Theatre review: Stage Kiss

Sarah Ruhl takes a decidedly metatheatrical stab at romantic comedy, a genre that over the years has seen many stage and screen couples emulate their characters' relationships in real life. Whether the stars actually managed to recreate their happy endings, though, has never been guaranteed. The unnamed leads in Stage Kiss are actors cast in a regional revival of a forgotten 1930s romance; only when She (MyAnna Buring, as opposed to YourAnna Buring) and He (Patrick Kennedy) arrive for the first day of rehearsals do they discover they've been cast opposite someone they had a tempestuous relationship with two decades earlier. As they go through weeks of rehearsal and performances, kissing each other dozens of times a day, the lines between play and reality start to get blurred.

Despite both having moved on to seemingly happy relationships with new partners, they rekindle their affair once the play's run has ended. But by the time they've signed up to another stage job together the cracks are starting to show, and they remember why they broke up in the first place.

Ruhl's play for my money really hits the level of the screwball comedies it takes inspiration from: It's not non-stop laughs but there's a regular enough supply of them to keep a smile on my face for most of the evening. The highlights invariably come from the play-within-a-play, a convoluted melodrama the Director (Rolf Saxon) is inexplicably convinced is ripe for reinvention, but which he has his actors perform in the broadest possible style.

So we have swooning, slaps that turn into kisses, a leading lady who constantly fluctuates between the brink of death and being basically fine, a script that can't decide whether it wants to be a musical or not and doesn't seem to have noticed that it's named all the supporting female roles Millicent, and a gay understudy (James Phoon) so worried about being unconvincing in a straight role that he's overcompensated in a very... particular way.

The second act, which sees the reunited couple attempt a terrible new thriller with incredibly dubious politics, isn't quite as consistently funny, in part because it's dealing with the relationship turning sour. But it does continue to blur the lines between stage and reality in fun ways, like when Her husband (Oliver Dimsdale) and daughter (Toto Bruin) and His girlfriend (Jill Winternitz) show up for a confrontation not that far from the OTT play of the first act.

Blanche McIntyre's production revels in the way Ruhl plays around with the different levels of reality in the story, and the way the audience's perspective is constantly shifting through them; Robert Innes Hopkins' set also bounces back and forth between bare stages and naturalistic scenes. There's a more serious undertone here about being able to distinguish the real person from the fantasy version, but Stage Kiss wisely focuses on giving us an entertaining take on the chaos that ensues when we can't.

Stage Kiss by Sarah Ruhl is booking until the 13th of June at Hampstead Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.