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Court Date Delayed for 'Mooning' Director

Posted on: Tuesday, 11 November 2003, 06:00 CST

Avant-garde theater director Gerald Thomas is going to have wait a little longer learn the price of a moon.

On Tuesday, prosecutors asked a Rio judge to postpone a hearing on whether or not Thomas would face indecent exposure charges for mooning the audience following an opera performance in August.

Following a performance of Tristan and Isolde at Rio de Janeiro's municipal theater, Thomas shocked audience members and much of the cast by taking down his pants and displaying his buttocks in response to jeers at the curtain call.

The over-top-production featured sashaying fashion models and an actor playing Sigmund Freud who threw around a white powder meant to be cocaine.

Thomas, who is Jewish, claims he mooned the audience in response to anti-Semitic catcalls from the crowd.

Thomas apologized for his actions on a nationally televised talk show after the performance, but prosecutors insist he be charged.

The hearing was postponed until Feb. 17 because a key witness failed to appear, a press officer for the court explained.

The 49-year-old director who grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Berlin and London has collaborated with the late Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and the American composer Philip Glass.

If convicted, Thomas faces between three months and a year in prison or a fine. He is scheduled to appear before a Rio de Janeiro judge Tuesday.

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