POSTLUDE TO "A KISS"

posted by James Reel

My favorable review of Live Theatre Workshop's production of Prelude to a Kiss will appear in this Thursday's Tucson Weekly, but I think I'd like the play even more if it had a darker ending. If you're ignorant of how the play turns out, and want to remain that way, don't read any further.

The story concerns a young couple in love, Peter and Rita. On their wedding day, an old man gives Rita what would seem to be an innocent kiss, but it causes the two of them to switch souls. The essence of Rita, which is what Peter really fell in love with rather than just her attractive physique, is now trapped in the yellow-toothed body of an old man dying of cancer. And it's the essence of the old man that lies within the body of the woman Peter takes to bed every night.

The play has a happy ending, with the souls winding up back where they belong, but I'm thinking it would be much more moving and, yes, even more romantic if the souls could not switch back, and Peter elected to stay with his soul mate--young Rita in the old man's body--for the few months remaining until that body dies and Rita is lost forever. (It's sort of the reverse of Love Story, wherein a disagreeable old coot has invaded the body of Ali McGraw.)

Of course, if the play ended that way, it wouldn't have become a sentimental favorite in less than 20 years. This is why its author, Craig Lucas, is a successful playwright, and I'm just a critic toiling for an obscure alternative weekly.