Descriptions:
A woman loves her friend.
Kitty’s best friend Erin is leaving soon to start a new job in a new city. Before Erin leaves, Kitty invites Erin for one last movie night together. But little does Erin suspect that Kitty has been secretly in love with her — and that Kitty plans to confess her unrequited love for Erin, just like in the rom-coms they’ve watched together.
But life does not quite play out like it does in the movies, and Kitty must decide whether or not to go forward with professing her love or watch Erin get on that plane to a new life.
Directed by Dan Abramovici from a script written by Liam Gareau and Myrthin Stagg, who also plays the co-lead role of Kitty, this buoyant short romantic comedy is about the blurred yet delicate lines between love and friendship. Kitty has been nursing a secret crush on Erin for some time and hoping to take things to the next level before Erin moves, a situation that Kitty confides directly to the audience. Whimsical yet emotionally grounded with relatable situations and performances, it has moments of playfulness, but it also achieves a bittersweet poignancy as Kitty navigates her emotionally loaded evening.
Nicely written and briskly paced, the storytelling quickly sets up the situation, with Kitty breaking the fourth wall to address the audience, telling us of her crush on Erin and exactly how long she’s been secretly in love with her. With Erin leaving for a new job and a new city, the time has come to act on those feelings, and Kitty has engineered a movie night watching CASABLANCA for the ideal setting for her confession. Actors Myrthin Stagg and Katherine Fogler as Kitty and Erin, respectively, convey the warmth and connection of a wonderful friendship, full of inside jokes about cheap wine and shared history. Stagg especially finds the balance between the easy, natural effervescence of friendship and a romantic spark kept hidden, making her emotional dilemma ring true.
Life has its foibles, however, and the small setbacks and Kitty’s fear keep delaying her confession. When push comes to shove, the central confession is not one of love, but something more raw and perhaps universal that gets to the heart of human attachment. And as vulnerable and beautiful as it is, it doesn’t stop life from happening — something that Kitty must accept. Throughout their movie night, parallels to CASABLANCA are made — the first resonances are witty and funny, with Kitty imagining her and Erin in some of the famous scenes from the cinematic classic. But CASABLANCA’s poignant ending echoes Kitty and Erin’s own, in PLAY IT AGAIN’s modern, playful yet emotional way.
PLAY IT AGAIN. Courtesy of Dan Abramovici at https://danabramovici.com.