| Playwright tags identity issues 04/10/2001 By Tom Sime / The Dallas Morning News Even before writing her acclaimed play Stop Kiss, about two heretofore heterosexual women who find themselves falling in love, Diana Son was fascinated by human mutability.
"I started to notice that I write about identity," says the New York writer. "I've written about gender identity before, and I encounter assumptions about my ethnic identity all the time, because I'm Korean-American. And I have short hair, so I'm mistaken for a man with enough frequency that it's not so shocking when it happens."
In Stop Kiss, whose regional premiere by Echo Theatre opens Thursday, Callie and Sara have just indulged in a tentative first kiss when a stranger attacks them. Suddenly, they're called victims of "gay bashing," to the confusion of their respective boyfriends.
"What's interesting to me about sexual identity is that it's not like ethnic identity, which is necessarily visible, and it's not fixed," says Ms. Son, 35. "It started me thinking about the difference between what you call yourself and what other people think of you. ... [What] makes me sort of angry is the need to call yourself something, instead of being as complex as you are."
The Delaware native's previous plays include R.A.W. ('cause I'm a Woman) and the forthcoming Gold, commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. She has also written for the TV series The West Wing and is working on a screenplay for Stop Kiss.
Ms. Son has now added "mother" to her list of identities. She and her husband, Robert Cosaboom, a computer expert, had their first child two months ago.
"It's quite intense," she says of caring for her son. "I'm uncovering all the secrets that other mothers don't tell women who haven't had children yet." For instance: "Nobody really accurately portrays what the first four to six weeks are like. Now that I'm through it, a friend of mine said, 'It's sort of the equivalent to boot camp.' You are pushed to your physical and mental limits."
Stop Kiss
Thursday through April 28 at the Bath House Cultural Center, 521 E. Lawther. Performances Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. Matinees with free child care April 21 and 28 at 2 p.m. Nudity, mature themes. $10 to $15, pay what you can on Wednesdays. Call 214-824-7169.
|
