Lips Together, Teeth Apart

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Lips together, teeth apart. Try it. It’s physically possible, providing a strange sensation. The major snippet creeping into the thought process is why do it? Why even consider it?

Jesse Pearlman, Gina Wencel, Dale Tagtmeyer, and Shelly Bordas in Theatre Group’s production of Terrence McNally’s Lips Together, Teeth Apart.

It’s the Fourth of July weekend. The sun warm; the sky blue. Two couples lounge around the swimming pool of a beachside house that belonged to the brother of one of the guests. No one goes swimming. Surrounded with good company, plenty of good food and drink it’s a picture perfect weekend, or is it?

Directed by Nicholas Sugar, the Terrence McNally play weaves wit and heartbreak as the picture perfect postcard delves into rational and irrational fears, anxieties, uneasiness about homosexuals and AIDS.

Sally Truman, beautifully portrayed by Shelly Bordas, and her husband Sam (Dale Tagtmeyer) have been willed Sally’s brother’s beach house. David recently died of AIDS. They invited Sam’s sister; Choloe Haddock (Gina Wencel) and her husband John (Jesse Pearlman) to celebrate the weekend with them. The celebration comes with complicated mixtures of feeling, thought and emotion.

Choloe attempts to cover her trepidation with diarrhea of the mouth. Always wanting to be busy fixing food and stuffing it into someone’s face.

John — not too worried over AIDS — has been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t even want anyone to know. If it’s mentioned, it may make it real. He’s had a one-night fling with Sally, and snobbishly rebuffed because Sally wants nothing more to do with him.

Sally is pregnant, and secretly worries if she can carry the baby to full-term. Every other pregnancy has resulted in miscarriage.

Sam carries distaste for John. John’s aristocracy strips Sam of self-esteem, and Sam’s sniping emphasizes John’s aristocracy even more.

Obsessed with musical comedies, when Choloe isn’t fixing food, serving food, insisting someone eat something, she lives in her world of musicals, talking about them, singing them and pretending to be in them.

McNally uses a brilliant technique to uncover hidden thoughts by allowing the characters to muse their hidden thoughts under a spotlight, while the other characters freeze.

No one goes swimming because of the fear of what has gone on in the pool and by whom and fear of catching AIDS. The gorgeous beach house is nestled in a gay community. With neighboring parties going on Choloe is both appalled and fascinated with the neighbors.

Tina Anderson designed a delicious set on the patio of the house, allowing the audience to sense the pool and visualize the ocean through Sally’s focused eyes. She’s a painter, and watches a swimmer go out and not come back. No one else shares her anxiety. She has reason to worry.

Bordas’s performance is the glue that hangs the cast together. Except for her spotlighted private thoughts, she gives us a Sally who understands her three partners. Choloe obviously irritates Sally as revealed through her body language and multiple expressions. John irritates Sally. Her cold shoulder speaks loudly.

The inexperience of Pearlman, Tagtmeyer and Wencel at moments stands in the way of the characters. With unsure movements, stiff arms and forced stances, they need to relax into their wonderfully designed characters. Relax, dive in head-first, and enjoy their complexities.

First performed in New York in 1991, it only could be hoped that by now McNally’s intricate complex weaving of four distraught characters could be classified as passé. Unfortunately, Lips Together, Teeth Apart remains as vibrant and important today as the day it was first written. The overzealous apprehensions, mixed pieces of information, unrealistic fears are as alive today as then, 14 years ago. McNally’s brilliant weaving of outlandish notions, bits of humor, revealing insight, nervous twitches, and irritating relatives, stands tall in the saddle. His exploration of intertwining superficial values and prejudices shines on a variety of levels with lips together and teeth apart. This play should be a must for a whole array of people. There is much to be learned at this beach house on Fire Island, New York.