Cowboy Mouth - Patti Smith and Sam Shepard
Exhibit A Theatre
Director: Emily O’Brien-Brown
Cast: Benjamin Rigby, Belinda Misevski
My first directed work, Cowboy Mouth was staged as a meditation on a generation searching for a saviour through rock and roll.
Written by Patti Smith and Sam Shepard as they passed a typewriter back and forth, in the aftermath of losing cultural and political icons—Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy—the play captures a moment defined by grief, disillusionment, and longing.
In 2013, this obsession with celebrity felt less about spectacle and more about survival: a desperate hope that art, music, or myth might offer meaning where leadership had failed.
Reviews:
“Dark, unsettling and completely magnificent.” - Australian Stage
“O’Brien-Brown’s direction is intelligent, keeping emphasis on performance, emotion and mood.” - Suzy Goes See
“Director Emily O’Brien-Brown has done an excellent job of realising Shepard and Smith’s twisted, sometimes surreal script, and she has extracted excellent performances. This is a strong, well-realised production that manages to be gritty and unnerving but never overblown.” - Arts Hub
