Review: DOG ACT Depicts Art at the End of the World at Main Street Theater

In the post-apocalypse whatever artists are left will be tasked with carrying on the culture. Liz Duffy Adams' Dog Act is as much a depiction of the future as it is a nostalgia play about theatre people. I would describe the piece as a great "hang out" play. Many of my favorite moments were the characters standing around providing each other with their own interpretations of a theatrical performance. We have songs, short plays, sketches, and fast-spoken monotone monologues that come one after another at a rapid pace. The post-apocalypse setting provides some notable context for their art. The characters have no audience other than each other, and while they find joy in their own performance, the actors seem to feel the same love.

The casting was pitch-perfect with everyone separated into pairs that have their own dynamic. Jose E. Moreno (Dog) and Tamara Siler (Rozetta Stone) have such great chemistry as the traveling vaudevillians that I really believed these people would stick together across such a journey. Vera Similitude (Shondra Marie) and Jo-Jo (Chaney Moore) form a much more toxic union that seems to exist based on one person's power over the other. It was very believable, how much control Vera had over Jo-Jo. I got the feeling Jo-Jo wouldn't be able to function without someone telling her what to do. Rounding out the cast are Coke (Trey Morgan Lewis) and Bud (Nathan Wilson), the comedic, foul-mouthed villains who provide some of the biggest laughs, and one particularly uncomfortable moment regarding their intentions.

Then there's the design of the show which is full of so much personality that it becomes a character of its own. The first thing I noticed was the mural covering the stage filled with references to art and pop culture, reflecting the central theme of art surviving even as people devolve. Then there's the cart, a cornucopia of props and gags that makes quickly becomes the centerpiece of the whole show. At any moment the cart can form in a different shape or provide another wacky tool. It's a great reminder that theatre doesn't need much, just a small stage and people willing to bring it somewhere.

Dog Act is a show by theatre people, for theatre people. It's a strangely optimistic depiction of the end of the world. Sure there are scavengers and killers and starvation, but there's always room to have a passion for performance. That performance may be a play, or it may be someone pretending to be a deity. Perhaps at the end of the world artists will truly be free to perform art for art's sake.

Dog Act opens on March 26 and runs until April 16. Visit MainStreetTheater.com for tickets.

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