Dog / Actor ★★★★★

With the great advances in technology, we are wowed by incredible lighting designs, clever video projection, stunning sets that move seamlessly when we go to the theatre. But sometimes, it is great to enjoy theatre without all those bells and whistles and just focus on powerful performances. This production of Dog / Actor takes such a back-to-basics approach but the results are far from basic.

Presenting two of Steven Berkoff’s short plays back to back, Stephen Smith delivers an explosive, exhilarating hour of pure theatre.

The first play, Dog, features a xenophobic Millwall-supporting London skinhead and his blood-thirsty Pitbull dog, Roy. As Smith laces up his Doc Marten boots, the soundtrack is a news report referencing the World Cup and football hooliganism as the “English Disease”. This is important to place the piece, written in 1993, in historical context of the yob culture, drunkenness, bigotry to foreigners and “dangerous dog” attacks that thrived in the Thatcher years.

What makes this play so challenging is the racist language used by the character will make you deeply uncomfortable. Even more so, when you have just been laughing and enjoying the brilliantly executed physical comedy of Smith and his invisible dog just moments before. We see him barely able to control his canine “tank with teeth” before literally landing in the poo. Smith even briefly transforms into an anthropomorphic Roy whose repeated line “Stop pulling my f*cking chain” is both comedic and ominous. Smith’s talent for physical theatre is evidenced when his character props up the bar and you find yourself looking to see where the bar is. Dog is an unsettling piece that shuns easy answers.

The Platters’ classic The Great Pretender accompanies Smith’s onstage transformation for Actor. Covering his face with traditional mime-artist white make up and dressing in a black top with white gloves, it allows the aggressive energy from Dog to disperse and establishes the more urbane, sardonic tone of the second work. Employing a simple but brilliant use of a live loop pedal, the beats form an irresistible, relentless rhythm to the piece.

Partly inspired by a sketch from mime artist Marcel Marceau in which he walks on the spot and the world passes him by, Actor follows an actor on an endless cycle of failed auditions, meeting other actors as he walks the streets, finding and losing love and married life, and visiting his parents to borrow money. Although skewering the insecure world of acting, audiences may relate to that feeling of being ‘stuck’ while others seem to be racing ahead in their lives. Smith exudes a manic energy as his character exclaims “If I don’t work, I don’t exist”. His Sisyphean efforts to land the role of Hamlet while neglecting all else in his life sets him on a downward spiral of desperation. Thanks to the sweat of Smith’s physical commitment to the role, the white face-mask’s slow disintegration is a perfect metaphor for the actor’s sense of self falling apart. It’s a macabre and memorable image.

Stephen Smith’s energy is as boundless as his flair for physical theatre. His skill and commitment to his craft allow him to create worlds out of thin air for his audiences to experience. Fringe theatre isn’t always about big names or big budgets – the theatre of imagination offered by Dog / Actor is highly engaging and rewarding. Its performer Stephen Smith is truly a talent worth watching.