The Rep’s Fresh Take on ‘Prelude to a Kiss’

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“It’s a universal thing when you are a certain age—you feel young in the inside, the same things excite or depress or anger you as always. You feel you are who you were at 25 …” Jonathan Gillard Daly begins, “… and suddenly you see yourself in a mirror and realize that you are perceived as something entirely different.”

That disparity is magnified in Julius, the character Daly plays in the Rep’s production of Prelude to a Kiss, a retooling of Craig Lucas’ 1988 play (adapted into a 1992 film starring Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan). Prelude to a Kiss concerns Peter and Rita, a couple in love despite her fears of the world. And then something uncanny happens, call it supernatural if you will. Is Rita also, somehow, Julius?

“It’s a fable,” Daly says. “What happens to the character is transformative, magical.”

Prelude to a Kiss is a musical romantic comedy but thought provoking. “Anyone in a long-term relationship realizes that you think you know somebody for years and years, and all of a sudden, they are not what you think they are,” Daly continues. “It’s a test of all relationships. Has the person in your life changed? Am I going to change with them? The characters in the play are confronted with that in an intense and comic way.”

The Rep’s production involves the show’s creators. According to Daly, the musical recently “underwent a lot of workshopping in California and the creatives are working in Milwaukee to make it even better. It’s exciting to watch the collaboration between the writer, the lyricist and the director.” Although written in the ‘80s and filmed in the ‘90s, the Rep’s production lives in the present.

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“The play goes to many locales—the streets of New York, a beach in Mexico, her apartment, his apartment. It will look simple when you see it but it’s anything but simple to stage. The seamless transitions take a lot of work,” Daly explains.

Familiar Face

Daly is a familiar face for Milwaukee theatergoers. He has appeared in eight productions for the Rep, along with roles at American Players Theater, Renaissance Theaterworks, First Stage, Skylight and Milwaukee Chamber Theater.

“I’m a Milwaukeean by birth, went to Marquette High, then to Madison as an undergrad. I left Wisconsin when I was 21 and didn’t get back until I was 45.” Despite an active theatrical career in California and elsewhere in the Midwest, he wanted to return. “I grew up seeing plays at the Milwaukee Rep and was always looking for the possibility of getting involved with them. I always felt like a Milwaukeean through and through and wanted my kids to experience that.”

He's been back for 28 years but will move to Chicago after Prelude’s run. It’s an opportunity, he explains, for his wife and adult children to live in the same place for the first time in years. “It’ll be exciting to be together again.”

The Milwaukee Rep will present Prelude to a Kiss, directed by Kenneth Ferrone, at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center, Sept. 10-Oct. 9. For tickets, visit milwaukeerep.com.