KISSING IN THE HALL OF MIRRORS

or Love Letters with Shakespeare

Sylvia, a novelist, presents her partner Michael with a 50th birthday present: a script about present-day experiences of love related to Shakespeare's sonnets, which she wants him to perform at a literary festival. Michael's career as an actor has stagnated and this has affected the relationship negatively because Sylvia's career is relatively successful. The present suits them both: Sylvia is relieved to have an opportunity to get Michael out of the house, and he is relieved to get some work. As Michael works on the script, he adapts it more and more to his own person so that it is almost impossible to tell fact from fiction, and - on a theatrical level - reality from acting. All the more so, because the script is originally based on Sylvia's own biography, which she has twisted to fit his character. When Michael discovers that an imaginary love affair attributed to him in the script, is based on a real love affair which Sylvia had in his absence, he walks out on her. During a subsequent tour, he takes on a young partner Ella (a black American) as a singer - and potential lover. Ella's rich father offers to put up the money for a 6 month off-Broadway run, for what is now a two-hander musical which has changed out of all recognition from the original. The show has brought both Sylvia and Michael financial and professional success at the expense of their personal happiness. Just before the opening in New York, Michael drives Ella up into the Adirondack hills. But Sylvia is still omnipresent and everything is shattered, both personally and theatrically.

Completed in 2006. The play plays with levels of reality and fiction. It uses video projections and Shakespeare's sonnets. If desired, one section of the text may be improvised on the basis of the written scene.

Cast: two women, one man

Anyone wishing to read an electronic version of the play should contact me at roy.kift@t-online.de

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