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Cemetery of Lips

nytheatre.com review by Frank Kuzler
August 15, 2005

Cemetery of Lips by Nancy Ancowitz is a one-woman, visceral, poetic search for voice in which an unnamed speaker haplessly wanders through a waking dream, being led from place to place both within and without herself in search of what is buried deep inside—her individuality and personal power.Ironically enough, the show’s strength lies more in the narrative journey of the speaker than in the establishment and at times repetitiveness of the main metaphor—lips as voice. Throughout, she sees only lips: lips that devour life, lips that sing, wailing lips, fellating lips. She sees all the things that lips can do except speak for her.At the head of the show, the speaker finds herself in a cemetery in which the voices of the dead, but self-possessed, speak to her and prod her on her journey through places where her voice has been stifled. The places vary from a typical street, an intimate cafe, and finally a classroom: all places where the personal voice can at times yield, particularly in the face of “greater” authority.Eventually, the speaker is led to herself and enters herself through giant vaginal lips. There, she rediscovers those things that make her both human and individual, and it is in this discovery that the piece is a pleasure to watch. She explores her digestive system and sees all things that she has ingested, not only the nourishment but also the rhetoric, politics, and socialization of herself. She finds a stockpile of words that she never used, or wanted to use but swallowed at various points of oppression throughout life. She finally and magically finds the strength to reactivate her words, her lips, and ultimately herself.The show left me with some questions about the power behind the speaker’s journey. For example, why was there the feeling that the speaker was being led through this search, as opposed to actively searching? And why the form of entry at the end? It seemed overtly masculine.As an experience, the spoken word performance is wonderfully accomplished by Jaye Austin Williams. Musical direction (Greg Cicchino) ranges from haunting to playful and hints at those messages with which we are barraged from youth including the "Star Spangled Banner." Subtle and lovely performances are given by Joyce Chen on the violin and Anoush on the drums.