Lips Together,
Teeth Apart
Clear Space Theatre Company
Fall 2015
Lips Together,
Teeth Apart
Terrence McNally's
Directed by David Button
Sets by Eddy Seger
Lighting by Ginger Angstadt and Brendan Smith
To reduce weight, Seger made the illuminated
pool two feet deep in part (to accommodate
swimmers), the rest being only three inches.  
He reinforced the stage with four posts under
the "deep" end.
David Button asked Seger to
develop a set that included a
deck with a sandy beach, a
working outdoor shower, a
cedar-shingled beach house with
a kitchen and two bedrooms
featuring three doors opening
onto the deck, and a real
filled-with-water pool.  Seger
responded with the concept
shown here.  Eight-foot sliding
doors on casters, a dissolving
scrim wall that reveals a working
kitchen (sink and refrigerator), a
practical shower with all of the
attendant plumbing, a dividing
boardwalk with a
five-by-sixteen-foot beach and
an eight-by-nine double-lined
pool created a convincing Fire
Island beach residence.


Original Drawing
of the set.
The boardwalk was divided to facilitate
better beach access, with footlights
hidden inside.
The practical shower looks
like it has hot and cold
running water, but that's
only an illusion.

The theatre has no hot
water.
The twelve-by-thirty-two-foot wall was a screen-covered
frame that allowed easy interior viewing through the painted
shingles.
Seger proffered that the original
owner and builder in the story, a
photographer, would have known
about composition and the Golden
Mean/Divine Proportion
( http://www.goldennumber.net/),
hence the window over the kitchen.  
Most of the rectangles in the set are
of the same proportion.
Lighting from behind reveals the
bedrooms and kitchen, dissolving the
exterior wall.
The Great Blue Heron
presents a striking
silhouette when back-lit.  
Delaware sculptor,
Bobby Grimmet, carved
this beautiful wooden
piece of art.


(Collection of the
set designer.)
Only complete when people and characters invest the space with life, telling the story.
Best Set Design
2015