Playwright: Terrence McNally. At: Remarcable Productions at Viaduct Theater, 3111 N. Western . Phone: 773-296-6024; $18. Runs through: July 2
When Terrence McNally's off-Broadway drama Lips Together, Teeth Apart debuted in 1991, it could have been lumped together with a number of "AIDS plays" at the time.
However, as evidenced in Remarcable Productions' revival at the Viaduct Theatre, Lips Together now comes across more as a conflicted play that underscores the subtle and overt homophobia of two heterosexual couples. This prejudice, along with a myriad of other issues and secrets, come to the fore as the couples spend the 1991 Fourth of July weekend cooped in a beach house in the largely gay enclave of Fire Island, N.Y.
This fish-out-of-water set-up occurs because Sally has inherited her late gay brother's oceanfront property following his death from AIDS. Along for the weekend are Sally's uncouth New Jersey husband, Sam; his chatterbox suburban sister, Chloe; and her snooty husband, John.
McNally clearly modeled this drama on Chekhov, complete with metaphorical incidents (like the suicidal swimmer possibly representing the heterosexual community's complicit inaction on so many AIDS deaths) and the general emotional malaise that affects all the characters. However, McNally seems to take the easy route out dramatically by having his characters soliloquize their exact and often blunt thoughts rather than having other characters or incidents draw out their feelings.
McNally also features a physically violent struggle in the middle of Lips Together that is oddly resolved as if it never happened. But this unconvincing bit of conflict could also extend from the feeling that Remarcable's Lips Together cast under Seth Remington's direction isn't always up to the demands of embodying the characters' deeper emotional truths.
As the annoyingly bubbly and musical theater-loving Chloe, Jeanne T. Arrigo's continual blabbing comes off as more effortful instead of second nature. (We also need to get a better sense of Chloe over-accommodating to paper over cracks in her troubled marriage.)
I would have liked a more stark fear of mortality from John Arthur Lewis' take on haughty John, while Jill Connolly's quiet meekness as Sally doesn't plumb the depths of a grieving woman questioning the unfairness of her personal life. Christopher Marcum gets the right amount of tough-guy earthiness down for Sam, though he could work on his comic delivery.
Asking an audience to spend time with these often unlikable characters with varying degrees of homophobia isn't exactly an exciting proposition in Lips Together, Teeth Apart. (It becomes contemptible when we learn how everyone avoids the onstage swimming pool because they fear getting infected while taking a dip.) Hopefully, we can look at McNally's play nowadays as both a period piece and reminder of how far more Americans have progressed when it comes to AIDS education and LGBT awareness.
