Review: Pets and Their People are Considered in CHICKEN IN A BISCUIT

Mary Rachel Brown (Director and Writer) and Jamie Oxenbould’s (Writer and Performer) new play CHICKEN IN A BISCUIT shares a different take on the secret lives of domesticated animals and their ‘owners’.  Presented as an 80 minute two hander, this work is both funny and bizarre. 

The premise of the work, presented in Kate Beere’s (Production Designer) a plush pastel pet playground, is that aging overweight chocolate labrador Truffles (Oxenbould) would like humans to know that pets understand their world through smell.  He considers himself an expert on olfactory studies and, with the aid of a slideshow of drawings and equations (drawn by Oxenbould), he explains the ‘science’ of how pets can know all they need to about a person just through their noses.  He also engages the use of other pets and their owners, roles shared with Mandy Bishop, to confirm this theory.

While at first the premise of the work seems fun and lighthearted and well ‘researched’ in having humans taking on animal behaviours as their monologues are shared, the work takes an unusual turn with the first human telling their story of connection to their pets.  This gets even weirder with the second human owner of a pet taking the work into territory that feels like it has been added for shock value rather than keeping the work to any semblance of relatability. 

The best parts of this work are when the pets ‘voices’ are heard which was more along the lines of what this reviewer was expecting of the work.  As Truffles, Oxenbould captures the energy of the typical chocolate labrador that is notorious for wanting to eat anything, so often being put on diets, and being loyal loving dogs and he conveys that Truffles has had a caring and loving human companion for all of his life.  As the Burmese Blue, Bishop exudes the aristocratic feline energy brilliantly, providing judgmental sneers as the audience gets to hear the cat’s opinion of the middle aged crazy cat lady she’s found herself living with.  As the Jack Russell, Bishop captures the energy of the little dogs that are often seen as hyperactive little warriors ready to take on anything regardless of size.  The portrayal also highlights the animals view of their relationship with their human and their opinions of the ‘spares’, also reinforcing how awful some people can be to their animals and that some people don’t deserve to have pets. 

CHICKEN IN A BISCUIT has the premise of a good comedy analysis of the minds of animals but strays when it brings human voices into the mix, not allowing the animals experience to be shared.  At a time when most new work tries to find a shock value or a contemporary queer angle, it feels like parts of this work were pushed to meet that modern ‘standard’ when it wasn’t really necessary and just deviated from being able to tell some more stories from the pets point of view.

Chicken In A Biscuit — THE OLD FITZ THEATRE

Photos: Becky Matthews

To post a comment, you must register and login.

Need more Australia - Sydney Theatre News in your life? Sign up for all the news on the Fall season, discounts & more...