THE KISS OF DEATH

A drama overloaded with “dots”
that just don’t connect

The Ruskin Group Theatre’s production of Stephen Fife’s Blue Kiss starts off with promise. Todd (Casey Morris), a somewhat stuffy, failed poet and depressed academic, has reluctantly agreed to tutor Susan (Carolina Rodriguez), a somewhat manic, wanna-be poet student.

We’ve been here before. But to Fife’s credit, he doesn’t shove his audience down the oft-travelled path of inappropriate sexuality, hammering the dramatic reframe of “aren’t men bad.” Instead, Fife focuses on those memories we all suffer from, the ones we can never allow to scab over and heal.

While this is an interesting conceptual journey, unfortunately, the route Fife takes us down is not. Fife has cluttered his stage with a surfeit of “dots”: The dots of family tragedy, dark secrets, a horrific murder, a broken relationship, a murderous father, estranged brothers, a concealed weapon, a hidden photo, a broken heart, a fiancée who’s a real “See You Next Tuesday”, a crippling childhood revelation, secret this, secret that; there are lots of dots! Most of them are superfluous to the point of stupefying as Fife fails to connect this mass into an engaging story, and without the “hoarder’s tale”, there is nothing dramatic about clutter.

Additionally, except for a pair of gunshots, Fife fails to squeeze the least amount of conflict onto the Ruskin Stage, as nearly everything else has occurred long before the play’s opening.

Some playwrights can achieve conflict by talking about events off stage; all Fife manages is conversation.

The evening receives no help from either Morris or Rodriguez, whose characters are neither interesting nor appealing enough to make the audience care about anything except whether that cute restaurant they passed on the way to the theatre will still be open at the end of the play’s very long seventy-two minutes. Mike Reilly is credited as director. Mike Reilly is credited as director. If I were Mr. Reilly, I’d blame Trump.

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photos by Amelia Mulkey

Blue Kiss
Ruskin Group Theatre
2800 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90405
Fri & Sat at 8; Sun at 2
ends on May 17, 2026
for tickets ($30–$35), call 310.397.3244 or visit Ruskin Group Theatrte

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