Theater Reviews : Actors Give ‘Kiss’ With Just the Right Emotion

More than most playwrights, Craig Lucas asks us to take a flying leap with him in his fantasy play, “Prelude to a Kiss.” Done right, it can soar. Done wrong, it can be a flying leap into theater hell.

Enjoying the play--and making it vital on stage--requires a kind of abandon not unlike falling in love itself. Like Frank Capra, who injected fantasy into the Depression reality of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Lucas imposes a dream world onto contemporary New York reality, inspired not by love’s own dreaminess, but by the nightmare of love fleeting away.

Hugh Harrison’s Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre staging isn’t confident enough to express flights of fancy and fear, but it gets enough energy from its actors to lend the play the right emotional pressure. Stylistically ham-fisted, this “Prelude” has its feelings in order.

Lucas has Peter (Al Nowicki) and Rita (Tiffany Terry) falling in love with charming ease. Peter is thoughtful, always considering himself and his options as if he were his own novelist: He steps out of his scenes to narrate his thoughts and next actions. They’re both nice, fairly unremarkable people (the wildest thing Rita did was dally in socialist politics).

Just when you wonder where the play is in all this, Peter and Rita get married. Moments after vows are exchanged, an old man and complete stranger (Bob Bancroft) comes up to Rita and kisses her lovingly. Nothing is the same again.

It’s on their Jamaica honeymoon that Peter, in one of his asides, realizes that Rita isn’t Rita anymore. Someone, something, has taken over her body and soul. She trudges around like an old man, while the old man at the wedding shows up later in love with Peter.

If Act I is about getting Rita, Act II is about getting her back. Nowicki expresses a mixture of bemusement and wonder early on, which gives way to quiet panic when his Peter feels like he’s walked into his own private “Twilight Zone” episode. He’s the kind of actor who lets you know that his wheels are spinning--perfect for Peter, who’s always considering his next move.

Terry is, perhaps by choice, much more opaque. She and Nowicki have the requisite chemistry, and the early courtship is one of the more convincing we’ve seen on stage in a while. Terry, though, doesn’t quite sell us on Rita’s phobias about life’s dangers--a key element in this out-of-body romance--or on the altered Rita of Act II.

Bancroft helps this staging beautifully as the old man who seems to absorb Rita’s youthfulness during his kiss. He is touchingly funny when his old man finally lets go of Rita’s soul, like a man watching his younger days literally fade away in front of him.

Although a bit more wide-ranging than Lucas’ contained chamber plays like “Three Postcards” and “Blue Window,” “Prelude to a Kiss” is still an intimate piece and a comfortable fit for the Studio Theatre. Steven Shapiro has designed a nice, receding series of pastel-colored proscenium arches, marred only by Steven Jay Warner’s tacky lighting scheme, which occasionally brings the play’s magic--and our willingly suspended disbelief--crashing to Earth.

The actors lift things up, but they’re taking on more work than they should. An effectively imaginative staging would spread the load better.

* “Prelude to a Kiss,” Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre, 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Matinee June 4, 2 p.m. Ends June 10. $10. (310) 494-1616. Running time: 2 hours. Al Nowicki: Peter

Tiffany: Terry Rita

Bob Bancroft: Old Man

James A. Rice: Dr. Boyle

Mary Tuck: Mrs. Boyle

Michael-Shawn O’Leary: Taylor

Jeff Kanegae: Tom

A Long Beach Playhouse production of Craig Lucas’ play. Directed by Hugh Harrison. Set: Steven Shapiro. Lights: Steven Jay Warner. Sound: Greg McCurley.