyllida: Aye, but what can I do?How can I marry?Who shall take as his wife a simple maiden, with scarcely a penny, nor name, nor father to call her own?Only a fool would take such a wife as I, and shall I marry no fool.
Mother: Marry?No one must marry thee.Neptune asks virgins; he cares not if the wench be married.
Phyllida: What then wouldst thou have me do, Mother?Prithee, tell.
Mother: Marry…
Phyllida: Marry?!
Mother: Marry, ‘tis the most foolish brat that e’er lived in this quaint Greek island town.
Phyllida: Foolish?Callst thou thy daughter foolish that she would not give up that one thing which she has?Besides, mother, I like not boys.
Mother: What then wouldst thou do, child?Canst not stay here, for so long as thou be’est virgin must thou never be safe, for all know that of all the maids of this quaint Greek island town, thou art the fairest.
Phyllida: I? Fair? I’faith, ‘tis true. Mayhap the fairest…
Mother: Mayhap, says the girl? I’ll tell thee sure. Hast thee not the handsomest figure in all the town? A fine, clear countenance. The sweetest red lips that e’er I did see, and doe-eyed, thou art. Thy legs—long and whitely; and thy precious mounds, like two berries. Nay, not berries—apples. Two apples…most pretty. Have not all manner of men told thee so themselves, when thou dost go to market? Were I not thine own mother, and had thee pants, my child, I should like to get within them.
Phyllida: Stay, Mother; there’s wisdom in thy words. ‘Tis most unusual that it should be so, and yet methinks thou hast got an idea, mayhap the first that e’er thou didst have. Had I pants, thou sayest. An I did—an I concealed myself in men’s weeds, then could I pass the time of Neptune’s choosing and escape danger. Then would there be no need for loss of maidenhead, nor fear neither.
Mother: Thou talkst as though a maidenhead, once gone, can never be got back. A clever girl may have as many maidenheads as pleases her.
Phyllida: And hast thou not said thyself that I am a fool? Marry, mother, thou wert surely right. Without that, then shall I never find a husband—a thing to me most dreadful to me, but most wondrous to thee.
Mother: ‘Tis well thought. Verily, I fear thou hast not the wit to be more than one time a maid. Innocence requires a quick mind.
Phyllida: I have not the shrewdness for it. Therefore, Mother, be not hard. Let thy Phyllida put on mens’ weeds and in the forest conceal herself. Then shall Neptune find another virgin and, I suffer no greater loss than my petticoats. To the woods shall I go, and there—away from thee—shall I be safe. Then shall I return to thee again when Neptune hath another maiden claimed.
Mother: What thou lackst in kindness, my girl, thou hast in shrewdness.
Phyllida: Aye, mother; I know.
Mother: Mayhap I have taught thee more of the world than I thought. Come, Phyllida. Now must we find thee men’s attire, and quickly—for the gods see what mortals think they have hidden.
Phyllida: Aye, Mother.How thou dost prattle!
Exeunt.
Research
Books
John Lyly: Selected Prose and Dramatic Work by John Lyly
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
The Mystery of Irma Vep and Other Plays by Charles Ludlam
The Changing Room: Sex, Drag, and Theatre by Laurence Senelick
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
Films
Stage Beauty directed by Richard Eyre