My overall impression
“Cowboy Mouth” is my favorite of Shepard’s plays, though I’d never actually seen it performed before today. This production strives to be true to the passionate desire that is at the heart of the play, but I feel it misses more of the marks than it hits. Some of the moments of intense connections between Cavalle and Slim were real and honest, but others didn’t quite happen. Slim needed to be a better guitar player to make the play’s premise more believable, but since Shepard’s plays are more fable than reality this lack was not really a deal-breaker. This play is not easy to accomplish successfully, but this troupe made a really, really good effort. The final moments, with Lobsterman’s transformation and Cavalle’s transfer of loyalty, was gut-wrenching and right on target.
