24 - North Shore News -— Friday, June 16, 2000

Lonely is

@ Lips Together, Teeth Apart g
by Terrence McNally pro-
duced by Deep Cove Stage
Society at the Shaw Theatre

to June 24. Information:
929-3200

Martin Millerchip

Curtain Call
umillerchip@nsnews.cont

PLAYWRIGHT
Terrence McNally has
been a popular choice
with local community
theatre for a long time.

I still remember with
appreciation the North
Vancouver Community

- Theatre production of Next
almost 20 years ago.

Next was McNally’s sec-
ond effort at a script after his first, And Things That
Go Bump in the Night, premiered on Broadway in
1965 — and bombed. But since he wrote Next,
McNally has evolved into one of the major figures in
contemporary North American theatre.

His theatrical successes include Bad Habits,
which merited an Obie Award; The Ritz, a farce -
which was later tured into a movie; Frankie and
Johnny i the Claire de Lune, which Deep Cove

*. Stage produced very successfully, and A Perfect
Ganesh, ~

. _,-In recent years he has collected four Tony Awards

- for his work on Broadway and become the target of
an Islamic Fatwa, or death sentence in 1998 after

| Writing a play, Corpus Christi, named for his home-
town, that featured a homosexual Christ figure.

At the heart of the haunting Lips Together, Teeth
Apart is a dramatically incisive portrait of nvo mar-
ried couples. Uncomfortable with themselves and
cach other, they are spending a Fourth of July week-
end at the Fire Island beach house that the brother
of one of the women left his sister when he died of
AIDS. The capricious nature of death stalks the
action as we cycle through one day in their life.

Will the characters remain so isolated from each
other becomes the dramatic question. Can they
voice the truth that is, initially, only spoken to the
audience in interior thoughts that director Judi Price
signals with special lights.

Billing the play as a comedy (black or not) is a bit
of a stretch, especially given Price’s and her young
cast’s naturalistic approach that does not seem to

NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

RELAX or else! Erin Annesley (from feft), Anthony Mason and Aedon Young check Sean Batt's mouth for
signs of teeth grinding in the Terrence McNally play Lips Together, Teeth Apart at Deep Cove’s Shaw Theatre.

search for comedy at all. The only laughs in this play
are either of the manic variety or derive from homo-
phobia or ridicule. That’s uncomfortable, but aiso
what McNally is looking for. At feast one of the
characters ultimately acknowledges prejudice: Do
we?

This is a comparatively inexperienced cast who
seem a little too young for their roles, but Price has
done a good job in creating a credible consistency
and the technical elements of the production are
mostly excellent — the set (designed by Ray
Statham) is one of the best I have seen Deep Cove
create.

The sexual politics of Lips Together, Teeth Apart
seem dated, but the portrait of relationships at risk is
timeless.

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¢

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Sorry far any inconvenience
this may have caused