Stage Kiss - Goodman Theatre

IN THE ALBERT
Playing the Part:
A Conversation with
Sarah Ruhl and Jessica Thebus
By Tanya Palmer
For playwright Sarah Ruhl, the theater
is not only the place where she makes
her living—it’s also the place where she
investigates life. Ruhl, whose mother
is an actor, has been immersed in
the theater from an early age, including
a stint in her teenage years at the
legendary Piven Theatre Workshop in
Evanston, where she first met director
Jessica Thebus. In her illustrious
career as a playwright (to date, her
professional résumé boasts a MacArthur
“Genius” Grant, two Pulitzer Prize nominations
and a Tony nomination) Ruhl
has often been drawn to the notion of
performance. Goodman audiences will
remember her ambitious three-part epic,
Passion Play: a cycle in three parts,
staged at the Goodman in 2007, in
which Ruhl explores what the impact
of portraying a Biblical figure might
do to an actor’s sense of self. Passion
Play depicts three separate passion
plays throughout history—one set in
Elizabethan England, one set in Nazi
Germany and a third set in Vietnam-era
South Dakota—and in each section the
characters struggle with their identification
with, and differences from, the
iconic characters they embodied (namely
Jesus, Pontius Pilate, Mary and Mary
Magdalene). The tension in Passion Play
between its characters’ dual identities—
their authentic selves and the fictional
characters they portray—became Ruhl’s
springboard for exploring issues of religion,
nationhood and identity.
In Stage Kiss, Ruhl returns to the subject
of the theater—and in particular
the tension between actor and role—but
in a wildly different package from the
often dark and thorny world of Passion
Play. This time she tackles the world of
contemporary professional theater with
a kind of lightness and frivolity (though
with a steely intelligence and precision),
introducing the audience to He and
She, two veteran actors with a complex
romantic past who are unexpectedly
reunited when they are cast as the lead
roles in a 1930s stage melodrama. As
their present day lives and memories
become more and more intertwined
with the fictional world they inhabit in
rehearsal (and subsequently in performance),
the theater becomes both the
literal backdrop for the play and the
window through which Ruhl is able to
explore the tension between what is real
RIGHT: Sarah Ruhl in rehearsal for Passion Play: a cycle in
three parts. Photo by Peter Wynn Thompson. OPPOSITE:
Brian Sgambati and Kristen Bush in Passion Play: a cycle in
three parts, produced in 2007. Photo by Liz Lauren.
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