The subject or perhaps more to the point the target of American playwright Douglas Carter Beane’s play ‘The Little Dog Laughed’ is the superficiality of the star making machinery that motors along in that grand capital of dreams, Hollywood.
The main players in Beane’s Hollywood drama are Diane (Alexandra Fowler), a ruthless actor’s agent and one of her latest clients, award winning actor Mitchell Green (James Millar). Diane is doing everything in her powers to get Mitchell an upcoming movie role however Mitchell is not helping her by deciding its time to explore her homosexual side. Diane’s theory, an interesting one at that, is that audiences’ don’t mind a straight actor playing what would be a gay role, ‘it’s a stretch’, but audiences don’t go for a gay actor playing a gay role!
I found ‘The Little Dog Laughed’ a little slow at first but once it got going the play was compelling. The play is a little deceptive, it comes across as being light in style but Bean has some tough things to say, especially about how people can be bought! There’s something quite Faustian about this play!
In Diane the Beane has come up with a memorable, striking character. Diane is bold and brassy, absolutely driven and totally calculating. A bit of a monster, really. Alexandra Fowler gave a high energy, inspired performance in the role. Diane pulled the strings, and the others followed; James Millar’s naive, uncomplicated Mitchell, Lindsay Farris’s sharp, enigmatic Alex, and Alexa Ashton as Alex’s attractive, needy girlfriend that he no longer wants.
A feature of the play was the strong dialogue and many sharp, satirical one liners directed at social mores, reminiscent of our own David Williamson. The play runs around 2 hours. The last ten minutes are great, the play has one of the sharpest denouements I’ve seen in a long time.
Andrew Doyle’s production flowed well. Anna Ilic’s set of a New York loft apartment with a view over the Manhattan skyline worked well.
‘The Little Dog Laughed’ plays the Ensemble Theatre, 78 McDougall Street, Kirribilli till the 15th August, 2009.