FOOT/MOUTH (premiered March, 1999)
Performances (all 1999): Montclair Plaza, Montclair, CA; One Colorado, Pasadena, CA; and Santa Monica Place, Santa Monica, CA.
FOOTFALLS by Samuel Beckett
THE MAN WITH THE FLOWER IN HIS MOUTH
Adapted by Alison Carey from Luigi Pirandello as translated by William Murray
Directed by Christopher Liam Moore, this site-specific play combined Samuel Beckett's Footfalls and Alison Carey's adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's The Man with the Flower in his Mouth and used infrared headsets for the audience to eavesdrop on the private conversations of actors playing shoppers.
Directed by Christopher Liam Moore
Stage Manger - Paula Donnelly
Headset Technology Concept - Benajah Cobb
Sound Design - Paul James
Costume Designer - Lynn Jeffries
Lighting Designer - Geoff Korf
| FOOTFALLS | ~ |
| May | Page Leong |
| THE MAN WITH THE FLOWER IN HIS MOUTH | ~ |
| The Man | Shishir Kurup |
| The Shopper | Armando Molina |
FOOT/MOUTH was a really singular theatrical experience: two stories overlaid on a busy shopping mall (or three of them) which (thanks to the initmacy of the headsets) created privacy in a place where privacy isn't really possible.
The audience (maybe 40 or 50?) stood along the railing on one side of the mall, watching dozens and dozens of people milling about. From the crowd emerged the two plays: Page Leong as Beckett's tortured daughter, and Shishir Kurup and Armando Molina as a couple of guys just chatting away. Many people in the crowd spotted the odd congregation of people with headsets, but since they couldn't hear what we could they went about their business.
Page's "May" did elicit some concerned looks from passersby: she was on the second level of the mall (as was the audience), and the night I saw the show there were a couple of people who clearly thought she might be deranged and getting ready to leap off the balcony. The initmacy of the second piece was even more intense, since Shishir and Armando existed in a sea of shoppers.
John J. Flynn