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A Dog’s House
Reviewed by Pauline Adamek
Iama Theatre Company at The Elephant Stage
Through April 26
RECOMMENDED:
A couple debates their options after their untrained Rottweiler dismembers the new neighbors’ small dog. But a series of lies and missteps brings Eden and Michael (Christine Woods and Graham Sibley) into an awkward friendship with their unsuspecting neighbors (the missing dog’s owners) Nicole (Katie Lowes and Amy Rosoff share the role) and Bill (Dean Chekvala). Pretty soon the cracks in Eden and Michael’s relationship form into crevasses.
Micah Schraft’s domestic drama, A Dog’s House, begins as a black comedy then proceeds into even darker terrain. At first you’ll laugh at the edgy premise and all of the spot-on line readings of the caustic dialogue, but prepare to be shell-shocked by the play’s startlingly dramatic conclusion. This play is neither for the squeamish nor the highly sentimental.
Schraft’s play is brilliantly crafted, kicking off with a tantalizing predicament and immediately immersing us in his examination of the moral dilemma this couple is confronted with. Their dog has killed another dog – ripped it to pieces, even. What do they do? Do they confess and face the consequences, or do they pretend it didn’t happen and try to explain it away?
Throughout their descent into the moral quagmire, plenty of interesting topics bubble to the sulfuric surface. Once Michael sees what an adept and creative liar Eden is, he begins to suspect her of further deceit. Eden, however, gets to deliver the play’s best speeches, including one where she lambasts her common-law husband for his pie-in-the-sky daydreams that never amount to anything. She also excoriates his inability to behave like a responsible adult. The corrosive dialogue rings with veracity, and is also brilliantly delivered; director Trip Cullman has assembled a first-rate cast of four and extracted fine and flawless performances.
All of the production elements deserve high praise as well. Despite a couple of laborious scene changes involving the rearrangement of furniture, the single living room set services the play extremely well, especially during a late scene where the placement of the sofa purposefully obscures our view of the action (a tender scene between Michael and his dog). Best of all, the three upstage/side walls of the small black box theater are clad in wallpaper that depicts a realistic-looking desert vista. That, plus Jeff Gardner’s layered sound design, really immerses us in this feral suburban setting. In one spooky scene, Michael relates a nightmare and here the designer Josh Epstein’s surreal lighting changes add a frisson of terror.
A Dog’s House is a powerful play by an insightful playwright that puts his characters, and us, through an extreme scenario until you cannot help but check in with your own moral compass.
Iama Theatre Company at The Elephant Theatre, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through April 26. https://iamatheatre.com/
