Abbie Stillman
The Paw Print
Stop Kiss captivates the day to day struggle that the LGBTQ community endures on a day to day basis. Katie Mae Miller played Callie, a young lady living in New York as a traffic reporter that welcomes new comer Sarah, played by Lauren Braun, an elementary teacher new to the city life.
Stop Kiss presents the lives of these two girls in a then and now fashion as they start to realize they have feelings for one another. Both girls have only engaged in heterosexual relationships and are very curious as well as nervous by these new feelings they are experiencing for one another. Miller and Braun give the audience an up close experience of the fear, judgment, love and extreme violence this community of people go through every day. What is truly ridiculous is that even now, in 2015, this problem is still very much alive. The play takes place in the 90’s, twenty-four years ago, and the cruelty and judgment is still everywhere.
Many people, especially those who are more conservative will try to convince you it is unnatural and they are choosing to make their lives difficult. Your sexuality is not something you choose. Who you sleep with is something you choose, who you are attracted to, who you fall in love with, that is not something you choose. The thing is, these judgmental folk are just full of fear of what they do not understand. The sad thing is, this is an issue that may exist forever. People will always be fearful, they will always be judgmental and will always discriminate.
Erik Thurston plays Mrs. Winsley, a transvestite that witnesses the brutal beating the girls endure walking down the street, and calls 911. She is then questioned by Detective Cole played by David Boncyk, and you can feel the awkwardness and discomfort that both of them feel. Thurston does a phenomenal job showing what transvestites go through, even with police who are supposed to be protecting you. Callie is also interrogated by the police and is also treated as less than a straight person. Detective Cole is forceful and pushes until Callie breaks down and gives the whole story.
Stop Kiss does not hold back. You get a realistic and shocking view of what LGBTQ have to tolerate just for choosing to be themselves. The girls are called “pussy eating dykes” by the bum who beats them. Audiences rarely get to see such a realistic and raw view of how people have to live their lives just by being themselves. People are beaten, harassed, raped, called various heinous names, and tortured every single day because being themselves means loving someone of the same sex or loving both sexes. Yet there are pornographic films of lesbian, gay and bisexual sex which is watched by billions and accepted, yet to see it in reality is disgusting? How does that make any type of logical sense? Congratulations to the cast of Stop, Kiss!!
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