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Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews

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Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews

WhizzerMarvin Profile Photo
WhizzerMarvin
#1Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/9/14 at 5:50pm

Saw this earlier in the week and thought I'd post a few thoughts. The play is long; it's three acts, two intermissions and 2 hours and 45 minutes. The second act is the strongest (and happens to be the shortest). The third act has some potentially powerful moments, but is also saddled with a few false endings that drag on and on. The first act is basically a lot of set-up that just needs to speed up.

Right now the play feels very lopsided because of the performance by Tracee Chimo. Right now she's simply outshining everyone and walking away with the entire play. Her role is the showiest, but she's mopping the floor with the other actors. Part of it lies with the script because the other three characters are rather dull by comparison, but her colleagues are still finding their footing and she's turned up to 11 with everything.

Slight SPOILER?**********

Her pantomimed performance of "A Bushel and A Peck" was so entrancing that I don't even know what was being said on the other said of the stage for a good four minutes. All I could think about was how much I wanted to see her production of Guys and Dolls and that Chimo would make a fantastic Miss Adelaide.

End Slight SPOILER**********************

I don't want to say that the play hasn't aged well, but what once may have been provocative in the early 90s no plays like a period piece- and that's a good thing. The scene at the swimming pool in act three probably drew gasps in the original, and now it's a lesson in how far we've come in our understanding about HIV, etc.

The set is attractive and all the music, both classic and musical theater, is pleasing to listen to. (When the gays next door start blasting the overture to Gypsy they can't figure out what musical it's from until Chimo hilariously declares it's Annie.)

Right now they need to pick up the pace and the other three actors need to up their games to catch up with Chimo before she leaves them in the dust.


Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco. Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!

RippedMan Profile Photo
RippedMan
#2Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/9/14 at 6:03pm

You had me at Chimo. Going to have to see her.

WhizzerMarvin Profile Photo
WhizzerMarvin
#2Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/9/14 at 6:11pm

Chimo definitely knows how to command a stage!

If you're a fan of hers then don't hesitate to see this.


Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco. Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!

RippedMan Profile Photo
RippedMan
#3Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/9/14 at 8:26pm

I am! But I've been burned by 2nd Stage before. And 3 acts.... oof. I don't know.

EricMontreal22 Profile Photo
EricMontreal22
#4Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/9/14 at 8:55pm

Did you know the play before, Whizzer? I admit, our high school theatre class saw a regional production when I was in grade 10, so smack dab in the mid 90s, and it was still pretty controversial (there was a big deal among some parents that we even went to it.) I loved it, but it also felt very adult and mature to me then--and I haven't revisited it since (I appreciate McNally but I'm beginning to find his over the top, odd, early experimental plays more interesting--at least on paper--than his more successful 90s stuff.)

goldenboy Profile Photo
goldenboy
#5Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/12/14 at 12:34am

I have long been a fan of Terrence McNally's plays. I first saw "Where has Tommy Flowers Gone" many years ago as a teen and was enthralled and immediately became a fan. I have enjoyed The Ritz, Bad Habits, Frankie and Johnny, Love Valour Compassion and Some Men.

I have never seen Lips Together Teeth Apart until tonight. I have always wanted to see this play. I remember reading a copy and thinking " I don't quite get it." So I was grateful to finally have a chance to witness it first hand.

It is simply not his best work. It is definitely third rate McNally as I felt Mothers and Sons was as well.

It concerns two heterosexual couples who are out of their element and comfort zone on the gay Fire Island Pines. It seems to be saying even in the times of AIDS, "heterosexuals are vulnerable too.

You can be inflicted with Cancer as one of the character's is, infidelity as two of the characters do, be afraid of getting AIDS from a possibly infected pool as all the characters fear or you can be anihillated by an omnipresent bug zapper. You can be surrounded by gays on both sides, shooting stars and a guy who swims out into the ocean and commits suicide. So life is just as dreary and unknown for heterosexuals as it is (was) for homosexuals. Not a pretty message for either the heteros or the homos.

I did some research and the part of Chloe according to reviews, almost always steals the show; whether it's Christine Baranski in the original; Andrea Martin in Los Angeles Production; or Tracee Chimo in this production. This is the fun watchable entertaining and likeable character of the three. And Tracee Chimo is an acting force to be reckoned with having witnessed her expertise in Bad Jews.

The rest of the characters are all draped in fear. And fear is not a pretty sight. I found myself annoyed by this characters, Not liking these characters and even wanting to leave these characters. I thought about escaping after acts one and two but sat it out.

The production is fine; the play is unsettling and not very satisfying.





Updated On: 10/12/14 at 12:34 AM

RippedMan Profile Photo
RippedMan
#6Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/12/14 at 12:42am

Is age a thing? I remember Megan Mullay doing it on Broadway and she's a bit older than, say, Chimo?

AC126748 Profile Photo
AC126748
#7Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/12/14 at 2:24am

There isn't any reference to age in the text, but Chimo is actually closer in age to Baranski (when she played the role) than Mullally was. Baranski was in her late thirties when the play opened originally, and Chimo is in her early/mid thirties. Mullally was in her early fifties.

In general, actually, the cast of the aborted Roundabout production were all mostly older than the roles are usually cast.


"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

FindingNamo
#8Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/12/14 at 4:04am

Someday we're going to have to seriously face facts about Terrence McNally's artistic output. By jove, the book for The Full Monty wasn't too terrible.


Twitter @NamoInExile Instagram none

AC126748 Profile Photo
AC126748
#9Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/13/14 at 8:52am

I went to see this last night. They've trimmed it down to 2:30, but it's still a long sit--especially on those butt-bruising uncomfortable chairs they have at Second Stage.

So, yeah, it's not actually a very good play. There are moments of brilliance in Acts One and Two, and McNally can write a joke with the best of them. But nothing is sustained, and Act Three sucks all the air out of the piece. It feels rookie--McNally remembering that he has to tie up his loose ends, and trying to do it at breakneck speed.

As others have reported, Tracee Chimo walks away with the evening. From her first line, she has the audience eating from her hand. It's a big, brassy performance, yet Chimo manages to maintain an undercurrent of vulnerability.

America Ferrara is tentative throughout Act One, but shines in Acts Two and Three. Unfortunately, neither of the men are anything more than competent at this point. Michael Chernus is miscast--he might look the part of the everyman, with his beer belly and shaggy beard, but that's not the vibe he gives off. (It's so clear that the part was written for Nathan Lane--I could hear so many of the lines in his voice). Austin Lysy, whom I've enjoyed in other things, is little more than smarmy.

The set is fantastic.


"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

LightsOut90
#10Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/23/14 at 1:59am

saw it tonight, with ALOT of school kids. I feel a majority of America's line delivery was off and the play has not aged well. have to agree, Tracy walks away with this show, she is an absolute riot.

eperkins Profile Photo
eperkins
#11Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/23/14 at 4:13pm

"It is simply not his best work. It is definitely third rate McNally as I felt Mothers and Sons was as well. "

I saw both, and totally agree. I do like a few of his other plays very much.

Kad Profile Photo
Kad
#12Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/23/14 at 4:16pm

"Someday we're going to have to seriously face facts about Terrence McNally's artistic output."

Or will he be canonized following his death and we'll just ignore that the vast majority of his work just. isn't. good?


"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."

BitchyMargoChanning
#13Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/24/14 at 11:50am

Mullally didn't actually appear in this. She pulled out.

Mr Roxy Profile Photo
Mr Roxy
#14Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/24/14 at 8:25pm

Throughly enjoyed Mothers & Sons. Have never seen this

Wonder if his first work, that he had his name removed from, will ever be seen on a stage again. I am talking about Here's Where I Belong a musical of East Of Eden which opened and closed opening night. There needs to be an Encores type of staging for really short lived works like this.


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Kad Profile Photo
Kad
#15Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/29/14 at 1:20pm

Saw this a few nights ago and have to say it was very underwhelming. Tracee Chimo manages to steal the show by committing 110% to everything; the other three play things very low-stakes- I would say that I found America Ferrara downright amateur.

I can't say I am a fan of a play; I doubt I would be one even in 1991. The addresses to the audience are all tell and no show; McNally very inadequately dramatizes these characters' inner lives. The three act structure is perplexing as well; there simply isn't enough to justify it.

McNally employs symbolism like a baseball bat; the drowning man, the 4th of July celebration, the cancer- to say it's heavy-handed is an understatement. It's a play that's preaching to the choir with its constant references to gay culture and unsubtle innuendo, and manages to avoid real drama or consciousness. In relation to its contemporaries dealing with HIV/AIDS issues, it's totally inert. It lacks the fiery hectoring of The Normal Heart. It doesn't have the intimate heartbreak of Falsettos. It's not politically-charged epic that is Angels in America.

It begs the question, "Why is this being revived?" And unfortunately, the production does not give a satisfactory answer.


"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Updated On: 10/29/14 at 01:20 PM

themysteriousgrowl Profile Photo
themysteriousgrowl
#16Lips Together, Teeth Apart Previews
Posted: 10/29/14 at 1:35pm


i lol'd @ "hectoring"


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