July 4, 1991 - October 28, 2014 Here are quotes from two pieces that appeared in the New York Times on Tuesday, October 28. The first is from an op-ed article written by Elton John. “. . . 30 years after the AIDS epidemic began, rates of infection in the United States are still at unacceptable levels. One in eight gay men is H.I.V.-positive, and yet the majority of gay and bisexual men say they are ‘not concerned’ about H.I.V., according to new research from the Kaiser Family Foundation.” The second is from the paper’s lead editorial. “With good reason, Americans are deeply confused about the risks of Ebola. It is a frightening disease, made more so by dueling theories about how to best to deal with people arriving from West Africa . . .”
spending the July 4th weekend at a beach house that once belonged to Sally’s brother David, who has recently died of AIDS. David has left the house to Sally, and she and Sam are there to investigate. Chloe is Sam’s sister. McNally establishes early on that this waterfront paradise is rife with serpents, from the literal snake Sam finds below the house to less tangible though no less poisonous vipers such as infidelity and bigotry. Sam refers to their weekend neighbors as “faggots”, and of Aaron, David’s partner, he remarks: “He’s black, y’know . . . Black, black. Very African, that kind of black. Nothing white about him.”
Sitting at my kitchen table, I couldn’t help but think that Terrence McNally’s 1991 play Lips Together, Teeth Apart suddenly seemed extremely relevant. McNally’s play is set in a gay enclave of Fire Island during the AIDS crisis. Two straight couples— Sam and Sally Truman, and Chloe and John Haddock—are Playwright Terrence McNally
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In addition, serpents of another sort infect body and mind. Cancer has commenced its insidious assault on one character, and while they all profess to reject the idea that AIDS can be transmitted through the water in the swimming pool, no one dares dive in. Fear of the virus, of the uncertainty, of the unknown, infects them all. “I think these are terrible times to be a parent in,” says Chloe, mother of three. “I think these are terrible times to be anything in,” responds Sally. Terrible though they may be, McNally wraps the times and his imperfect characters in a great deal of humor and infuses the dialogue with infectious wit. In this “comedy that hurts”, as Frank Rich described the New York premiere in 1991, the playwright not only exposes the characters’ flaws, he revels in them in ways that allow the comedic and the serious to ebb and flow seamlessly throughout, sometimes changing in an instant. McNally is unsentimental and not afraid to present complex individuals, at once flawed and forgivable, foolish enough to make us laugh and anguished enough to make us stop.