COWBOY MOUTH. To 18 August.

London

COWBOY MOUTH
by Sam Shepard

Liquid Theatre at bac Studio 2 To 18 August 2002
Tue-Sat 8.30pm Sun 6.30pm
Runs 55min No interval

TICKETS 020 7223 2223
Review Timothy Ramsden 4 August

Early Shepard resurrected with skill – but the sound and fury's all on the surface.On Liquid Theatre's showing, this early Shepard short is a near hour-long decrescendo, opening with a raging madness that competes with the loud rock that's been echoing round bac's studio – which itself has never looked larger than in Christian Zollenkopf's opened-out bedroom setting. As the decibels decrease, something of the tortured search of these two characters – and especially Turner-Jones' Cavale – emerges from the mounds of sound.

Cavale's kidnapped Slim (though he seems willing enough to stay on) determined he'll replaced her lost love Nerval as rock star - she wants 'A saint with a cowboy mouth'. When she invites him to go, Slim shifts into a percussion riff instead. And when they order a carryout, apparently by direct line to a Lobster Man, who should bring it but a huge lobster, bearing in his innards the resurrection of her lover?

It's either a searing account of hope and love or a precociously neo-baroque flinging of theatrical sound and fury at an old theme which could be explored far more simply. - depending on how you take your theatre.

Turner-Jones is as glossily black as Ray, her pet stuffed crow and only reliable friend, while Duhl's Slim has a youthful impatience. Waverley emerges to rock chords with the charisma of a Kenneth Anger stud. Somehow, though, for all the energy of its playing, there's a lack of something at the core – a hellbent fury that drives the two main characters.

Slim: Ben Duhl
Cavale: Natalie Turner-Jones
Lobster Man: James Waverley

Director: Matt Peover
Designer: Christian Zollenkopf
Lighting: Lizzie Powell
Movement director: Mark Bell
Musical director: James Eaton

2002-08-06 11:52:10