MyAnna Buring and Patrick Kennedy in Stage Kiss [Helen Murray]

ALTHOUGH Sarah Ruhl’s 2011 Stage Kiss, featuring two plays within a play, was a hit in New York, I found it only fitfully funny, despite some strong performances.

It opens with an audition. She (Anna Buring), married with a teenage daughter, hasn’t been on stage for a decade. She reads with a nervous Kevin (James Phoon), presided over by their overconfident director (Rolf Saxon).

The setup is simple: what happens when two actors with a romantic past are cast as lovers?

The first rehearsal of the 1930s melodrama The Last Kiss offers some enjoyable metatheatrical humour when She realises her co-star is her former flame (Patrick Kennedy) and kissing is involved.

The problem is that the play they’re working on is dire – everyone is called Millicent or Millie – and any comic value from its deliberately clichéd stagecraft and artificial dialogue is short-lived. Ruhl’s plot is predictable: the couple kiss repeatedly until they fall for each other over again.

The second half opens in his dingy New York studio apartment (a deft design by Robert Innes Hopkins). Their next project, Blurry, a 1970s drama involving an IRA man, a prostitute and a pimp, is just as bad, and their rekindled attraction starts to unravel. In a neat twist, her husband (Oliver Dimsdale) offers a reality check.

I can imagine the cast enjoying themselves – bad acting is always fun to play – but it’s less amusing to watch. Blanche McIntyre’s production works hard, yet Ruhl’s romcom about blurred emotional boundaries needs higher stakes and sexual tension.

Until June 13
www.hampsteadtheatre.com/