The Dog / The Cat

The Dog / The Cat
By Brendan Cowell and Lally Katz. Belvoir, Upstairs Theatre. April 13 – May 7, 2017

Two little plays about estranged couples relating to each other through their pets seems like kids’ theatre – until I remember how many times, as a grown adult, I talk big issues with our dog, and imagine its replies!  

Expanded now for the Upstairs theatre, Brendan Cowell’s The Dog and Lally Katz’s The Cat return to Belvoir as very funny double bill.  

First, in the dog walking park, a struggling playwright Ben meets a social studies lecturer Miracle while shouting after their dogs just offstage.  Romance, of sort, blooms, while elsewhere, Ben’s estranged, dorky housemate Marcus, who now ignores the dog he once shared with Ben, tries to also move on Miracle. 

Cowell’s three portraits are tender and real.  And his ensemble, Xavier Samuel, Sheridan Harbridge and Benedict Hardie, play the warm comedy with a physical ease. Director Ralph Myers – and also designer of the sparse setting for both plays – skilfully moves them across the spaces and also into tight focus, to The Dog’s neat but unexpected end.

The same team are at work with The Cat – here played by Samuels, suffering a master and mistress now living apart.  Meeting in the park to swap the Cat, this new couple’s banter is again sharp and witty, with reconciliation suggested when they discover the Cat can speak.  And is tearfully watching multiple downloads of The Parent Trap! 

Lally Katz plays with different levels of theatrical invention some of them unresolved.  It’s a panto ending when The Cat takes to the stage as a famed Los Vegas rapper, but when the laughs flow, as in both plays, it’s carping to look under your shoe.

Review by Martin Portus 

Photographer: Brett Boardman.

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