Prelude to a quip

Perhaps time hasn't been kind to Prelude to a Kiss. Or perhaps director Peter DuBois hasn't. Either way, the Huntington stumbles slightly with its revival of Craig Lucas's AIDS-era parable (which runs through June 13). Under the sitcommy direction of DuBois, what seemed poignant in 1988 seems - well, slightly forced, and just plain odd, in 2010.

Back then, the central piece of fabulism in the play - the magical kiss by which the souls of a dying old man and a young bride trade places (at left) - seemed like a touchingly off-kilter metaphor for the transformation that so many young gay men were going through: they were suddenly withering into shadows of their former selves, turning partners and lovers into caregivers desperate to connect to the young souls trapped in those dying bodies. But even then, it was worth noting that Prelude to a Kiss didn't waste too much breath on that sad situation; Lucas included a scene or two in which unhappy husband Peter poignantly tended to the elderly (male) body of bride Rita, but for the most part, the play was concerned with his desperate attempts to magically remedy the situation. Indeed, the script has its most kick not in its Freaky-Friday-meets-Longtime-Companion moments, but rather when it plays like a long-form Twilight Zone episode, complete with cries like "Wait a minute - YOU"RE NOT RITA!!!"

At any rate, if Lucas's conceit is to work, it can only work through actors who convey an unexpected soufulness - or a least a soulmate-ness - through their quirky, cable-TV-level banter. But at the Huntington, director DuBois has cast a nice but average Joe and Jane (Brian Sgambati and Cassie Beck) as his star-crossed, or rather kiss-crossed, couple, and we struggle to see what's so special about their not-particularly-electric chemistry, or, to be blunt, what's so individual about Beck's Rita at all. Beck is clearly a snappy comedienne, and she has a friendly presence - but when she's actually somebody else, she doesn't seem all that different; if her body's new occupant didn't slip up so often on her life trivia, you kind of think he might have gotten away with the whole scam. As for the romantic charge that should by all rights have gone missing from Rita & Pita's love - well, to be honest, it never really surfaced to begin with, even though its existence must be what sparked their whirlwind courtship.

This turns Prelude to a Kiss into kind of a head-scratcher - and its revival is likewise a bit of a puzzle; was anyone crying out for new productions of Craig Lucas? We just got Reckless from SpeakEasy last winter - but taken together, these stagings suggest to me that it's no surprise the playwright's reputation has faded as the AIDS crisis (which served as text or subtext to his biggest hits) has receded in the public mind. Yes, of course, AIDS is still with us - in fact, its incidence has been increasing of late. What drives the resonance of Kiss, however, is the physical decline associated with AIDS - which today is far better controlled than it was in the eighties, however tragically prevalent the disease may be. Lucas does have a deeper interest in questions of spiritual transference and mystical flux - but if anything, the SpeakEasy production of Reckless, imperfect as it was, drew out this subtext better than DuBois does here.

Still, there are good moments to savor here and there. Brian Sgambati grows more affecting as Peter, and Nancy E. Carroll (just back from Broadway!) and Michael Hammond wittily tiptoe up to the edge of caricature as Rita's clueless parents, without going over that edge. As the elderly gent who discovers himself unexpectedly going down the aisle, MacIntyre Dixon finds a subtle comedy in his under-written scenes - but again, seems to miss whatever elusive mystical essence Rita brings with her into his own dying frame. In various supporting parts, local stars Timothy John Smith, Jason Bowen, Cheryl McMahon and Ken Cheeseman acquit themselves well; let's hope we see them all on the Huntington stage again, and soon. Although I hope next time they won't be quite so often on the run: the show feels slightly over-designed (as 'cinema,' apparently), and some part of that over-design is always rolling on or off. But at least the rumble of the set-pieces distracts you a bit from the thinness of the script.

Marianna Bassham hits the road in Reckless.

It's getting harder and harder to get your holiday sentiment straight up these days, because alternative Christmas shows always come with a twist, and there seem to be more and more of them every year. Over at the Huntington, the carolers are warbling about the Civil War, fer chrissakes, and the New Rep is once again turning the pages of The Santaland Diaries. So it's no surprise that SpeakEasy should re-purpose Craig Lucas's Reckless this season - hell, it's set at Christmastime, ain't it? And you know, it's vaguely gay and outrageous and all. Alas, it's also a little thin, and its wacky, surreal mood dates it as surely as the early personal computers dotting its plot. Unsurprisingly, SpeakEasy's selling point for this revival has been not the play itself but its cast, which is, indeed, a line-up of local theatre royalty. Still, director Scott Edmiston hasn't actually gotten their best out of any of them, and he doesn't quite seem to understand the actual arc of the script.

Still, he keeps things festive - that's his specialty, and Edmiston puts a nice shine on just about every joke Lucas leaves under the holiday-comedy tree. Trouble is, Lucas doesn't really lavish the one-liners on this "dark," frothy tale of the hapless Rachel (Marianna Bassham, above), a suburban Pollyanna whose husband announces he has taken out a contract on her life. On Christmas Eve, no less. Does it get any more outrageous than that? No, girlfriends, it doesn't.

Poor Rachel, of course, is soon dashing through the snow - until she's saved by the kindness of a stranger, the mysteriously glum Lloyd (Larry Coen), whose nom de guerre is "Bophetelophti" (har de har), and whose wife "Pooty" (yuk, yuk!) is a deaf paraplegic (Kerry Dowling, all above left).

I know, ka-razy!!! At this point it's probably good to remember that the script opens with Rachel shaking a snow globe in a "euphoria attack," and back in the mid-80's, Lucas no doubt thought he too had a right to turn the holiday over and shake it hard. After all, the threat of AIDS - omnipresent and terrifying in the 80's - is clearly what's being filtered into his wacky pseudo-hetero scenario, with its lovers who can kill you, or end up in wheelchairs. So far, so good. Trouble is, the script comes over as second-hand Christopher Durang, as more horrors and bizarre coincidences pile up around Rachel faster than reindeer poop at the Pole. And the script's two extended parodies of game shows have long since been surpassed in grotesquerie by the actual targets of their satire.

Still, this crack cast keeps us laughing - even if they can't quite chart the arc that Lucas has embedded beneath the surface of the material. Transference is this playwright's obsession (and great theme) - and via various transferences, life begins to slowly make sense - and even beneficent sense - around poor Rachel once again. Even here, however, you could argue that Reckless has been surpassed by the work of David Lindsay-Abaire, and at any rate, under Edmiston's direction, Bassham doesn't quite trace Rachel's descent into catatonia step by step, as she should (Coen does better by his similar collapse). Even once everything turns mysteriously, mystically around, I'm afraid Bassham is a little too subdued; surely more must be hanging, at least internally, on her series of discoveries in the final scene.


Paula Plum goes all therapeutic on Marianna Bassham.

All that said, Reckless does have a few holiday treats up its sleeve. For one thing, it's got Paula Plum, who tears through several hilarious caricatures of therapy (above) without batting an eye, or dropping an accent. There's also sharp work from Will McGarrahan, Karl Baker Olson, and especially Sandra Heffley, whom we just don't see enough of around here. Cristina Todesco's set, aglow with upside-down tannenbaums, is as witty as Charles Schoonmaker's kitschy costumes, and Dewey Dellay's weirdly whimsical soundscape is everything it should be. SpeakEasy has definitely wrapped this package right; if only it didn't feel like last year's present.