What happens when four blatant heterosexuals spend the Fourth of July on Fire Island? They also bring their own problems to the festivities. Terrence McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart is a challenging work. On PowPAC's stage, under the direction of Jay Mower, the challenges are met.
Cheryl Warner, as Chloe Haddock, a community theater actress, redefines the term hyper. While Chloe's husband John (Rick Shaffer) passively reads the newspaper, her brother Sam Truman (real-life husband Sam Warner) tries to ignore her, and his wife Sally (Sharon Lawson), continues to paint a seascape. Meanwhile, Chloe sings refrains from musicals and pressures everybody for their breakfast orders and drink orders. Add to this behavior her changing from one summer frock to another almost every time she enters the cottage.
Balancing Cheryl's hyperactivity is the reserved performance of Sharon Lawson. Sally is intensely interested in her seascape painting and the mystery of a lone nude male swimmer paddling out into the Atlantic. Sally transitions from quiet to extreme agitation as she reacts to the increasing tension between the four, as well as the plight of the swimmer. As with Cheryl's performance, Lawson's is a tour de force, an emotional rollercoaster.
Sam Warner, as Sam, is reacting to the shifting emotions of Sally and Chloe. He has lived under his older sister's reign as a child and is reliving that childhood stress, while trying to help maintain Sally's calm - a difficult task as Chloe's ranting become more annoying to her. Even Sam loses his cool. Rick Shaffer's John Haddock is laid back, yet we can see an inner tension boiling inside of him. We discover that he has had a tryst with Sally and still has feelings for her. Sam is jealous of John's success, adding more tension to this tension-filled play. Mr. Warner and Mr. Shaffer have defined their characters and reactions extremely well.
Whether we like or dislike these highly prejudiced people, we are drawn into their lives by four extremely fine performances. Playwright McNally dissects his characters well and Director Mower has seen the depth of each role and created very three-dimensional people, not actors, but real people revealing all their flaws as well as their occasional bits of greatness.
Sherrie Colbourn's set is enhanced by Sabato Fiorello's artistic touches that extend the set to include neighboring cottages as well as the beach. There is even a working end of a swimming pool, large enough to totally dunk one of the actors. Chad Oakley's moody lighting includes the warm glow of morning, the hot whiteness of afternoon, and the cool moonlight of evening. Add to that an artful suggestion of fireworks. David Farlow's sound is rich with the sea, theatrical music, many effects including an overworked bug zapper, and pure silence as each character's inward thoughts are spoken, only to be heard by the audience.
Lips Together, Teeth Apart is not for the faint of heart. It is a tough story of prejudice of the four trying to enjoy a holiday in this gay resort area. But the director and excellent class present us with an award-worthy production.
