The `Kiss' Of Success ; Diana Son Embraces Her Good Fortune Writing For Stage And Television

------------------------- THEATER PREVIEW

"Stop Kiss" By Diana Son, previews at the Seattle Repertory Theatre's Leo Kreielsheimer Theatre Monday through Jan. 30, opens Jan. 31 and runs through March 4 ($10-$42; 206-443-2222). -------------------------

Diana Son is on a roll.

After a decade crafting plays, Son has scored her first big national stage success with "Stop Kiss" - a sensitive study of a fragile romance rocked by violence. The 1998 Off-Broadway hit comes to Seattle Repertory Theatre on Monday.

On another front, Son is a staff writer on the acclaimed new TV series "The West Wing," a fictional-topical look at behind-the-scenes maneuvers at the White House.

While enjoying her good fortune in both media, Son finds it ironic that she needed a TV gig to stay solvent.

"There's a long history of playwrights doing work for film and TV," she said by phone from Hollywood.

"What perpetuates the tradition is the increasing impossibility of making an actual living as a playwright. Personally, I have very little internal motivation to write anything but plays. But even with `Stop Kiss,' which was extended three times in New York and is being done all over the country, I couldn't pay my rent from what I made in the theater."

Son did, however, garner plenty of attention and prestige for the warmly reviewed premiere of "Stop Kiss" at Joseph Papp Public Theatre.

The script conveys the relationship of two single New York women - disaffected radio weather reporter Callie (played at the Rep by Amy Cronise) and inner-city teacher Sara (Jodi Somers) - which, to their mutual surprise, blossoms into more than a platonic friendship.

Just as the women are sharing a first romantic kiss, however, their intimacy is interrupted by a homophobic attacker.

That pivotal event is revealed quite early, via a scrambled time sequence that mixes present-day scenes with flashbacks.

"It's a classic Brechtian device to take the suspense out of the plot, so people aren't just waiting to see what happens next," Son says.

"I didn't want everyone on the edge of their seats about whether or not Callie and Sara will ever kiss. I wanted to show, scene by scene, what that kiss is the culmination of, and what its consequences are."

Son, who isn't gay, caught a bit of flak for depicting a budding lesbian romance that results in tragedy.

She proudly notes the script earned a Media Award from GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). And she insists it isn't "trying to fulfill a political agenda."

"For me, it's really about a larger fear endemic to my whole generation," says Son, who is in her mid-30s. "We're caught. We feel '60s idealism failed, and don't want to be embarrassed by trying to be idealistic again. But the complacency of cynicism is poisonous, we get stunned into paralysis."

Son wanted Callie to undergo a believable but clear evolution. "In the past, Callie's just taken whatever comes to her. When she goes for something on her own, she's immediately punished and has to reassemble herself into a braver, more responsible and committed person."

Son flew up from L.A. three times to watch "Stop Kiss" rehearsals, and she praises Seattle writer-director Steven Dietz's staging.

Dietz returns the compliment. "I admire Diana's elegant writing, and her deft touch with a subject that could easily be polemical," he says. "She captures a lot of humanity and humor quickly and easily."

After the Rep's "Stop Kiss" opens, both Dietz and Son will turn to new scripts. "Paragon Springs," Dietz's adaptation of Ibsen's "The Enemy of the People," debuts in Milwaukee soon.

And Son is toiling on a new stage drama, a TV pilot, and a screenplay earmarked for Meg Ryan.

"It just means I have less time to eat out," the busy writer says cheerfully. "But I still manage to fly home to New York once a month to see plays. And no matter what else I do, I'll never leave the theater.