Two couples meet for dinner to take their minds off the war raging around them. An unexpected profession of love, an untimely proposal, and one kiss later, one of the foursome lies dead on the floor. Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón’s newest play breaks open cultural barriers, challenging us to confront the limits of our own understanding, and exposing the suffocating effect of an oppressive, omnipresent regime. For its second year in residency at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Theatre Smash (2015’s Das Ding (The Thing)) joins forces with ARC and Canadian Stage to present a work essential to our time.
29 March–16 April 2017
ARC proudly presents the North American premiere of Guillermo Calderón’s Kiss, in collaboration with Theatre Smash and Canadian Stage
DIRECTED by Ashlie CORCORAN
ASSOCATE DIRECTED by Christopher STANTON
The creative team includes ARC Resident Artists Liza BALKAN, Jackie CHAU, Carlos GONZÁLEZ-VIO, and Bahareh YARAGHI. They will be joined by Theatre Smash’s Ashlie Corcoran, Dalal Badr, Natasha Bean-Smith, Peter Eaton, Greg Gale, Denyse Karn, Jung-Hye Kim, Rebecca Picherack, and Naomi Wright.
Ashlie Corcoran and Christopher Stanton say this of KISS: “We are thrilled to tackle this exciting, troubling and timely play. Through our process, two Canadian companies will interpret a Chilean playwright, who, while living in NYC, wrote a ‘Syrian’ play originally commissioned by a German company. All of this overlap makes the play a thrilling vehicle with which to explore how artistic practices can comment upon current international events – while raising major questions about cultural representation and permission.”
KISS was first commissioned by the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus (Spring 2014).