Fourteen Hundred Thousand / Mud

by Sam Shepard/Maria Irene Fornes

defunkt theatre
Portland, Oregon
2005

Fourteen Hundred Thousand/Mud is actually two separate one-act plays that use the same set. The back wall changes slightly from play to play. At the conclusion of the second play the bookshelf collapses in a heap. The actors are confined to the painted floor space, distorted to extend into the audience. At the same time, the surrounding dark floor fades to a light blue horizon painted on the theatre walls, such that both audience and set appear to float on a vast desert or sea.