Lips Together, Teeth Apart

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Lips Together, Teeth Apart is a 1991 American play written by Terrence McNally. The play which premiered Off-Broadway, concerns two straight couples who spend a weekend in a gay community.

Plot

A

crossword puzzle, fireworks, charades, and biting jabs at each other and the boys next door, the two couples find little to celebrate about themselves or their country on its birthday."[1]

Production history

The play opened

Outer Critics Circle Award as Best Off-Broadway Play, and Baranski won the Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.[2]

A limited revival was scheduled to open on

American Airlines Theatre, through June 20, 2010. Produced by Roundabout Theatre Company and directed by Joe Mantello, the revival was to star Megan Mullally, Lili Taylor, David Wilson Barnes, and Patton Oswalt (in his Broadway debut). On March 24, 2010, Mullally left the production two weeks into rehearsals after creative differences with Mantello. The revival was postponed on March 25, 2010, with artistic director Todd Haimes stating that "they could not find a way to maintain the production schedule under these circumstances"; the production was canceled soon afterwards.[3][4]

Lips Together, Teeth Apart was produced in 1993 by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, Oregon, and also by the OSF in Portland, Oregon.[5]

Background

There was some controversy about the meaning of the title, which was never clearly defined for the public. The phrase is a suggested mantra dentists use to encourage patients who suffer from stress-induced clenching of the teeth and jaws to lessen the harmful effects. However, reviewer Anita Gates in The New York Times wrote that "the theme of the weekend is mortality (the insect-electrocuting device hangs somewhere on the line between metaphor and parallel), as well as isolation and the exhausting but occasionally fulfilling pursuit of happiness."[6]

In a discussion of the play with the original cast, Kurtz said "The play is at least in part about our responsibility... Specifically the responsibility of heterosexuals to reach out to the gay community in this time of AIDS, to not just turn a blind eye to the situation. But more universally, the play is about whether you can just watch somebody in trouble and think there isn't anything you can do. You can at least try."[7]

McNally said that he wrote Lips Together, Teeth Apart for Lane, Heald and Baranski, as well for as Kathy Bates. When Bates was unable to appear in the new play, Kurtz, a newcomer to the McNally repertory, was offered the role.[7]

Critical reception

David Richards, in an article in

AIDS.[8]

References

  1. ^ "The Story" dramatists.com, accessed March 26, 2014
  2. ^ "Listing" Internet Off-Broadway Database, accessed May 7, 2014
  3. ^ Jones, Kenneth."Broadway Won't See 'Lips Together, Teeth Apart' This Season" Archived 2010-03-28 at the Wayback Machine playbill.com, March 25, 2010
  4. ^ Healy, Patrick."McNally Play Is Postponed After Mullally’s Departure" The New York Times, March 25, 2010
  5. ^ Johnson, Barry."'Lips Together,' circa 1993" The Oregonian (artsdispatch.blogspot.com), February 28, 1993, p.C01, accessed May 7, 2014
  6. ^ Gates, Anita. "Theater Review. Isolation and Mortality by the Swimming Pool" The New York Times, July 22, 2011
  7. ^ a b Rothstein, Mervyn. "Terrence McNally's Four Stars Talk Happily of His 'Lips Together'" The New York Times, July 3, 1991
  8. ^ Richards, David. "Two Shapes of Comedy - Tragic and Spoof", The New York Times, July 14, 1991, p. H5

External links

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