Rich Dogs is a Unique Production Performed in a Unique Way and Unfortunately for You, it’s Sold Out

WeAreMarried (WAM) is a trans led multimedia production company that develops new works designed to create a repertoire of performances that ignite creativity and provide a sustainable income for artists. They have partnered with the Jungle Theater for what has resulted in a sold out run of Rich Dogs before the first performance. First off, to clarify while the show is being performed at The Jungle Theater it isn’t being performed in the theater, it’s actually performed in the lobby. This drastically reduces the number of audience members for each performance to about 20. I love an experience like this, setting something in a unique venue or site specific location. My preferred seat is always front row because I like to reduce the barrier between myself and the work as much as possible. I enjoy the intimacy of a small performance space and the connection one feels with the actors and the material. Rich Dogs is 90 minutes of a world turned upside down where dogs are the masters and the humans have to wait in the lobby until called for. It’s also a love story that takes place while the audience is trying to understand the rules of this new world order. Just when you feel like you are getting a grasp on the plays reality, something new, surprising and wonderful happens.

It’s hard to wrap your head around what you are experiencing in the moment. Our minds tend to try and impose structure not only narratively but in terms of how the world we are experiencing works. Dogs can talk, and so can humans. Dogs are in charge, humans know they once were, but more or less seem OK with the way things are at least on the surface. And this is where the traditional mind takes over and starts trying to figure out if there will be a revolt or something along those lines. But it isn’t that kind of play. It’s essentially a romantic comedy, a meet cute between two dog servants. The oddities of the world they inhabit are not the plot, just the backdrop in front of which their growing connection plays out. It adds a lot of humor and keeps the audience on their toes or perhaps off balance. The humans are played by Jay Eisenberg and Chelsie Newland and they are simply the dog’s pajamas. They are fully committed to the quirkiness of the roles, they are playing humans, but humans who have lost a step, and seem unsure of the rules themselves. The play is co written by the two stars and the Director Shelby Richardson. They have conjured a world that is a funhouse mirror of our own that also has space in it for a nightmare featuring a giant dog paw, an homage to Mulholland Drive, and a magical musical duet that reminded me why I love theater. I cannot imagine anyone else in these roles, they are written for Eisenberg and Newland and they fit them some perfectly.

Richardsons direction uses the every aspect of the space, the actors go in and out of the theater on either side, Eisenberg makes his first appearance on the street outside the windows to the lobby. Richardson has them inhabiting the space not simply performing in front of our chairs in a corner of the lobby. Alex Pears creates a wholly unexpected and very impressive giant dog leg for a dream sequence and also designed these bizarre sleep inflatables the humans wear, one assumes so they can grab a few winks whenever they get a chance, because their masters usually just sleep for a couple of hours at a time. They are also used for a rather risque sequence where the humans take turns blowing each others inflatables up. There’s also clever use of video, created by Victoria Carpenter that’s used throughout on a TV that is rolled out, including what must be dog erotica in which Eisenberg via green screen tempts dogs via the video as a bag of trash and a mud puddle. Dan Dukich does the sound design and there is a lot going on from snippets of the play the dogs are attending inside the theater to various sounds and music that originate from a radio. Finally, the costumes by Bee Begley consist of these stylized uniforms that seem very much like something that would come from the minds of dogs who have taken over the world, they are a nice touch that helps build the reality of this unreal world.

There is so much to praise here that it feels like rubbing salt in a wound, knowing that unless you already have tickets you are not going to get to see it….this time. In the program there is mention of a program they have called WAM-For-Hire, I’m including the link here to their website https://www.wearemarried.org/hirewam. So you can hire WAM to do a private performance of the plays in the portfolio, this is a fascinating idea of a new theater model and I’m interested to see how it plays out. For more information and to be added to the waitlist for the remaining performances which run through October 8th go to https://www.jungletheater.org/rich-dogs

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