By Stewart Miller…

Rachel Vail’s adaptation of her YA novel brings a deft comic touch to high school relationships.

“If We Kiss” is, one the one hand, a fairly straightforward coming-of-age romcom story.  

But it’s not as simple as “Girl meets Boy. Girl loses Boy. Girl meets Boy.” 

It’s more like “Girl Kisses Boy. Boy Kisses Girl’s Best Friend. Girl’s Mother and Boy’s Father Date and Fall in Love. Girl Kisses Boy Again, Betraying Best Friend. Girl Finally Kisses the Right Boy…. All While Joining the School Newspaper and Uncovering Several Board of Education Scandals.”

In other words, “If We Kiss” is more realistic then most romcom cliches– even as it speeds toward a happy ending, it careens through the genuine ups-and-downs of adolescent emotions. Rachel Vail adapted her own YA novel into this play, shifting from a darker tone about jealousy among teen girlfriends to one that deftly combines teen sarcasm, sweet silliness and nuanced conversations between adults and teens about love and relationships. (The jealousy is still there but reduced to a secondary role.)

The play, set in 2003-2004, revolves around Charlie (Caroline Grogan), who in the opening minutes receives her first kiss and is sent reeling. (One weird choice is that the characters are high school juniors– in the novel they were freshman, which makes the idea of a story focused on kissing and nothing beyond that feel more realistic. But you can overlook that or just imagine the kiss as a stand-in for sex.) 

Charlie narrates her excitement and subsequent tumult to us, a technique that works well considering teens often change their biggest feelings every thirty seconds. 

After the kiss, she tells us, “We started walking toward the entrance of school. I let my hand dangle in case he wants to hold it again.” She pauses. No luck. “Apparently, he doesn’t,” she reports dryly.

But Kevin (Jordan Bellow), the boy involved, is a bit of kissing machine– he has already locked lips with the bad girl Darlene (Katie Hartke) and will soon be making out with Charlie’s best friend Tess (Frankie Placidi) , who has previously “fallen in love all three boys she kissed,” according to Charlie.So, things get complicated quickly and then exponentially more so when Charlie’s mom (Hartke again) reveals to her daughter that she’s dating, and in love with, Kevin’s dad, Joe (Jeffrey Omura). There’s also George (Bellow again), who has a crush on Charlie, but is definitely quirky. During debate class he said to her, “Though I disagree with your premise, it’s clear that you are an independent thinker and amoral person.” That’s George trying to flirt. 

There’s also an assortment of other characters, including Kevin’s sister (Placidi) and a self-important journalism teacher (Omura), who both encourages and stymies Charlie’s budding interest in the school paper. (As in her love life, she quickly realizes that reporting the truth isn’t always so simple.) 

As you can see from the repeating cast names, the play gets a lot from its small cast, who often switch roles just by adding a hat or peeling away a layer and changing their body language. This allows Kevin and George to somehow be in the same scene even though Bellow is playing both roles. This kind of creative theatricality gives a “putting on a show” sense of fun without ever feeling like it’s being done for its own sake. 

This does make it, along with the minimal need for set and props, a perfect play for high schools, colleges and regional theaters. How minimal? Well, during that first kiss, Charlie tells us, “So there I am, pressed up against a brick wall, kissing Kevin Lazarus. A decorative sticking-out brick is digging into my backbone, but I don’t want to wreck my first kiss byre-adjusting. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to concentrate.” To bring that to life, Hartke rushes onstage as Charlie speaks and shoves a brick into the small of her back. No building, just one brick. It’s so charming it earns its laugh.

For all the comedic touches, the show accurately captures the outsized terrors of high school. 

When she realizes she blew her chance to confide in Tess, who starts dating Kevin, she tells us, “I should’ve told her about the Kevin kiss. Now I have to carry this secret to my grave. All my other take-it-to-the-grave secrets are with somebody, mostly with Tess. I never kept one to myself before, which I used to worry made me shallow and transparent. But, turns out, an alone-secret is a weirdly stressful thing to have.”

It also does the parents justice– when Charlie’s mom tries to articulate the differences in her feelings for and relationship with her ex and now with Kevin’s dad, the show skips the jokes and slows down to treat this more mature relationship as seriously as it does Charlie’s.

Vail may be nearing 60 but she possesses a keen ear for the way kids talk… perhaps aided by the director, Zachary Elkin, who is also The MAP Theater’s artistic director… and Vail’s son. 

The show only had a two week run, which ends on Saturday, December 20th, but as an entertaining crowd-pleaser that also respects its audience and takes its characters seriously, 

it definitely deserves a new life in another theater. Hopefully some savvy producer snaps it up soon. 

“If We Kiss” played at  the Mezzanine Theatrea tA.R.T/NewYorkTheatres at  502 W 53rd St with a running time of 90 minutes. 

Photos by John David West