Peter and Rita are two young, happy lovers who are getting married. On their wedding day, after their nuptial kiss, an old man comes up to kiss the bride. During this kiss, their souls exchange, and the young, beautiful woman Peter just married now houses the soul of a dying, old man. On their honeymoon, Peter starts to notice that something's not quite right. When he discovers the truth, he confronts the old man, who now holds Rita's soul. Peter struggles with the notion that this is his young bride, and he works feverishly to put the souls back in their original bodies. At the same time, he realizes that he loves who Rita is, no matter how she is packaged. Craig Lucas' play, first performed in 1990, was considered a metaphor for the AIDS epidemic, in which a man could find himself in a relationship with someone who was suddenly old and sick before his time.
Prelude to a Kiss guide sections
