A Pleasant and Quietly Devastating PRELUDE TO A KISS- Page 2

[WSS2]

Posted: 3/4/07 at 5:10pm

I hope it's better than the movie

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 3/4/07 at 10:32pm

The movie looks like CITZEN KANE compared to this revival.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/4/07 at 10:33pm

Haha. I've never seen the film. Should I add it to the Netflix list, Munk?

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 3/4/07 at 10:34pm

I would say no, but you loved the revival so much that I have to say yes.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/4/07 at 10:41pm

Ha.

I have nothing to compare the revival to, hence my enjoying it. I'm sure if I had seen the film/original production before hand, my tune would be quite different.

It's lite and fluffy...you can't read into it. A great production it ain't (it looked as cheap as Apple Tree), but in a season with tough and dense (though some extraordinary) shows like Moon for the Misbegotten, Coast of Utopia, Inherit the Wind, etc, it's good to have 1 show at the very least that you don't have to think about.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 3/4/07 at 10:47pm

Oh, I love things I don't have to think about. Love them. I was prepared for a nice, light comedy.

But PRELUDE TO A KISS is, actually, a metaphor for AIDS.

It's not a light and fluffy nothing...it's something quite deep and meaningful.

It's obvious that this production was a last minute thing, and that the leading couple was NOT their first choice in casting.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/4/07 at 10:52pm

I've heard that and am still trying to figure it out (the only thing I can think of is dealing with the "loss" of your significant other).

It's obvious that this production also did not take that metaphor to heart.

Would you mind humming a few bars and explaining the metaphor?

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 3/4/07 at 11:30pm

Well, I don't think PRELUDE is a good play to begin with, or even that deep, but it's certainly a play with a message disguised as a romantic comedy.

The play can be interpreted as a young, gay man watching his loved one deteriorate into nothingness. The physical and mental deterioration and the obvious death that lays ahead.

The whole "switched souls" thing is, essentially, the virus.

They touch on it in this revival, but Sullivan's efforts are curtailed by the incapability of the young cast, and vice-versa.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/5/07 at 6:33am

Very interesting, but it seems by that logic that it can be a metaphor for cancer (along with any other fatal disease), as well. However, solely based on the "sudden transformation" aspect, it would indeed be AIDS.

Thanks for the explanation.

Updated On: 3/5/07 at 06:33 AM

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 3/5/07 at 9:12am

People often cast Rita as just another pretty ingenue, but she's much more mysterious than that. It's a tough to cast part.

[NBC]

Posted: 3/5/07 at 10:59am

Actually, according to a recent piece on Bloomberg.com, Lucas didn't set out to write an AIDS metaphor:

Frank Rich, in his 1990 rave for ``Prelude' (the original production starred the late Barnard Hughes as the old man and Alec Baldwin and Mary-Louise Parker as the young couple) called the play a metaphor for AIDS, as the young woman suddenly finds herself in an old person's withering flesh. In a telephone interview, Lucas, a chatty 55-year-old, said that wasn't his intention. When he wrote the play, he said he was involved with a man who was closed off. Lucas wanted to explore the elusiveness of truly knowing another soul.

``It was the idea that I could be with someone but it wouldn't really be them, that the self is an illusion,' said Lucas, who now shares an apartment in Inwood and a house in Putnam County, New York, with the set designer John McDermott. ``It's a Buddhist idea. I had this image of being on a vacation with someone and not really knowing who they were.'

[twogaab2]

Posted: 3/5/07 at 11:18am

After finding the movie quite dull. I must admit I was amazed how much I liked this revival. A very enjoyable afternoon of theater.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 3/5/07 at 12:06pm

Oh, the movie is just lifeless. Meg Ryan--as usual--was AWFUL!!!

[JRybka]

Posted: 3/5/07 at 12:45pm

back in the day... when I was a young pup...

I used to go to the Berkley Rep and saw a couple of Criag Lucas' plays. I still have to go with

Blue Window as my favorite play he ever wrote. It totally was nothing like you expected. It was amazing. And the set at the Berkley Rep was phenominal.

But I have to say I also loved Prelude and I did like Reckless

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 4/2/07 at 10:03am

I needed an excuse to post this hot pic of Alan Tudyk.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 4/2/07 at 10:42am

Boy, it's bump my old threads day.