Alan Cumming’s same-sex Broadway smooch gets undue attention (5522)

After the opening of Roundabout Theatre's revival of Noel Coward's Design for Living, the talk was not so much about star Alan Cumming's anachronistic eyebrow jewelry but about the kiss he plants on costar Dominic West, reports Daily Variety. The kiss was intended to make clear what was only alluded to when the play about a triangular social relationship was originally produced in 1933, starring its author along with the acting couple of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Director Joe Mantello (Love! Valour! Compassion!) wants to get across that "these two guys were together before they met her" and that "these three people are simply obsessed with each other." About the kiss specifically, though, he muses, "I hope people don't focus on that."