'Lips Together, Teeth Apart' Opens This Week at Playhouse

This week's steamy temperatures makes it easy to wistfully imagine a beautiful beach house, nestled on Long Island's tony shores, with its own backyard pool and outdoor shower... a scene much like the one where the tale of Terrence McNally's “Lips Together, Teeth Apart” unfolds.

When the play previews at the Westport Country Playhouse tomorrow, Tuesday, July 12, a detailed replica of the back yard of a summer home, including a working, three-feet “above ground” pool, will be as much a part of the third play of the Playhouse's 2011 season as the complicated, but comedic characters.

David Dreyfoos, the Playhouse's Director of Production, said clean, filtered and chlorinated water will be used to maintain the pool because the actors move in and out of it during each performance.

“The pool itself is all part of the angst and nervousness that takes place because one of the couples has inherited the beach house from a brother who died of AIDS,” Dreyfoos explained. “The question then becomes, is there AIDS in the pool and can the character get the disease by swimming in it?”

Even though there aren't moving sets for this production, the scope of the elements needed—a deck and pool that extend beyond the stage, outdoor shower and grill—make it a complicated and involved construction. Dreyfoos credits the Playhouse's technical interns with its efficient installation.

“We have such limited staff members working on our sets. We have only two carpenters,” Dreyfoos explained. “Our interns help us out tremendously. They help make the designers' vision become a reality.”

Mark Lamos, the Playhouse's Artistic Director, is at the helm of “Lips Together, Teeth Apart.” Originally staged in 1991 at Manhattan Theatre Club, the play was directed by John Tillinger, who recently spearheaded “The Circle” at the Playhouse.

Although Lamos said that he didn't see the original production, when he read the script, he was immediately drawn to the play's comedic qualities as well as the richness of its characters. Through a series of monologues, the audience becomes aware of the pathos going in the two couple's lives though the characters are ignorant of each others issues.

In his director's notes, which are published in the playbill, Lamos writes, “I thought I was going to encounter a wickedly funny comedy about two straight couples on Fire Island. That was indeed there, yes, but the play’s other extravagant riches were unexpected and profound. Terrence McNally’s deeply searching honesty informs each member of this dramatic quartet. He never patronizes or makes fun of their plights, whether collective or singular. Each is acutely different from the others, and their dysfunction together makes for classic comic moments as well as powerful dramatic conflicts.”

Lamos' cast has been able to hear comments directly from McNally, who has sat in on some of the rehearsals, said Bryan Hunt, 23, one of eleven members of the Westport Country Playhouse's Joanne Woodward Internship Program. As the directing intern, Hunt works closely with all of the directors of the season's productions.

Hunt said that he does everything from get the director coffee to offering his opinion when asked about something pertaining to the onstage drama.

Hunt has recently enjoyed observing Lamos put his own creative mark on “Lips Together, Teeth Apart.”

“I have learned a great deal by watching how the director interacts with the actors and, in this case, with the playwright,” Hunt stated. “All of the directors here at Westport Country Playhouse are really masters of their craft.”

Lamos is pleased to collaborate with McNally once again.

“We first worked together on a one-act opera called Central Park, part of a trilogy that had been commissioned by Glimmerglass Opera and New York City Opera about ten years ago,” Lamos said. “Both the opera and this play, as different as they are, are a testament to Terrence’s amazingly broad range of gifts as a creative artist. I’m thrilled and honored to be able to direct and present his now-classic depiction of four people dealing with the reality of illness and renewal, connection and separation, and the constantly surprising upheavals of life as we think we know it.”

The cast for “Lips Together, Teeth Apart” are Chris Henry Coffey, John Ellison Conlee, Jenn Gambatese and Maggie Lacey.

For information, call the box office at 203-227-4177 or go to www.westportplayhouse.org.