Blog: A Hollywood hit
The title of The Little Dog Laughed (running through June 6 at the Bartell Theatre) is a riff off an old nursery rhyme, but Strollers Theatre’s production is as far from childish whimsy as a play could be. None of the four characters are at any point particularly fulfilled, the ending isn’t happy (though it’s satisfyingly bitter), and the few laughs the audience gets are squeezed from the self-serving actions of the principals.
In The Little Dog Laughed, playwright Douglas Carter Beane tapes a bulls-eye on Hollywood’s back, and proceeds to spend the next two hours taking well-aimed target practice. Mitchell (Joshua Derek Epstein) is a closeted gay actor who kinda sorta wants to come out, but only if it won’t hurt his career. His agent, Diane (Erin Baal), doesn’t care so much that he’s gay, only that his sexual orientation might limit his earning power. So when Mitchell falls for a young hustler (Jay Gabel) with complications of his own—namely, a star-struck girlfriend (Jessica Warpula) who knows her beau is gay—The Little Dog Laughed essentially becomes a race to see who will compromise the most in order to get what they want. And in this case, that falls somewhere between being adored (though not necessarily loved) and making a bunch of money.
Much like an episode of Seinfeld, the play’s writing is so sharp and witty it often masks the fact that the characters are at their cores narcissists, even as they flash periodic glimmers of decency. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just the most jaded playgoers will probably find themselves wishing for a bit more levity and redemption to balance out the experience.
Decider generally likes to stay away from opining too much about the technical aspects of a performance, though there were a few things we’d be remiss not to mention. First off, the “For Mature Audiences Only” disclaimer isn’t an idle threat—one love scene in particular features Mitchell and Alex stripping one another, resulting in an unexpected double-barreled full frontal shot. Also, while monologues in plays are as moldy as Shakespeare’s corpse, The Little Dog Laughed employed them in inventive, intimate ways so it often felt as if the audience was a part of the performance, rather than being lectured at. Unfortunately, Erin Baal was the only actor who consistently nailed them, so even by community-theater standards, the overall performance was in large part uneven.
