Liz Douglas, Lori E. Parquet, Becky Byers, & Chris Wight

A few weeks ago when I interviewed playwright Liz Duffy Adams about her new play, Dog Act, now playing at the Flamboyan Theatre, she told me “I love stories about how people recreate social/political systems and civilization in the midst of catastrophe, and protect human culture through the darkest of times. So having the central characters be performers who are the sole source of art in a very dark future seemed exciting to me, and potentially theatrical.”  In a nutshell, this is what Ms. Adams set out to do, and it is exactly what she did.  Under Kelly O’Donnell’s masterful direction Dog Act manages to artfully combine the darkness and desolation of a lost world with the lightness and hope that is the very spirit of the theatre – be it vaudeville or otherwise.

The advantage of creating a world which no one has ever experienced before is that there are no rules which can be broken.  And so, in this world of Adams’ we have a society where it’s possible for a man to exist in servitude as a dog, a society where a Vaudevillian is as sacred and off-limits to the tribe of cannibals as the cows in India, and a world where seasons change at whim, in no particular order, and with no particular pattern.   Tribes have aligned themselves according to rules which simply worked out that way.  Although alliances may be forged quickly, with very little to base them on, you’re playing fast and loose with your future by choosing to trust the hand that is stretched out  before you in friendship.

When we come upon Zetta Stone (played with sparkle, charm and just a bit of mischief by Lori E. Parquet) she is with her Dog (Chris Wight) travelling along the desolate roads on the way to what they hope will be their salvation – in this case: China.  Through conversation we find that their troupe was bigger at one time but the harshness of the wandering life caused their company to splinter; now all that remains is Dog, Zetta, and their determination to get to China.  Zetta is unflinching in her quest, and it is here where she resembles a Don Quixote of sorts (albeit far less mad), not so much tilting at windmills but rather tapping across plains, playing the spoons, and singing upbeat songs of high-hoped hereafter.

Of course, into each life a little rain must fall – and this rain comes in the form of Vera Similitude (Liz Douglas) and her wild companion, Jo-Jo the Bald-Faced Liar (Becky Byers) who are obviously not Vaudevillians but are passing themselves off as such in order to keep moving safely.  Stir these four together, each with their quirks, habits and secrets and the plot begins to bubble up, revealing hidden forks in the road.  Ultimately, where they all end up is precisely where they were meant to be.   But how they get there . . . well, that’s the Dog Act.

Adams’ script, as well as her story, have an innate rhythm and melody which is captured uniquely by each member of the cast.  Whereas Parquet’s Zetta is the smooth, flowing underscore which unites the scenes and holds the play together, Wight’s Dog provdes the deeper, more mournful tones which bring you to the dark spots of this land’s history and culture.  His story is aching and bittersweet – a good man with a bad past.  Douglas’ Vera provides the dissonance – alluring and proud themes covering a side to her character which is not so much evil as it is bent on survival at any cost.  If this means a bit of deception, or even a bit of dissection – well, what’s a woman to do?  And Byers’s Jo-Jo crackles throughout like the crash of a cymbal – she is electric not only when performing her monologues, but even when sitting to the side, muttering.  A bit like Lord Of The Ring’s Gollum, she is the young product of what this new world has created.  Kelly O’Donnell’s intuitive direction intertwines these melodies to orchestrate the landscape of Adams’ Dog Act and deliver a fully realized, perfectly created piece of theatre.

Capped off by Lara de Bruijn’s costumes, which manage to both mimic and create fashion simultaneously, and Jason Paradine’s set design – which includes a wagon that, at times, nearly steals the show – the universe of Dog Act is complete.

For any of you who keep wondering – Is there a Dog? The answer is: yes. Dog does exists. Go to the Flamboyan Theater and see for yourself.

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Related Posts:

• Every Dog (Act) Has Its Day – An Interview With Playwright Liz Duffy Adams
• 4 Cents Review: Blessings Abound At Jacob’s House
• Angel Eaters Trilogy – A Three Course Meal
• Women’s History Month: Celebrating Women In The Arts – Spotlight On Emily Owens
• The Little One – Total Immersion

Liz Duffy Adams (photo by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey)

It’s no secret that as far as Theatre Ensembles go, Flux is one of my very favorites.  Consistently turning out quality work that never fails to leave audiences utterly captivated and amazed, they set the off-off Broadway bar very high – only to sail over it with each successive production.  I’m always expectant when I know a new Flux show is coming around because for me it means  - as a reviewer as well as an audience member – a guaranteed great night of theatre.

Well, I won’t have to wait much longer to get my Flux Fix – because Liz Duffy Adams’ post-apocalyptic dark comedy, Dog Act, will be coming to the Flamboyan Theater (at the Clemente Solo Velez Cultural & Educational Center) on February 4th. Dog Act “follows Zetta Stone, a traveling performer, and her companion Dog (a young man undergoing a voluntary species demotion) as they walk through the wilderness of the former U.S.A. with their vaudeville troupe. They are heading toward a gig in China, if they can find it…and if they can survive to get there.”  Sounds like nothing I’ve ever seen before – and exactly what I’ve come to expect from Flux!

In an interview with Liz Duffy Adams I was able to find out how this extraordinary play found this extraordinary ensemble; how she was able to make vaudeville and post apocalyptic themes mesh, and what undergoing a “voluntary species demotion” actually means . . .

Dog Act featuring Lori E. Parquet and Chris Wight (Photo by Isaiah Tanenbaum)

So many questions about Dog Act that I hardly know where to start! But first I’d like to talk a little bit about Flux. It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Flux Ensemble and have been watching their progress for the past several years now. Tell me how you first came to collaborate with this group for Dog Act.

LDA: I met Gus [August Schulenburg - current Artistic Director of Flux] in 2002 at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival; he was there with his play RIDING THE BULL and I was there with DOG ACT. We stayed in touch, and when he told me recently that Flux wanted to produce DOG, I thought it would be a great fit.

Kelly O’Donnell is directing the piece – and she’s a very inventive and thoughtful director. How did her staging of the piece affect it? Were there any moments that changed because of her particular vision?

Oh, absolutely, I’m sure there will be many; we’re only half-way through rehearsals, so it’s a little hard to say specifically. I agree about Kelly being inventive and thoughtful; it’s been a joy to work with her. I’d say that her staging will bring out both the danger of the world and the comedy of the piece very vividly.

Dog Act is set in a post-apocalyptic world. I’m personally always curious about the idea of setting something in a post-apocalyptic world – what was your main reason for putting your play in (what I would expect) is the future? Is there any way it could exist now?

I don’t think this story could exist in the present; I think it’s inseparable from the setting. I tend to go to the future or the past for theatrical settings. For one thing, I like obliqueness of approach; talking about the present through the past or future takes it off “the nose.” Also, I love heightened theatrical language – one of the things I had the most pleasure with in writing DOG was the freedom to invent future dialects; how the different tribes of the play talk, and what that tells us about them.

I also love the idea of juxtaposing vaudeville – a very old-fashioned notion - with post apocalypse  . . . a very futuristic idea. What made you join these two together?

One thing I’m always interested in is the cyclical nature of human history (something my last play, OR, addressed pretty directly in a very different way); the way certain historical moments repeat and echo through the ages. The “vaudeville” in this play is an expansive notion inspired by traveling players from ancient Greece to medieval Europe up through American vaudeville troupes of the early-21st-century, to name just three incarnations. And then I love post-apocalyptic stories, I love stories about how people recreate social/political systems and civilization in the midst of catastrophe, and protect human culture through the darkest of times. So having the central characters be performers who are the sole source of art in a very dark future seemed exciting to me, and potentially theatrical.

Dog Act is about Zetta Stone (LOVE that name) and her companion who is ”undergoing a voluntary species demotion”. I’m positive this is the first I’ve ever heard of any play, story, or writing of any kind that deals with a species demotion. What exactly is that?

The character Dog is a young man who has chosen, for reasons that become clear in the play, to live as a dog; specifically a working dog: a life of humble, loyal service. In the world of the play, where real dogs are scarce, this is a thing you can do.

Without giving away too much of the plot – what is your favorite moment of the play?

That’s a hard question! Well, I have a particular fondness for the play-within-the-play in Act 2, which includes a debased variation of the classic Abbott and Costello routine, “Who’s on First?” DOG ACT won the Will Glickman Award when it was first produced in San Francisco, and it turns out that Glickman (who was a playwright and screenwriter) wrote that routine for Abbott and Costello. So that pretty much blew my mind.

Wow!  That’s amazing –  I can’t even imagine what something like that must be like.  Talk about “meant to be”!

Dog Act is a “dark comedy”. Is that because, as you wrote about a dark topic you were able to find the hidden humor in it, or is this a comedy that just happens to be set during a dark time?

Maybe both. I find that humor tends to enter into my work whatever I do, so I usually think about other things and let the humor take care of itself. In this case I wanted to tell a certain kind of story, set in a dark, dangerous, perilous world, and – since it was partly about theater itself – let it be as ridiculously funny as it wanted to be. If that makes sense.

What is the one theme that you hope resonates the most with audiences who come to see Dog Act?

I hope people in the audience will have a fabulous time, get caught up in the story, feel transported in that theatrical way of being on a wild ride together, and maybe find themselves thinking about the burdens of history, forgiveness, and what it means to be human.

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I hope you’re all as excited as I am to see Dog Act!  Check back to see my review in a few weeks.

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Related Posts:

• Dog Act – All This World’s A Traveling Stage
• 4 Cents Review: Blessings Abound At Jacob’s House
• Angel Eaters Trilogy – A Three Course Meal
• Menders: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors – Good Menders Make Great Theatre
• Women’s History Month: Celebrating Women In The Arts – Spotlight On Emily Owens