Dog’s Barking
Written by Richard Zajdlic
Directed by Michael Moxham,
Produced by EasyTiger Productions
Taragon Theatre, Toronto Fringe Festival 2008
Baby Belly Venues, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2008
Dog’s Barking was a production mounted by EasyTiger Productions for the 2008 Toronto & Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. Directed by Michael Moxham and produced by Maddy Lewis we performed a total of 7 performances over two weeks at the Taragon Theatre, as part of the Toronto Festival in June, and then a full two week run at the Baby Belly venues as part of Edinburgh Festival in August 2008. The reviews below are al from the Toronto run of the production. IN Edinburgh this play ran alongside EasyTigers ‘Ecstasy’.
All photographs used with kind permission of Petr Maur - taking during the Toronto International Festival
Reviews
"Biting"
Here as part of the 2008 Toronto Fringe Festival, Easy Tiger Productions from the UK is presenting the Toronto premiere of the 90-minute play “Dogs Barking” by Richard Zajdlic, best known as a television writer for such shows as “This Life” (1996-97) and “EastEnders” (2006-08). The play from 1999 is a scathing portrait of the yuppies of the 1990s whose materialism has suppressed any sense of morality. The result is people who ruin their lives just when they’re beginning.
The focus of the play the relation between Neil (Fanos Xenofos) and Alex (Lisa Sheerin). They used to live together as a couple and even took out a joint mortgage on a flat, until Neil, thinking he was moving up in status, became involved in an affair with his boss Caroline and dumped Alex. Now Caroline has dumped Neil and we find him sleeping on the floor of Alex’s flat hoping to worm his way back into her life. Alex, however, has already found someone else, Ben, who is as much a success in business as Neil is a failure. Neil’s only hold over Alex is the joint mortgage and he suggests that he and Alex sell the flat and split the difference, that she buy him out or that he continues to live there. To force her hand, he gets his dim-witted friend Ray, whom everyone calls “Splodge” (Mark Philip Compton), to help move Alex’s things out and his in. When Alex and her sister Vicky (Maddy Lewis) catch them in the process, the war between the two escalates to violence.
The set by Rebecca Channon is minimal as is typical of Fringe shows, so that when Neil packs up Alex’s things there is basically nothing left on stage a table and two chairs. This places the emphasis entirely on the acting, which under Michael Moxham’s incisive direction, is excellent in drawing multilayered performances from the cast. One reason why the vicious, expletive-filled struggle between Neil and Alex is fascinating is that both actors manage to show that beneath the anger and hurt they still love each other. Alex has moved on and is trying to put the chapter with Neil behind her. Neil, however, wants to turn back the clock and, in his own misguided way, is using their last legal connection as a way to create an emotional connection, ignorant that this only alienates her more. Xenofos makes Neil a person you would never want to meet, yet he shows us that desperation underlies even his worst actions. Sheerin creates a very warm, sympathetic presence despite her harshness towards Neil because she lets us see Alex wishes she did have to take such a stance with him.
Compton’s Ray functions mostly as a kind of comic relief--slow, out of shape, too subservient to Neil. But when we learn of his past failed relationship and when we finally see him stand up to Neil, we realize that that pain and strength were there all along. Vicky would seem to be the only successful one of the four, but she has married for wealth and status, not love, and is now suffering for it. Lewis shows Vicky to be tease and poseur riddled with bitterness but her performance does not match the strong level of intensity of the other three.
The original production at the Bush Theatre in London was presented with an intermission. It a blessing that the constraints of the Fringe do not allow this because it would dissipate the tension that Moxham so carefully allows to build. One of the pleasures of the Fringe is to find such a fine play as this among the 148 offerings and in such a chilling, insightful production.
— Christopher Hoile - Stage Door (Toronto)
★★★★☆
This play by Richard Zajdlic is set in the flat of former partners Neil, Fanos Xenofos and Alex, Lisa Sheerin a few months after they split up due to Neil’s infidelity with his ex-boss.
The story continues to destroy what was left of their past relationship, Alex has moved on and is with someone else, Neil can’t accept this and Alex can’t forgive him.
A battle of wills commences as to their flat as the situation spirals out of control.
Ineffectual Splodge, Mark Philip Compton and Alex’s sister Vicky, Maddy Lewis are the other catalysts that lead to disintegration of even the fragile remains of their past lives.
This is a hard hitting play of jealously, passion and tortured emotions with a multitude of questions asked, and not all able to be answered.
The actors deliver some excellent performances, and the direction of Michael Moxham, combined with the simple but effective staging make this a piece of fine afternoon theatre.
— one4review.com (Toronto)
REVIEW
It’s funny how it goes. When a play elicits emotions in me, it’s often weak ones that are easiest to identify and amplify through words. The hardest thing sometimes is taking a deeply felt reaction and putting that into words.
Dogs Barking caused a lot of inner-turbulence for me.
The culminating action of Dogs Barking is a character named Neil pinning-down his ex-girlfriend Alex, threatening to rape her. What struck me just as powerfully though was the scene immediately following – the last scene.
Neil’s friend Spoonge returns from taking Alex to hospital (she is three-months pregnant, and the violence has caused enormous pain). Neil is on the floor, drinking, and he recollects the first night he spent with Alex after they moved in together. Neil’s arrogance is so perfectly tempered with self-pity and remorse, I felt sick.
I left the show hating my self for the sympathy I felt for Neil. I got twinges of fear as I walked through the Annex; afraid that somehow this sympathy was really a sort of empathy for Neil’s selfish nature.
Neil is an uncompromising, spiteful jackass. He destroys his relationship with Alex by sleeping with his boss. He refuses to sign transfer papers that would give Alex possession of an apartment they bought together. Neil is an uncompromising, spiteful jackass. He is also heart-broken and desperate.
I couldn’t help but feel for the guy in the final moments of the play. Neil is emotionally incapable of coming to terms with his own arrogance through language, but he is still apologetic. Showing his atonement through final inaction – fitting of such a stubborn fool – waiting for a severe beating from Alex’s boyfriend Ben.
Richard Zajdlic, the playwright, has explored to the point of profundity the intricate psychology of each character. Though this isn’t the same thing as having full-control over the characters. I found there was at least one time when the dialogue drifted into exploring a conflict extraneous to the plot. Not that, for example, a dispute Alex and her sister Vicky have about the newspaper is irrelevant – it helped my understanding of their relationship. But I wonder if the playwright’s decision to explore this dispute – really a power struggle – as far as he does, taking it all the way to resent over their mother, and as quickly as he does (over just a few minutes), before dropping it was wise.
Maybe this is just a projection of my own bias, but that sequence between Alex and Vicky was the one time I felt the acting was a bit disconnected. The way it climaxes with yelling in one another’s faces wasn’t convincing to me. Save that instance, the acting in Dogs Barking is tremendous.
I strongly recommend going to this play. Dogs Barking is a professional production of top-notch quality, and I bet it’s only a matter of time before it’s in major production in New York City or London.
— Adam Collier - Mooney on Theatre (Toronto)