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The best way I can describe B*tch Eat Dog is a twitter feed come to life. Much like scrolling though the “for you” page, the audience is presented with a wide variety of takes that have nothing in common with each other except their complete randomness. But in this case, the hot takes are presented as puppet show skits, which seems a fitting medium.
To provide just a sampling, these puppet skits include a spoof on Moby Dick, a therapy session for hot dogs traumatized from being eaten, a country ballad about the virtues of raw milk sung by a many-titted trad wife, and, in a different tone, an appropriately respectful reenactment of a scene from Middlemarch.
The show is written and directed by Mel Carter, who is a literal puppet master currently finishing a degree in puppetry at the University of Connecticut. Her puppets are a work of art in their own right. They come in many shapes and sizes and blur the boundary between puppet and ventriloquist in many creative ways. They also completely ignore the boundary of the traditional puppet theater set in the middle of the stage, diving off the front ledge and chasing each other around it in circles making for a lively experience.
The show is hosted by a life-sized puppet of a middle-aged white man in a gray suit, voiced by Gail Bennett. The poor fellow is desperate to make up for his whiteness and maleness but every attempt at allyship is shut down by two ruthless oyster puppets informing him what he’s doing wrong. These are voiced by Camille Charlier who also performs musical interludes and manages production, cuing various light and sound effects during the skits.
B*tch Eat Dog is a busy show. The various skits make fun of all the main culture war issues, and include some pointed and genuinely funny jabs, but they stop short of taking a side or offering any real critique. Like Twitter, when you come to the end you’re not really sure what you’ve seen or why, but you’re sure you’ll never see anything else like it again.
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