HEART OF A DOG by Mohammad Yaghoubi, adapted from the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov (Nowadays Theatre Company/Next Stage Theatre Festival). Now available to stream on-demand until February 13. See listing here. Rating: NNN
Nowadays Theatre Company’s production of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Heart Of A Dog was supposed to have been one of Next Stage Festival’s live shows, but because of the pandemic the company filmed it and is now presenting the play in digital form.
It’s good to have some record of this ambitious show by this excellent company, whose Winter Of 88 played Next Stage two years ago. But it would have benefitted from a large space, where the heightened satiric style and broad performances could have found room to breathe, eliciting laughter from live audience members.
The story chronicles the absurd events after the smug, bourgeois surgeon, Professor Preobrazhensky (Nita J. Rose), has conducted a Frankenstein-like experiment on a stray dog, resulting in the dog becoming human. Bulgakov’s story is considered an allegory about the Russian Communist party’s attempt to transform mankind.
Director and adapter Mohammad Yaghoubi, with a nod to his own restrictive society (he was born in Iran), has made some intriguing choices in presenting the material. As he points out in a note, in Iran he wouldn’t have been able to show male cast members wearing scarves to criticize the compulsory wearing of the hijab by women. Furthermore, he has cast Sharikov, the title role, with a woman (the terrific Aida Keykhaii). And he’s cast queer and non-binary actor Rose in the role of Preobrazhensky. Neither choice would have been acceptable in Iran.
While the casting adds a fresh element to the tale, some other details resonate during this particular time. When Sharikov goes searching for documents because he feels deprived of his rights, it’s hard not to think of the current anti-vaxxer movement. And certainly Bulgakov’s idea that humankind is motivated by animalistic impulses comes through clearly and effectively.
Yaghoubi breaks up the action into discrete scenes, with Farshad Fozooni’s music doing a lot to alter the mood. But I think David DeGrow’s lighting would be better appreciated onstage, where we could get a sense of the work’s temporal and spatial shifts with more clarity.
Keykhaii delivers a bravura performance as Sharikov, growling, whining and twitching impulsively, always finding the canine aspects of her character. Siavash Shabanpour is also effective as the genial Dr. Bormenthal, although it’s a little jarring to see him as the student and protégé of Preobrazhensky when he’s clearly older than Rose.
While the piece works well enough onscreen, I look forward to experiencing it again if it ever gets remounted live. Seeing a woman become a dog become a human is much easier to accept on a stage than it is on film.
STAND UP COMEDY (Comedy Records Live/Next Stage Theatre Festival). Now available to stream on-demand until February 13. See listing here. Rating: NNN
Stand-up comedy is another art form that works much better in live venues than it does onscreen. But it helps that this night of performance by comics in Comedy Records’ stable of artists was taped live with a small masked audience at the Ada Slaight Hall in Daniels Spectrum.
Hosted by the amiable Faisal Butt, the show features six stand-ups each delivering about 10 minutes of material. Predictably, there are plenty of jokes about the pandemic itself; especially good are Monty Scott’s story about entertaining folks at bus shelters (his only social interaction), and Nick Reynoldson’s tale about getting supplies during the early days of the crisis. Adrienne Fish’s story about how COVID made her straight gets some well-earned laughs.
Scott seems the most grounded, and his observations about everything from hospital protesters to people who commit suicide by sticking their head in the oven feel spontaneous and surprising. Reynoldson’s manic energy – early on in his set he says he looks like he’s been up the entire pandemic – gives his act a big jolt. His story about his father’s battle with an attic full of raccoons remains classic.
And Efthimios Nasiopoulos ends the show with a solid set that touches on his death-obsessed dad, childhood eating habits and learning how to surf. His funniest joke involves a description of his emotional walls, which as a bonus includes a very clever rant about what you should and shouldn’t do at Tim Hortons.
