K-I-S-S-I-N-G
A play by Lenelle Moïse
A Front Porch Arts Collective production in collaboration with The Huntington,at Calderwood Pavilion, through April 2, 2023
By Andy Hoffman
If you have ever wondered what might draw you back to live theater after the pandemic, the Huntington has the answer for you: Lenelle Moïse’s K-I-S-S-I-N-G, a laugh-out-loud-funny and joyous celebration of young love and high hopes. Created in collaboration between The Front Porch Arts Collective and the Huntington, K-I-S-S-I-N-G follows sixteen-year-old Lala (Regan Sims) on her voyage of discovery of herself through love, art, and family. By turns comic and heart-breaking, K-I-S-S-I-N-G represents theater at its very best, showing what a group of visionary and talented artists can invent. The script, its performance, the set, and direction elevate the very air of the Calderwood Pavilion, and the audience responded in kind. Not since I saw the original cast of HAMILTON have I experienced a night of theater of this power and quality.
Lala, the product of a teenage romance herself, possesses talent and brilliance, but has little exposure to life outside her urban neighborhood. Her parents, long separated, seem at a loss to understand her. We first meet her at a park, where she has taken her mute half brother Max to a playground, her first outing since catching his chicken pox. She just wants to enjoy the sunshine and a burger when Albert (Ivan Cecil Walks), a fellow teenager, spots her and tries to put his smooth moves on her. Enraged by his presumption, she cuts him down and sends him packing.
Albert was at the park with his twin brother Dani (Sharmarke Yusuf), who watches the demolition with pleasure. Dani and Albert, born into wealth, struggle with being black and rich, trying to find a place for themselves in a world which doesn’t have a code for them. Albert tries being blacker, as though he’s from the ‘hood rather than his posh suburb. Dani just immerses himself in the advantages of his life – art, knowledge, and nature. Months later, Lala and Dani run into one another at a bus stop, the same way Lala’s parents met, and they discover a soul-mate in one another. Their relationship grows but hits a snag as Lala begin to feel desire for physical contact, while Dani identifies as asexual. These young people don’t have the emotional sophistication or social skill to navigate this trouble. When Lala attends Dani’s prom with him, the night ends in confusion and disappointment.
The set for K-I-S-S-I-N-G is itself an extraordinary achievement. The abstract shapes dangling from the fly space and the rotating structure center stage at first appear as a decrepit urban landscape and then as neighborhood trees, only reaching their full purpose when Dani takes Lala to a museum. The surfaces become layered projections of the art they see, and the coordination between the maturing relationship between the teens and their personal growth gives the story its power. The use of art, dance and music throughout the production extracts the highest level of passion from Lenelle Moïse’s poetic script. Everyone involved in K-I-S-S-I-N-G deserves recognition for their brilliant work, especially director Dawn M. Simmons, who brings together these remarkable pieces into an extraordinary evening of theater.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G is one of the first products of the three-year partnership of the Huntington with Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black theatre company committed to advancing racial equity in Boston through theatre. In residence at The Huntington, Front Porch Arts Collective creates a place where Black perspectives and experiences become an integral part of the global conversation, fostering a greater understanding of our shared human condition. Cambridge native and Northampton resident and former poet laurate Lenelle Moïse wrote the play on commission from Clark University. Go see it as soon as possible. You owe it to yourself.
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