Review: The Little Dog Laughed

One of the side effects of working as a newspaper editor, I've noticed in recent months, is that my so-called reviews on this blog have become increasingly informal. It's as if I've subconciously reacted to the nit-picking formality of editing other people's writing by deciding to have more fun with my words here.

Alternatively, I'm just getting lazy, and/or even more time-poor than before.

Such musings aside, let us turn our attentions to the latest production by Red Stitch Actors' Theatre, Douglas Carter-Beane's scathing comedy of Hollywood manners, The Little Dog Laughed.

Alex (Martin Sharpe) watches over a drunken Mitchell (Tom Wren)

Mitchell Green (Tom Wren) is a boy-next-door movie star on the brink of major fame. His power-hungry agent, Diane (Kat Stewart) sees Mitchell's career as her key to life as a big league producer, as long as she can secure him the right vehicle: namely, a hot theatrical property about a pair of gay lovers that's currently winning acolades in New York.

There's only a couple of flies in Diane's ointment: Mitchell's "slight, recurring case of homosexuality" being one; the young rent boy, Alex (Martin Sharpe) who Mitchell is beginning to fall in love with another; and Alex's sort-of-girlfriend, Ellen (Ella Caldwell), who is almost but not entirely peripheral to the main drama that unfolds over the play's 125 minute running time.

An additional complication arises later in the piece, thanks to the unseen New York playwright's insistence that his queer love story not be straightened out in order to cater to the conservative sensitivities of muliplex-flocking Middle America; providing one of the most wickedly funny scenes in the whole play.

Playwright Douglas Carter-Beane's experience as a Hollywood scriptwriter on such projects as To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (a bland rip-off of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) has obviously held him in good stead: his handling of this material, and a theme exploring the conflicting demands of love and success in an industry which lives on lies, is sharply and wittily observed.

Despite saving his best lines for the deliciously manipulative and openly shallow Diane, Carter-Beane also invests the character of the closeted actor, Mitchell Green, with heart and depth. Sadly, Tom Wren fails to convey the degree of desperation the role requires; rendering Mitchell bland rather than flawed and conflicted. Conversely, Kat Stewart is magnificent as Diane, revelling in her character's affected, greedy, monomaniacal world view, to the audience's obvious delight.

Ella Caldwell is the least effective of the cast, largely failing to bring her admittedly two-dimensional character to life; although director David Bell's decision to play up her peripheral role by positioning Caldwell physically at the far edge of the stage, often half hidden in a doorway, doesn't help proceedings.

Conversely, Martin Sharpe as the confused young hustler Alex is a revelation. Though his accent wasn't always convincing (indeed, it seemed at times as if all the cast were so focussed on maintaining their accents that they sometimes failed to properly act), he perfectly encapsulated the nervousness of first love and his character's complex blend of bravado and anxiety. An actor who can bring such depth of feeling to a one-word line is defintely someone to watch.

A simple set design by director David Bell and modest lighting by Matt Scott ensures that the focus is well and truly on Carter-Beane's ascerbic, insightful script. His target is the allegedly liberal Hollywood's hypocrisy when it comes to homosexuality, and the majority of his barbed jokes hit dead-centre; such as a scene where Diane explains to Mitchell that, being gay, he can't possibly play a gay role on screen:

"If a perceived straight actor portrays a gay role in a feature film, it's noble, it's a stretch. It's the pretty lady putting on a fake nose and winning an Oscar. If an actor with a 'friend' portrays a gay role in a feature film, it's boasting."

Looking beneath the play's glittering surface, however, I began to wonder about Carter-Beane's subtext.

Hollywood's double standards drive the play's plot, but what really makes it resonate is Carter-Beane's critical examination of the flexible nature of truth. That's what's really at the heart of The Little Dog Laughed, I think; the degrees of dishonesty that dominate modern life, from Diane's contractual loopholes and nooses, to Mitchell's and Alex's insistence that they're not really gay. It's not much of a stretch to see the play, perhaps, as a subtle indicment of a culture where the big lie can go unquestioned; a world where one nation can invade another nation over non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Politics aside, there's much to recommend about The Little Dog Laughed. While not without its flaws (including Bell's occasionally slow-footed direction, which allows the pace of the play to sag when it should sparkle), it's a witty, engaging and occasionally striking piece of theatre, and another strong effort from the award-winning Red Stitch.


The Little Dog Laughed runs until November 17. Bookings on 9533 8083 or www.redstitch.net.