What I liked
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What I didn't like
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My overall impression
In a word, Enthralling. There wasn’t a moment that I spent not transported into the world established effortlessly by Spencer Weitzel and Callie Ott, either laughing, gasping, or biting back tears.
Every aspect of the play was incredible, and they combined into an experience that more than exceeded the sum of its parts. The comedy hit over and over relentlessly, but never at the expensive of the deeper meaning, which was the real heart of the play. However, if there was one aspect that stole the show, it was Spencer and Callie’s acting. The show is an emotional rollercoaster that demands extreme physicality, emotional range, and tenderness, sometimes back to back with bitterness. Throughout it all, the actors both somehow managed to be charming, extremely funny, and heartfelt characters that felt real and 4D.
Over the course of an hour, a clever concept evolves into a source of deep drama, and then a breathtaking tragedy of two wounded people, and then again to a shocking conclusion which is the worst sort of quiet – the kind that can only exist when a situation is too hopelessly broken to repair.
Despite having one of the most objectively tragic endings of any show I’ve seen at fringe, the ending of Dog of Carnage does not leave you sobbing. It is a call to action in the most powerful, effective sense, one which seizes you with laughter and then places, gently into your hands, without presumption, and with honesty, the truth.
The question, asked only in the silence that follows, is what will you do with it?
