[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Little Dog Laughed" at Beck Center

[Bob Abelman]

Beck Center's 'The Little Dog Laughed" is theater to be listened to

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the Times on 10/18/12

 

 

Douglas Carter Beane's "The Little Dog Laughed," currently on stage at the Beck Center for the Arts, is the kind of theater that requires and rewards a careful listening to.  Despite the visual distraction of nudity and director Scott Plate's creative placement of performers in all corners of the intimate black box Studio Theater space, this play is all about the words.

 

"The Little Dog Laughed" features Mitchell, a closeted movie star so lost in Hollywood's fast-paced, image-conscious world that he has no sense of self.  He readily admits to an inability to identify his feelings in a police lineup, but it is not for want of trying in this two hour long production.

 

Diane is his no-nonsense take-no-prisoners agent, who finds Mitchell's "slight, recurring case of homosexuality" counterproductive to his looming fame, and whose own identity is so closely connected to Mitchell's success that he is more appendage than protégé. 

 

While Mitchell is in New York investigating a project that could potentially propel him to the next level of stardom, he falls for Alex, a sweet boy-toy for hire.  Alex earns a living sleeping with men, but lives with his lover, Ellen, who is a lost soul in her own right. 

 

What makes this play so intriguing is that Beane's confused characters are forever expressing themselves about their inability to express themselves, and do so with discordant eloquence and razor-sharp wit.  Their whines, tirades and late-night laments are things of beauty that make these very shallow people seem interesting and their affinity for ambiguity appear somehow alluring.

 

One of Beane's tricks of the trade is to offer all this talking through increasingly intimate delivery.  Most conversations take place in a bedroom, which is the only permanent set on stage.  Many of the monologues are personal disclosures between just the character and the audience.  There is quite a bit of pillow talk and overheard phone conversations as well.  

 

The best scene in the play is also the most intimate, for it occurs inside the heads of Diane and Mitchell as they take a meeting with a playwright whose property they covet.  This is a hilarious symphonic narrative of what they hear, what they think, and what they say, and the first-, second-, and third-person references fly by with incredible speed and dexterity.  

 

Laura Perrotta as Diane and Phil Carroll as Mitchell are brilliant in this play.  They clearly have the skills and experience to master the material and make the words flow like bracingly cold, clear water.  It is a particular pleasure to see Perrotta's talents outed in her portrayal of a more contemporary character than her regular appearances with Great Lakes Theater provide. 

 

Brandyn Leo Lynn Day as Alex and Lindsey Augusta Mercer as Ellen are less brilliant.  Though they try hard and are, at times, endearing, their relative inexperience has not provided them with the tools to take all their unnaturally wordy and smart dialogue and make it sound consistently authentic.  

 

This off-beat, off-Broadway hit raises questions about the differences between gay and straight, image and identity, and love and lust, particularly in the second act.  And, perhaps, the play's title offers some commentary about the artificiality of Hollywood's storybook endings.  It comes from a line late in the play when Diana is insisting on a more sanitized ending in the edgy script she has commandeered for her client:  "You know the type of ending I want.  'The little dog laughed to see such sport and the dish ran away with the spoon,' that type of thing."

 

But, really, this play is all about the words.  The pleasure to be found in this story is in the telling of it.  

 

"The Little Dog Laughed" runs through November 11 at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood.  For tickets, which range from $12 to $28, call 216-521-2540 x10 or visit www.beckcenter.org.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20121011/7d74578e/attachment-0004.htm>