BWW Reviews: MY BARKING DOG Successfully Clears His Hurdle of Credibility

My Barking Dog/written by Eric Coble/directed by Michael Michetti/ The Theatre @ Boston Court/thru May 24, 2015

Playwright Eric Coble receives an incredibly superlative mounting of his smart, witty, theatre of absurd-esque My Barking Dog at the Theatre @ Boston Court.

The Theatre's Co-Artistic Director, Michael Michetti skillfully directs his two brilliant actors (Ed F. Martin and Michelle Azar) in a streamlined, no-fat depiction of two lonely souls possibly finding their ultimate purpose in life. In lesser hands, Coble's very tricky piece-- mundane, but realistically interesting, then slipping over to totally preposterous sci-fi-- would be much less effective as an entertainment vehicle.

The always dependable Martin, perfectly matched by Azar, play off each other with the precision timing of a well-oiled Swiss clock, competently complemented by the in-synced technical cues of sound effects (John Zalewski), lighting and video (Tom Ontiveros) and the surprisingly transformative set (Tom Buderwitz). Blood and dirt also appear 'naturally' on Toby and Melinda at the perfect essential times. Credit Martin's everyman believability in this total focus on the incongruity happening and Azar's meticulousness (bordering on anal retentiveness) for making Coble's piece work.

My Barking Dog begins with Melinda (Azar) and Toby (Martin) separately talking to the audience. Melinda works at a printing company, repetitively and mindlessly feeding printers. She deliberately chose the graveyard shift as she prefers the solitude of being the only worker in the factory. Toby, meanwhile explains the reason he's always at home. He's looking for work on his badly wi-fi connected laptop as he's been unemployed for months now. An insomniac, Toby spends many a late night on his sixth floor fire escape perch.

As fate would have it on one of these late nights, a coyote (a.k.a. Barking Dog) visits both his fire escape and Melinda's on the fourth floor. Both react independently with the creature in various combinations of fear, horror, awe, flattery and flirtation. When these two loners realize they have someone to share their similar wild animal experiences with, Melinda and Toby bond and join forces to keep the coyote coming back. They both continue putting out raw meat for it. They have conversations with it, as if the coyote was human, or at least a pet. And when they together see the coyote, their reactions perfectly in tune with each other, showing the audience just what the (not-seen) animal's doing.

Even though we, the audience, shake our heads in collective disbelief at the ridiculousness of the proceedings; we share the pain and the joy and the passion of Melinda and Toby. With no attraction between Melinda and Toby, could Melinda be, in fact, jealous of the coyote's attention to Toby? Could Toby have actually mated with the coyote or was he hallucinating in his very tired state of mind. Azar turns totally org*smic in describing her coyote polishing off his live meal. Toby's extremely explicit in his re-telling of his bestiality dream. Or was it? The effect of the coyote's presence has a more realistic consequence on Melinda, changing her from a meek, mousy nonentity into an aggressive world-changing terrorist (which Azar handles quite convincingly).

Bravo Azar and Martin! But did all this really happened??? (Cue Twilight Zone theme music.)

www.bostoncourt.com

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