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Lips Together, Teeth Apart
The author of such critically acclaimed plays as The Lisbon Traviata and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Terrence McNally has graced the American theater with a voice that captures our fear of intimacy in the modern age with dead-on insight, wit, and poignancy. But never has he blended these disparate elements into such a brilliantly cohesive whole as he has in Lips Together, Teeth Apart,hailed by Frank Rich of the New York Times as McNallys"most ambitious and most accomplished play yet."At the heart of this haunting play is a dramatically incisive portrait of two married couples - the Trumans and the Haddocks. Uncomfortable with themselves and each other, they are forced to spend a Fourth of July weekend at the Fire Island house that the brother of one of the women left his sister when he died of AIDS. Though the house is beautiful, it is as empty as their lives and marriages have become, a symbol of their failed hopes, their rage, their fears, and of the capricious nature of death. Acerbic and haunting, Lips Together, Teeth Apart probes the stifled
lives of people and their prejudices with a stunning clarity that resonates long after.
lives of people and their prejudices with a stunning clarity that resonates long after.
112 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1992
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218 people want to read
About the author
Terrence McNally
104 books33 followersTerrence McNally was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," McNally was the recipient of five Tony Awards. He won the Tony Award for Best Play for Love! Valour!
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
May 15, 2024
Wish McNally had kept his lips together and hadn't written this
May 15, 2017
I found this play insufferable
March 26, 2023
I think this is a play about profound disappointment, the kind of disappointment that settles deep in your bones when you turn a certain age and realize you know exactly what the rest of your life is going to be — or you have a pretty good idea of it anyway.
Two straight couples gather over the Fourth of July weekend at the Fire Island beach house one of the women has just inherited from her brother who died of AIDS. All four of the characters are vaguely homophobic to one degree or another — nervous about the gay men celebrating in the adjoining houses, scared to even get in the home's swimming pool for fear they'll catch the virus.
"Seeing them touching sort of sickens me. I can't help it," the sister says. But there's conflict in her grief that's genuinely heartbreaking: "I was glad I never saw my brother dancing with another man and now I never will."
The same character is also burdened at the beginning of the play by seeing a young man strip off his clothes and swim straight out into the ocean, an image that haunts her:
"My eyes didn't say, stay, life is worth living. They said, go, God speed, God bless. My wave didn't say, hurry back young man, happiness awaits you ashore. It said, goodbye, I know where you're going. I've wanted to go there too. I knew his secret, and he knew mine. Even from a great distance we know so much about each other but spend our lives pretending we don't."
Everyone in this play has secrets, including a brief sexual affair between two of them, and one of the most interesting things McNally does here is have them speak their internal monologues out loud, mixed in with dialogue being spoken to and with the other characters. It takes a bit to adjust to that on the page, but I bet good actors can really make that transition between spoken thought and interactive dialogue truly thrilling.
I mentioned the disappointment that pervades the play. Disappointment can be a really uncomfortable thing to hear spoken out loud. So the play is often very funny in the way of any McNally play, but it's also quite brittle.
"When I turned 40, my mother gave me a baby picture of myself. Everyone cooed and aahed but I took it as a reproach. There I am, golden curls, laughing, chipped front tooth, holding an apple. And now look at me. ... I just wish I knew the precise moment I stopped being that laughing child with the apple and turned into this."
Or:
"I think you should know something about me. All of you. I think it's precisely the small things I run on about and that seem to annoy you so, the little day-to-day details, the nuances, that give our lives some zip and meaning. ... I talk too much probably because it's too horrible to think about what's really going on. ... You think you're so superior. Well, maybe you are. But to whom? Me? Honey, just about anyone is superior to me. You're going to have to do a lot better than that."
One last line that really struck me:
"Why do people have to speak to one another? Why can't we just be?"
This is a really sad play, albeit a funny one, and a fascinating sideways take on a so-called 'AIDS play.' It's probably not McNally's best work, but it's certainly a play that lingers in my head.
Two straight couples gather over the Fourth of July weekend at the Fire Island beach house one of the women has just inherited from her brother who died of AIDS. All four of the characters are vaguely homophobic to one degree or another — nervous about the gay men celebrating in the adjoining houses, scared to even get in the home's swimming pool for fear they'll catch the virus.
"Seeing them touching sort of sickens me. I can't help it," the sister says. But there's conflict in her grief that's genuinely heartbreaking: "I was glad I never saw my brother dancing with another man and now I never will."
The same character is also burdened at the beginning of the play by seeing a young man strip off his clothes and swim straight out into the ocean, an image that haunts her:
"My eyes didn't say, stay, life is worth living. They said, go, God speed, God bless. My wave didn't say, hurry back young man, happiness awaits you ashore. It said, goodbye, I know where you're going. I've wanted to go there too. I knew his secret, and he knew mine. Even from a great distance we know so much about each other but spend our lives pretending we don't."
Everyone in this play has secrets, including a brief sexual affair between two of them, and one of the most interesting things McNally does here is have them speak their internal monologues out loud, mixed in with dialogue being spoken to and with the other characters. It takes a bit to adjust to that on the page, but I bet good actors can really make that transition between spoken thought and interactive dialogue truly thrilling.
I mentioned the disappointment that pervades the play. Disappointment can be a really uncomfortable thing to hear spoken out loud. So the play is often very funny in the way of any McNally play, but it's also quite brittle.
"When I turned 40, my mother gave me a baby picture of myself. Everyone cooed and aahed but I took it as a reproach. There I am, golden curls, laughing, chipped front tooth, holding an apple. And now look at me. ... I just wish I knew the precise moment I stopped being that laughing child with the apple and turned into this."
Or:
"I think you should know something about me. All of you. I think it's precisely the small things I run on about and that seem to annoy you so, the little day-to-day details, the nuances, that give our lives some zip and meaning. ... I talk too much probably because it's too horrible to think about what's really going on. ... You think you're so superior. Well, maybe you are. But to whom? Me? Honey, just about anyone is superior to me. You're going to have to do a lot better than that."
One last line that really struck me:
"Why do people have to speak to one another? Why can't we just be?"
This is a really sad play, albeit a funny one, and a fascinating sideways take on a so-called 'AIDS play.' It's probably not McNally's best work, but it's certainly a play that lingers in my head.
July 3, 2021
(book cws: referenced suicide, pregnancy loss, AIDS epidemic, homophobia, racism)
July 3rd, 2021: Mr. McNally passed last year of COVID and while I was familiar with his name and watched the documentary about his life, this is the first I've read of his work. It's the Fourth of July weekend as well as the fortieth anniversary of the New York Times' article "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals," so I chose to read this today in remembrance.
Two married straight couples spend the Fourth of July weekend at the Fire Island house left to one of the women by her late brother who died of AIDS. They're deeply uncomfortable with themselves, each other, and the surrounding gay neighbors. Resentments take over, secrets come out, and no one's really sure what to do with the house or the lingering notion of death.
I strive to be familiar with the history of the AIDS epidemic and its impact on the queer community due to personal history, and while there is much I have yet to learn, I have found that contemporaneous pieces like this are some of the most useful tools in making the barest sense of history. It's been forty years and there's still no cure for AIDS. A running theme is the unwillingness of the characters to swim in the house's pool, and late in the play one of them speaks why; who knows, if they were to swim in the pool, if they'd contract AIDS. All the characters are submerged in "not that there's anything wrong with that" thinking about homosexuality, and they're not even quite there yet--if I had a gay child, I'd kill myself, though really I wouldn't because suicide is still a sin, Chloe declares. We wouldn't have a gay child because we'd do everything right, Sam insists, before hastily adding that oh, but of course they'd love a gay child all the same.
It's uncomfortable to read, and I hope that it was uncomfortable for straight audiences to view. I hope it made them think about the queer people around them they were wilfully ignoring; at one point John recognizes one of the gay neighbors as someone he's seen around what he would have assumed is their safe, all-white, all-straight Long Island community. There are still plenty of liberals out there like Sally who make a big show of objecting to homophobic words but nonetheless react poorly when their loved ones or children come out, and McNally did well to put a spotlight on that.
Please take some time this weekend to educate yourself on the history of the AIDS epidemic. Thank you.
July 3rd, 2021: Mr. McNally passed last year of COVID and while I was familiar with his name and watched the documentary about his life, this is the first I've read of his work. It's the Fourth of July weekend as well as the fortieth anniversary of the New York Times' article "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals," so I chose to read this today in remembrance.
Two married straight couples spend the Fourth of July weekend at the Fire Island house left to one of the women by her late brother who died of AIDS. They're deeply uncomfortable with themselves, each other, and the surrounding gay neighbors. Resentments take over, secrets come out, and no one's really sure what to do with the house or the lingering notion of death.
I strive to be familiar with the history of the AIDS epidemic and its impact on the queer community due to personal history, and while there is much I have yet to learn, I have found that contemporaneous pieces like this are some of the most useful tools in making the barest sense of history. It's been forty years and there's still no cure for AIDS. A running theme is the unwillingness of the characters to swim in the house's pool, and late in the play one of them speaks why; who knows, if they were to swim in the pool, if they'd contract AIDS. All the characters are submerged in "not that there's anything wrong with that" thinking about homosexuality, and they're not even quite there yet--if I had a gay child, I'd kill myself, though really I wouldn't because suicide is still a sin, Chloe declares. We wouldn't have a gay child because we'd do everything right, Sam insists, before hastily adding that oh, but of course they'd love a gay child all the same.
It's uncomfortable to read, and I hope that it was uncomfortable for straight audiences to view. I hope it made them think about the queer people around them they were wilfully ignoring; at one point John recognizes one of the gay neighbors as someone he's seen around what he would have assumed is their safe, all-white, all-straight Long Island community. There are still plenty of liberals out there like Sally who make a big show of objecting to homophobic words but nonetheless react poorly when their loved ones or children come out, and McNally did well to put a spotlight on that.
Please take some time this weekend to educate yourself on the history of the AIDS epidemic. Thank you.
November 6, 2020
15. A play: Lips T0gether, Teeth Apart by Terrence McNally
List Progress: 26/30
It’s a classic theater set-up: two couples in a single location, usually somewhere designed for leisure, trading barbs and witty repartee. Parlor dramas, drawing-room comedies: these types of plays are fun to write and easy to stage, so it’s clear to see why they are so popular. But there is a real risk with them, because if the dialogue or acting falls flat, there is no spectacle to distract the audience with and the whole endeavor can become a slog. Thankfully, all of the painful moments to get through in Lips Together, Teeth Apart are that way purely by design.
Terrence McNally’s 1991 play sees two couples on the deck of a beach house: the contemplative Sally, her blunt husband Sam, Sam’s manic sister Chloe, and her boorish husband John. The beach house is in the middle of a gay community on Fire Island, and had belonged to Sally’s brother, who very recently died of AIDS. These two straight couples are completely at odds with their surroundings, their neighbors and each other, and the discomfort just radiates off of all of them. A lot of the dialogue is them talking past each other, sometimes metaphorically and sometimes literally. The play uses a lot of theatrical devices, and occasionally a character will just launch into a non-diegetic monologue (one the other characters do not hear) in the middle of a conversation. The set-up is kind of fascinating, grounded in a meticulous level of realism while still using the conceits of the theater to interrogate deeper truths.
None of these characters are likable people, and a lot of care would need to be taken by the actors to keep them engaging for an entire performance. But if that care and work was put in, I could see this show crackling on stage. It’s of a very particular breed of play, but a very solid example of the sub-genre, and a window into what the cultural conversation around AIDS was in the early nineties. A runner about the brother’s swimming pool, that everyone is going to swim in, of course, just not right now, is brutal and piercing, like the best parts of the play. If you are enough of a theater nerd to be intrigued by anything I just wrote above, this is one worth checking out.
Would I Recommend It: Yes.
List Progress: 26/30
It’s a classic theater set-up: two couples in a single location, usually somewhere designed for leisure, trading barbs and witty repartee. Parlor dramas, drawing-room comedies: these types of plays are fun to write and easy to stage, so it’s clear to see why they are so popular. But there is a real risk with them, because if the dialogue or acting falls flat, there is no spectacle to distract the audience with and the whole endeavor can become a slog. Thankfully, all of the painful moments to get through in Lips Together, Teeth Apart are that way purely by design.
Terrence McNally’s 1991 play sees two couples on the deck of a beach house: the contemplative Sally, her blunt husband Sam, Sam’s manic sister Chloe, and her boorish husband John. The beach house is in the middle of a gay community on Fire Island, and had belonged to Sally’s brother, who very recently died of AIDS. These two straight couples are completely at odds with their surroundings, their neighbors and each other, and the discomfort just radiates off of all of them. A lot of the dialogue is them talking past each other, sometimes metaphorically and sometimes literally. The play uses a lot of theatrical devices, and occasionally a character will just launch into a non-diegetic monologue (one the other characters do not hear) in the middle of a conversation. The set-up is kind of fascinating, grounded in a meticulous level of realism while still using the conceits of the theater to interrogate deeper truths.
None of these characters are likable people, and a lot of care would need to be taken by the actors to keep them engaging for an entire performance. But if that care and work was put in, I could see this show crackling on stage. It’s of a very particular breed of play, but a very solid example of the sub-genre, and a window into what the cultural conversation around AIDS was in the early nineties. A runner about the brother’s swimming pool, that everyone is going to swim in, of course, just not right now, is brutal and piercing, like the best parts of the play. If you are enough of a theater nerd to be intrigued by anything I just wrote above, this is one worth checking out.
Would I Recommend It: Yes.
September 18, 2020
This play would definitely make more sense when watched live rather than read as trying to figure out what could be heard by the other actors vs just the audience was a real quandary throughout this play. But I still love McNally's writing style. It feels true to life plus a little bit of heightened drama to keep the audience engaged. I really feel like the joy in this play would be carving out what the actors are saying and what they are really trying to get at by speaking and to whom they are conversing with. I think there could be a real sense of art and surrealism in the pausing and the continuing on - something we cannot do in life but is easily accomplished in art and in this play and yet even while it may be paused for other actors, it is never paused for the audience or for whoever is speaking -- and then looking at the passage of time both in this play and in life is a fun rabbit hole to fall into as you go along as well.
Really interesting play that I'd love to either do one day or see done, with great writing and interesting characters and even interesting lines from said characters when coming from this particular writer - but I knocked off the 2 stars as it wasn't as easy a read as it would be a watch. Trying to figure out line by line who can hear what and at what moment each actor is frozen or unfrozen while also trying to let the plot and dialogue unfold naturally made it a bit of a clunkier read. But I still liked it, and it still had me laughing a couple times too.
Really interesting play that I'd love to either do one day or see done, with great writing and interesting characters and even interesting lines from said characters when coming from this particular writer - but I knocked off the 2 stars as it wasn't as easy a read as it would be a watch. Trying to figure out line by line who can hear what and at what moment each actor is frozen or unfrozen while also trying to let the plot and dialogue unfold naturally made it a bit of a clunkier read. But I still liked it, and it still had me laughing a couple times too.
May 2, 2020
Our national treasure, playwright Terrence McNally, was one of the first major artists and writers to die due to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. His struggle with lung cancer over the years meant he had little lung capacity remaining, making him a prime target of the virus. I directed his short one-act play "Noon" in college and have always loved his stories. This is what inspired me to read LTTA for the first time.
"Lips Together" is about two heterosexual couples spending 4th of July weekend on Fire Island at the beach house once owned by the now deceased brother of one of the women. The brother willed it to his sister before he died of AIDS. Although no actual gay people appear on stage, their presence is felt throughout as offstage kin and neighbors. The sister must decide if she will keep the beach home or sell it. It's brilliant, and full of fireworks.
Don't look for a lot of productions of this play since it requires a working swimming pool on stage for a few pivotal scenes. Reading it, it helps to imagine Nathan Lane, Swoosie Kurtz, and Christine Baranski in the roles, since they were among the brilliant NYC cast.
"Lips Together" is about two heterosexual couples spending 4th of July weekend on Fire Island at the beach house once owned by the now deceased brother of one of the women. The brother willed it to his sister before he died of AIDS. Although no actual gay people appear on stage, their presence is felt throughout as offstage kin and neighbors. The sister must decide if she will keep the beach home or sell it. It's brilliant, and full of fireworks.
Don't look for a lot of productions of this play since it requires a working swimming pool on stage for a few pivotal scenes. Reading it, it helps to imagine Nathan Lane, Swoosie Kurtz, and Christine Baranski in the roles, since they were among the brilliant NYC cast.
March 27, 2022
Another rando slush pile read from 1992: I am beginning to realize that pretty much every play I've heard of from the 1980s and 1990s is a talky semi-realistic 3-act sheaf of upper-middle-class white people talking about how it feels to be upper-middle-class and white? Each one takes those two demographic features for a given, then throws in a "problem" or unique feature salient to a subset of such people: Someone has a gay brother who's died of AIDS; someone is Jewish; someone's family lost all their money in Ponzi schemes; someone is a woman; someone has cancer; someone is having an affair...
In a certain sense, since these are the people who were making up the audiences of NYC Broadway and off-Broadway playhouses, I guess it's fine? Show yourselves to yourselves, and through solipsism more or less avoid the other pitfall of exoticising and tokenising the stories of all those people who aren't white and/or upper middle class.
In a certain sense, since these are the people who were making up the audiences of NYC Broadway and off-Broadway playhouses, I guess it's fine? Show yourselves to yourselves, and through solipsism more or less avoid the other pitfall of exoticising and tokenising the stories of all those people who aren't white and/or upper middle class.
July 25, 2019
As I read this I found myself wondering what McNally found so compelling about the story or the characters or whatever that he wrote this because I really didn't see it. Maybe this is one of those plays one has to see performed to see what the author was going for or maybe it is just too dated but I found it dull & forced
February 19, 2018
Not my cup of tea - slow, repetitive, not a lot to it -- I've loved some of McNally's work, but not this. The set sounds amazing, though, and there'd be some fun tech challenges for smaller theaters. It had some moments that pulled me in, but overall, this is a no.
November 16, 2019
Two couples of very damaged human beings, both emotionally and physically. The most likeable of the characters is Chloe, who's massively irritating. There's a lot going on here under the surface, but the characters are so unlikeable, it's hard to care.
November 22, 2019
I thoroughly enjoyed this script and the questions it posed. I found it challenging, but it also forced me to delve into the characters and where they were coming from to make them do/say what they did. I loved the effect of the inner monologues vocalized and woven into the conversations.
January 8, 2021
I would be interested in seeing how this one plays live, although the consistent homophobia of the characters got a little draining to read ngl, and it made it hard for me to actually root for any of the characters.
August 6, 2024
I've read about half and that's enough to know i really like it. I'm a huge Nathan Lane fan so it's easy to picture him as Sam. But the writing is amusingly flustered. you go from a solid conversation to a random comment from someone else. I can only imagine how awesome the theatre version is.
July 23, 2017
Masterful work. Very little resolution
September 19, 2018
I think it was good but then again I don’t know anything about plays and don’t particularly enjoy reading them
January 19, 2022
Really hard hitting, poignant moments, but also a bunch of slurs, so...
April 12, 2023
Fantastically tragic but extremely entertaining
May 4, 2023
This book is excellence and laugh out loud funny!
October 16, 2024
live laugh love mtc but this was awful
May 25, 2017
sometimes this play is excellent, and sometimes it seems like a group of heterosexual misfits in the midst of a gay holiday spot which ultimately peels off the layers of their anxieties, anger, prejudices, insecurities, coping mechanisms, and general their desire for normalcy, which ironically seems out of place given the location and their own pretentious personas...
August 19, 2008
Good. But I wanted more interaction between the straights with the gay neighbors. Those moments brought out an intriguing look into the straight psyche and how they really feel about gays. I wanted this to be a critique on homophobia--but that was overshadowed by infidelity and an illness (cancer) that is brought up in the beginning and forgotten about until the last scene.
July 8, 2014
Sometime after college, but before I left Atlanta, there was a bit of a bruhaha over the staging of this play in Marietta (home of the Big Chicken). Although I'd otherwise stopped reading so many scripts, I had to pick this one up, just to see what the problem was. Apparently, the problem was the title itself. I hate people sometimes.
December 18, 2014
The dialogue is flawless and inner monologues are haunting. Wonderfully written for people who lived in the early 1990's (back when homophobia was accepted), but now the characters feel a bit more stereotyped. It would be a huge acting challenge. I didn't love this script, but I feel like it's story will stay with me for awhile.
November 22, 2025
Two straight couples vacation on Fire Island, in the house of one of their deceased gay brothers, and then they slowly - methodically - proceed to waste the audience’s entire damn time. I keep wondering why I don’t like more Terrence McNally plays, given that I like MASTER CLASS so much. I now realize I must just really like MASTER CLASS… and MASTER CLASS alone.
May 8, 2008
normal play how two couples get together for fourth of July. and of course there is going to be cursing, cheating, and fighting. personally, i wanted to smack Chloe, but that it my opinion. i also feel that you could tell who were the characters on the cover with the play
August 2, 2011
Oh dear god. One of the worst plays I've ever read. Why. . .
May 17, 2012
Sometimes very good, but can get a little confusing.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews