Last night, we saw Craig Lucas's play, "Prelude to a Kiss" at the Huntington Theater. The story depends on the audience suspending belief and accepting a supernatural event -- the exchange of one soul with another, in this case the soul of a young bride with that of an old man in declining health, thanks to a kiss.
I think the playwright has created two likable characters in Rita, the bride (played by Cassie Beck, who has a wonderful nasal voice that makes every syllable reach the balcony, and a hefty real body to match), and Peter, the young man (played with breezy authority by Brian Sgambati). The performances are strong. They meet, fall in love, and seem happy.
I like what seems to be the main idea here -- that once you marry (that is, once your relationship is formally bonded), there comes a point where you say to your spouse, "Hey, you aren't really the man/woman I thought you were! You...you lied to me!" You might be right, and you may have been deceived, and you may have been involved in your own self-deception.
But why is the soul-exchange kiss performed between Rita and an old man? I had a hard time making sense of the mythical situation. If it had been an old woman, and Peter was then forced to come to grips with the old woman that his wife would someday become, and thus with his own mortality, should he stay married with Rita, it might have made more sense. As it was, the exchange with an old man seemed like a writing workshop gaffe that Lucas couldn't figure out how to handle. The slight homo-erotic buzz of the relationship between Peter and the old man seemed more ridiculous than enlightening.
Everything comes out right in the end. We have a happy ending. It's a little sappy, in fact. After reading the glowing reviews of the play (here is Louise Kennedy's review in the Globe), I wanted to like the play. I liked the characters, but I think the play is slight.
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