 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
LIPS
* Primary Stages, New York City * Written by Constance Congdon * Directed by Greg Leaming * Starring Lizbeth Mackay, Robin Morse, and Stephen Barker Turner |
|
What if the President of the United States were a woman? What if she had a Clinton- Lewinsky-type affair with another woman? What if she decided to make her mark on history not by some show of military strength abroad but by committing her idealism to a paradigm shift on gay rights? These are some of the questions that drive Constance Congdon’s *Lips*, which plays at Off-Broadway’s Primary Stages through May 16. Rachel (Robin Morse), a punky hacker serving time for computer mischief, is sprung from jail by her ex-boyfriend Andy (Stephen Barker Turner) on one condition. She has to participate in a plot to cause a national scandal by seducing the President -- a schoolmarmish former New England senator named Joni (Lizbeth Mackay) -- in return for which she will recover custody of her/their 6-year-old daughter from Rachel’s Southern Baptist mother. This premise would be plenty for one play. But Congdon overloads the script with twists, both stylistic (spy story meets soap opera) and thematic (Rachel’s conflicted sexuality, Joni’s cynicism about the media). The play is a satire -- come on, President Joni??? -- yet it also makes an earnest pitch for difference of opinion as the linchpin of American democracy. Although it’s better to have too many ideas than too few, the play ends up doing justice to none of them. The Advocate, May 11, 1999 |
|
|