Surreal, post-apocalyptic drama tests young actors at Ohio State
Aperformer and her “dog” must travel through a post-apocalyptic wilderness, surviving through their storytelling talents, songs and wits.
But “Dog Act,” the latest production at Ohio State University, is meant to test the talent and wits of the student performers.
The surreal drama by Liz Duffy Adams continues through Sunday in the Roy Bowen Theatre.
“It’s about the survivability of theater and performers being the repository of culture,” co-director Joe Kopyt said.
Kopyt, a third-year master of fine arts student, and OSU theater professor Mandy Fox co-direct the Raw Theatre production. The program, launched in 2014, offers students a challenging annual show similar to those mounted by small professional theaters limited by smaller budgets, smaller casts and compressed rehearsals.
“It requires more from the actors to tap into deeper wells of imagination and creativity to fill out their physical world,” Kopyt said.
The two-hour two-act, which premiered in 2004 in San Francisco and had an off-off-Broadway run in 2011 in New York, is set in an environmentally damaged northeastern United States long after an unnamed catastrophic event.
“The reality that Adams paints — talk of tribal warfare, environmental and political unrest, a persistent fear of things shifting drastically — seems not too far from something that might come to us in the near future,” Kopyt said.
“But the heart of the story is that human beings still persist in finding connection. The play celebrates the resilience of the human species.”
Jasmine Smith plays Zetta 614-292-2295, theatre. osu.edu
7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday
$20, or $18 for senior citizens, faculty, staff and Alumni Association members; $15 for students and children
(short for Rozetta) Stone, leader of a vaudeville-style troupe.
“She’s almost larger than life. Zetta has got so much drive,” said Smith, 21.
As the troupe faces existential threats, two other performers seek to join the troupe after losing theirs.
“Zetta has to decide whether she trusts them so they can join her ‘mortality play’ — the same as a morality play but with altered language — which retells how the universe came to be in comedic fashion,” Smith said.
One of the play’s biggest challenges is its complex, stylized language that blends Shakespearean theatricality with poetry and mangled vestiges of old pop culture.
“The changes in language are very creative,” Smith said. “Zetta makes her own use of words that fit her style.”
She found the role easy to understand.
“Even after the apocalypse has come and gone, Zetta hasn’t given up on her art. That’s definitely how I feel as a graduating senior trying to make it as an actor,” Smith said.
“I hope this play makes people realize how much the arts mean.”
Will Scarborough plays Dog, Zetta’s companion.
“He decided that he couldn’t handle being a human, so he chooses to devolve into a dog to escape the responsibilities of humanity,” said Scarborough, 22.
“Zetta refers to Dog as her puppy and pets him,” he said. “I’d call the play a black comedy … with an absurdist eccentricity.”
The actor’s costume is human, not canine.
“The script makes it clear that the way he acts as a dog is to simply say the word ‘bark,’” Scarborough said.
“For the most part, I approach Dog as very human in his stances and mode of speech. I’ve played some strange individuals, but I’ve never been exposed to a character in such a psychological state that he chooses to be an animal. His choice seems to be born of childhood trauma.”
Beyond its dystopian setting, the play explores timeless themes.
“Ultimately, the core of the story is about hope and love in the face of adversity,” Scarborough said.
“Both Zetta and Dog have traumas … but they manage to keep going.”