Written by Ian Allen
Directed by Keith Bridges
July 5 - 27, 1997
D.C. Arts Center

For info regarding rights to "Tiger Mouth," please visit our "Script Service" page.

Confessional theatre is one thing. But what would happen if the play took over and started to confess stuff the performer didn't want revealed. A spoof on all things perverted, Tiger Mouth takes a look at what might happen all thing private became public.
   Our second show, Tiger Mouth was well attended but, like The Queens Chef pretty much ignored by the press. We did, however, make enough money to pay back what director Keith Bridges put into the show.
   The only review garnered by the show was pretty hostile and set a precedent for a slew of scathing reviews from The Blade's theatre critic, Charlie Herman, who found Cherry Red, and particularly Ian Allen, "not thought-provoking." Enjoy...
The Washington Blade
"Spoken secrets"
by Charlie Herman
July 6, 1997

Some thoughts just aren't worth sharing. Sometimes it's because they're obscene; other times, it's because they're downright boring. "Tiber Mouth," currently playing at the District of Columbia Arts Center, presents what would happen if thoughts could instantly become reality. Although the play tries to show some possibly provocative and controversial thoughts, the end result is hardly thought-provoking.
   The play begins with the usher to the cozy theater, Robert Starner, coming onstage, asking for the lights to be brighter. He talks about his fear of the dark, but that "sometimes it's better not to see things."
   From there on the play plunges into the dark recesses of his mind, bringing them to the light for the audience to see. His mother appears, brandishing a Gay pornon magazine featuring Jeff Stryker, calling her son a "pervert." Next a circus star looking for a tiger's mouth to stick his head in arrives. (Starner's character has been thinking about a circus star who was killed doing such a feat.) Then our hero's daughter enters. He blocks them out of his mind and away they go.
   In his "stream-of-consciousness" thoughts, Starner then asks the audience if any of them ever fantasize about rape.
   This conversation follows with an orgy involving a tuve tied woman, her husband who has had a vasectomy, a priest and a nun. Thin his male libido enters and kisses Starner, to which he objects, saying, "I'm not gay ... I've never had a homosexual thought in my life." Then he wishes his mother would die, and she does. Next, two audiece members are tortured. And finally, Starner marries and has an instant family.
   On the whole, the acting is inconsistant, with some of the actors stronger than others. The real problem comes from the material. Written by Ian Allen, the concept of the play is an interesting one: seeing thoughts become real, and at the same time, trying, unsuccessfully, to control them. The thoughts chosen, however, and the explorations of them lack originality. Like the entire evening itself, the thought behind the play is interesting, but the reality given to it remains lackluster.