Cornerstone Shops for Insights in Area Malls

Malls are for more than shopping. They’re also great for people-watching.

Cornerstone Theater exploits this notion in “Foot/Mouth,” the central component of the company’s “MallPlays,” which opened last weekend at Montclair Plaza. This week, the show is at One Colorado in Pasadena; next week, it moves to Santa Monica Place.

As seen in Montclair last Sunday, “Foot/Mouth” is a tantalizing exercise in environmental theater, as well as a wistful reverie on the human condition.

Spectators rented headsets at a table in the mall’s high-ceilinged center court. Directed to go to the north side of the second floor, we staked out perches behind the curved railing that overlooks the center court and turned on the headsets. From our vantage points we could see and hear two actors, Shishir Kurup and Armando Molina, down on the main floor of the center court. The third actor, Page Leong, was across from us, on the south side of the second floor, also in a position to look down on the center court, also clearly audible via headsets.

The shoppers who passed through the center court and surrounding areas served as the mostly unwitting extras in this drama. Certainly none appeared to notice that the conversation between Kurup and Molina was part of a play. Leong, who looked as if she were talking to herself, was slightly more obvious; a few passers-by stopped to look at her, perhaps wondering if she was about to jump over the railing. We audience members were even more conspicuous, as we wore headsets and gazed intently at the actors in the distance. In the background, we could hear security guards explaining to passing shoppers what we were doing.

Leong performed Samuel Beckett’s “Footfalls,” about a woman who can’t escape the memory of her mother. But it was interrupted sporadically by the two men performing Alison Carey’s adaptation of Pirandello’s “The Man With the Flower in His Mouth,” about a dying man’s attempts to observe as much as possible during his final days. Director Christopher Liam Moore had Kurup and Molina venture away from the bench where their conversation began, up the elevator to within a few feet of the audience, and then into a store, Lids (specializing in baseball caps), where their conversation continued with every word audible.

The two plays didn’t blend until a wordless moment at the end, but together they added up to a moving meditation about what lies beneath the ephemera of daily life.

Three short plays precede “Foot/Mouth,” each performed three times at different mall locations, so that all three can be seen on a rotating schedule. The program for these three plays is different at each mall.

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* “MallPlays,” at One Colorado, Old Pasadena, tonight and Saturday, 6 p.m. (“Foot/Mouth” at 8:15 p.m.); Sunday at 4 p.m. (“Foot/Mouth” at 6:15 p.m.). Next week at Santa Monica Place, Thursday-March 20, 6 p.m. (“Foot/Mouth” at 8:15 p.m.), March 21 at 3 p.m. (“Foot/Mouth” at 5:15 p.m.). Headset rental is free at One Colorado, $10 at Santa Monica Place. (213) 613-1700. Running time of “Foot/Mouth” alone: 55 minutes.