Lindsay Farris and James Millar at Ensemble (Photo by Steve Lunam)
The Little Dog Laughed is a story of love weaved and wiped clean to fit inside a Hollywood box of perfection. The cynicism and satire of this play is starkly contrasted to the sadness of the ending, not at all resembling a children’s nursery rhyme, but instead portraying the harsh reality of sacrifice Hollywood-style.
Lindsay Farris (Photo by Steve Lunam)
Mitchell (James Millar) is an up-and-coming actor who falls in love with a rent boy, Alex (Lindsay Farris). Mitchell’s agent, Diane, (Alexandra Fowler) an expert in celebrity manipulation, is striving to convince Mitchell to keep his “slight case of reoccurring homosexuality” under wraps and not let his ‘friend’ jeopardise his rise to stardom – Diane can already “sense the quotation marks trans-continentally.”
The play is built on a series of asides and monologues, with Diane acting as our principal guide through the politics of show business. In a pivotal scene Mitchell and Diane sweet-talk an irrelevant writer into forgoing his rights to his work so a motion picture, staring Mitchell, can be produced. Diane promises to retain the leading male lover characters. The ripples of irony splash the audience in the face as Diane promises: “Insert name, you have my word as an entertainment industry professional.” However, Fowler’s comedy skills are sometimes questionable. She often suggestively peers at audiences to insert laughter here.
The rent boy’s eccentric girlfriend, Ellen, is played by Alexa Ashton, who carries off her mainstage debut with class and dignity, giving us an insightful glimpse into the somewhat deranged world of this high-end hustler. But the real star of the show is Lindsay Farris who draws the shortest straw after being twisted into Diane’s web of Hollywood happy endings. The genius of Beane’s script is only revealed in the second act as the first is less gripping.
Thanks to Andrew Doyle’s direction, the actors inhabit the stage space effectively to convey different moods and locations. The set design is masterfully assembled, with the defining element being a New York City nightscape backdrop. The stage is dominated by grey to show that not everything in Tinseltown glitters with colour – instead lives and personalities are manufactured with business-like precision.
