The asphalt Kiss

Everything in Nelson Rodrigues’s “Asphalt Kiss” is exaggerated, from the deliberately melodramatic situation to the repetitive language, enunciated with Mamet-like emphasis. The Brazilian playwright, who died in 1980, wrote this play about the catastrophic results of a good Samaritan’s act of mercy in 1959. And while today the extreme homophobia of the basic premise may seem dated (particularly since the action takes place in cosmopolitan Rio de Janeiro), the events leading to this tragic downward spiral are all too contemporary.

Arandir is returning from the bank with his father-in-law when he witnesses a bus mow down a pedestrian. He kneels to comfort the dying man, who requests a kiss, and Arandir kisses him on the lips. Within 24 hours his compassion has been contorted into evidence of a homosexual affair by a reporter at the local tabloid, and before long everyone in Arandir’s immediate circle, including his sensuous wife, Selminha , Dália (Arlene Chico-Lugo); and his strangely hostile father-in-law , becomes convinced that this total stranger was in fact Arandir’s secret lover.

Director: Filippos Mendes
Translation: Katerina Kokkinidi
Rewriting: Filippos Mendes
Stage Design: Manolis Iliakis
Costume Design: EM KEI
Lighting design: Alekos Anastasiou
music: Imam Baildi
Actors: Hieronymus Kaletsanos, Louiza Kostoula, Stefanos Athanasopoulos, Athina Tsiknia, Enke Fezollari
Guest: Elissavet Konstandinidou, Stella Krouska, Nestor Kopsidas

In collaboration with the Brazilian Embassy in Athens.