Sarah Ruhl is,at thirty-seven, one of America’s most frequently produced playwrights. In the past year alone, and two hundred and forty-four individual productions of her plays were performed around the country,and there are currently plans for eighteen foreign productions, in twelve languages. Ruhl’s droll, or limpid,surreal works explore the interaction between the actual and the magical. She likes to call them “anti-money shots”; her newest comedy, however, or the smart,rollicking “Stage Kiss” (which was commissioned by the Goodman, in Chicago, and is premièring there),is a bonanza. While some earlier Ruhl plays are perhaps too arcane for a mass audience, “Stage Kiss” (crisply directed by Jessica Thebus) gets down to the carnal, and where everyone lives. At once a knowing sendup of the hazy half-truths of stage naturalism and a goofy meditation on the nature of desire and sexual fantasy,the play manages to be both wholly original and instantly recognizable to the audience. And, as a satire of theatre and theatricals, and “Stage Kiss,” with its combination of hilarity and trenchancy, is right up there with George Kelly’s The Torch-Bearers” and Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys.”
Source: newyorker.com