What I liked
I had the privilege of sitting in on a dress rehearsal performance and while it may not have been without a few errors, it was still well put together.
What I didn't like
My overall impression
During their volatile yet romantic love affair in the early 1970’s, singer-songwriter Patti Smith and Obie award-winning playwright Sam Shepard wrote Cowboy Mouth. Over two nights, probably holed up in his hotel room at the Chelsea, the two passed an old typewriter back and forth and wrote a one-act play highly inspired by their own life. The two performed the play together until life-imitating-art became too much for Shepard and he walked away from the project. Erika Ackerman directs Cait Mathis, and Alton Ray as they bring to life Cowboy Mouth at the 2016 Hollywood Fringe festival. Mathis portrays Cavale, a chick who looks like a crow and originally portrayed by Smith while Ray portrays Slim, a cat who looks like a coyote and originally portrayed by Shepard. Cavale is a mentally unstable woman who has kidnapped Slim, a married man with children, in hopes to turn him into a “rock-n-roll Jesus with a cowboy mouth.” The two are holed up in a hotel room with nothing but each other and sporadic calls to the Lobster Man for food and entertainment. One moment they seem to be infatuated with each other while the next Slim is accusing Cavale of ruining his life by seducing him with stardom. Cavale is constantly telling stories about death and as she is giving her final monologue, Slim disappears and the Lobster Man gives his final performance. A twisted romance filled with bizarre fantasies while hiding from their hopeless reality, the Ensemble theatre presents a well-crafted rendition of the mysterious Cowboy Mouth.
