What makes a kiss? The answer, at first thought, seems pretty simple, yet it is the complexities of the emotions behind the kiss, and how life and art can warp and blend fiction and reality, that form the centre point of this intelligent and very funny comedy from writer Sarah Ruhl.
Stage Kiss focuses upon two actors, ‘She’ (Myanna Buring) and ‘He’ (Patrick Kennedy), who find themselves cast as a pair of lovers having an illicit affair in a new staging of a god-awful, unintentionally funny, 1930s melodrama, ‘The Last Kiss’. It is a situation quickly complicated by the fact that She and He were once in a relationship over a decade ago, yet as sparks begin to fly, catalysed by their frequent on-stage kisses, the collapse of what is real and what is not between the pair brings their art to life while threatening to run their private lives into ruin. Gone, here, are intimacy coordinators, now a staple of such encounters in productions; instead, the characters are challenged to go with instinct, and it is this study of instinct that fuels much of the humour and moments of reflection in this production.
It is a neat premise, well brought together by Ruhl and director Blanche McIntyre, who reunite at the theatre following their 2025 collaboration on Letters from Max. Here, the production leans heavily into the absurdity of the conflict between She and He, as they struggle to untangle real passion from rehearsed chemistry, with the comedy naturally rising out of the brilliantly painful dialogue of ‘The Last Kiss’ and, later, ‘Blurry’, which the cast of seven brings to the fore with considerable ease.
As She, Buring is terrific at capturing a working mum caught in the crosshairs of balancing her life back on the stage after so many years away, caring for her daughter, Angela (Toto Bruin), and seeking the excitement and thrill of her youth. Buring channels this complexity neatly, allowing She to grow in confidence as ‘The Last Kiss’ draws nearer to opening night. She laments that, as a female actor, jobs are only for ‘Juliet or Lady Macbeth’, and that sense of longing for something more passionate in her middle age is what draws her back to He. Kennedy’s portrayal of He, meanwhile, is one that captures the ferociously flippant nature of the character. He has not made it big, and there is a stagnancy to him that draws She back to the magic of her past, and her first love. He serves as a throwback, smoking on set and living in an apartment decked out with Cary Grant posters, in a way that might usually conjure romance and mystique, yet the tattered and torn corners hint at reality for both He and the pair. Indeed, the choice by Ruhl to name the characters only as She and He is an inspired one, enabling that blend between real-life and fiction to collide with ease.
The doubling runs further than just among the leads, too. As the goofy Harrison, She’s on-stage husband in ‘The Last Kiss’, Oliver Dimsdale does a superb job at conjuring an actor too quickly swept up within the melodrama, amusingly reaching for hyperbole in his line delivery and his movements. Yet, Dimsdale also performs as She’s Husband, an upright financier, in a neat choice that furthers the interweaving of fact and fiction. Meanwhile, Bruin’s frightfully frustrated Angela burns with energy, continuously angry and resentful towards her mother, yet is much gentler as on-stage daughter Millie, while Jill Winternitz’s Millicent, friend to She in ‘The Last Kiss’, is then love-rival, and permanently sweet, schoolteacher Laurie.
Meanwhile, Rolf Saxon is great fun as the hands-off Director whose outlandish ideas and desperation to make the play bring great humour, especially when it is his writing on stage in the second half, while young actor Kevin (James Phoon) is on good form as an inexperienced performer, delightfully goofy and horrendously open-mouthed when tasked with kissing She, further enhancing the connection between the leads.
It is also in the stark contrasts in the set design that the play’s ideas about doubling come to the fore. The first half shifts quickly from the bland, typical, rehearsal studio to the 1930s-themed set of ‘The Last Kiss’, with Robert Innes Hopkins’ set and costume combining deftly to conjure up the magic of the era’s romance that sweeps She and He back into the past. Yet, with Act 2 comes a change as the reality of their off-stage affair kicks in, and the gorgeous Art Deco walls are replaced with the brutal brickwork of He’s apartment, which amusingly becomes the inspiration for their next work together, a grittier 70s crime thriller named ‘Blurry’ with He as an IRA agent and She a washed-up prostitute with poor eyesight, with the comedy and absurdity collapsing in on itself to great effect.
Eventually, both She and He are forced to reconcile with their choices, as part of an ending that feels a little contrived, and whether living in this new fantasy is worth the changes in reality. The collision between meta-theatre and performance psychology gets a little undermined by the play’s final twist, but it does smartly not rely on anything too devastating or substantial in the resolution, either, tonally keeping up with the rest of the comedy.
Yet for Stage Kiss’s two hours, the piece, and their lives, shine bright in this smart and subtle comedy, which works hard to earn every laugh. A short yet impactful piece, much like a kiss itself.
