Love (noun): A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities or a sense of underlying oneness.
See also: Something that can happen to anyone.
"Stop Kiss," is a play about two average, heterosexual women who meet, form a friendship and eventually fall in love.
The play, a modern twist on the girl-meets-boy story set in New York City, was written by Diana Sol and will be opening this weekend at the Theatre X.
A homophobic man attacks the main characters, Sarah from St. Louis and Callie, a native New Yorker, after the couple's first kiss. Sarah (Mia Ulibarri) lies comatose during half of the play as a result of this attack.
Ulibarri said the point of the show was to explore the relationship between these women, and not necessarily the violence they experience.
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"I think what the author intended to show was that love can happen with anybody," Ulibarri said.
At the beginning of this friendship, an element of awkwardness is unavoidable. During the first half of the play, the two are clumsy, interrupting one another and stumbling over their sentences. One has to wonder, is this really bad or really good acting?
However, a heated argument between the two women halfway through the play lets the audience know without a shadow of a doubt, these two actresses have got their roles down to perfection. Laura Clagett gives a particularly delicate performance as Callie, contrasted with Ulibarri's dynamic character.
After that, the play really takes off. The script is non-linear and alternates scenes before the attack with scenes that take place after the attack. In the second scene, the callous, homophobic, misogynist Detective Cole (Lance Kelly) enters. Kelly's performance leaves the audience wanting to stand up and scream, "Leave her alone!" during one of his grueling interview sessions with Callie.
"I definitely made my character an exaggeration," Kelly said. "I kind of wanted him to represent the harsh, un-accepting world."
The play offers a believable perspective on how it is to be forced into "coming out," though the characters are not even sure they're homosexual in the first place.
"It's showing you the good parts and how it shouldn't matter, it should be fine," Ulibarri said. "Nobody should care because it's just love. That can't be wrong. I think Sol is saying that it should be this way, when it sadly is the other."
In 2002 there were 1,391 incidents of hate crimes related to sexual orientation reported to the FBI according to Hate Crime Statistics of 2002 at www.fbi.gov.
"Of course, gay-bashing still exists," said Stormy Wesner, the play's assistant director. "Once you say the two little words, 'I'm gay,' it's as if you no longer have any boundaries surrounding you. People feel like they can say or do anything to you. You become this 'other.' So of course gay-bashing still exists because if you're an 'other' then people can do anything they want to you."
But the play is about much more than hate crimes. The relationship between Callie and Sarah looks like any other budding romance. You can see the frustration, the rocky roads and the reactions of other people in a shockingly realistic light.
"It was like a window into a world," director Susan Pearson-Davis said. "As a straight person, I just went 'whoa.' How familiar it was, and yet how different."
"Stop Kiss" challenges many common perceptions of lesbianism, homophobia and relationships in general.
