Dogged
SBW Stables Theatre, May 6
★★★

“Wild never was until you came”.

Woman is hunting wild dogs for the government bounty on their skins. Dog is her companion, swearing fealty in return for pats and treats. Dingo, meanwhile, is a hungry, cold, tired mother desperate to find her pups. When the three meet Woman’s version of the world, a world where dogs lie by fires and humans eat fruitcake is stripped away, explodes, replaced by a cold, bloody nightmare.

Dogged is a collaboration between two writers, one a Yorta Yorta/Gunaikurnai woman, and one an Anglo/Irish settler/invader. Writers Andrea James and Catherine Ryan create a dense tangle of lyrical, intensely evocative yarning, peopled – or should I say dogged? - by pungent archetypes.

Dingo (Sandy Greenwood) is a sweary, funny, tragic heroine. Dog (Anthony Yangoyan) is a complex mess of unquestioning love and instinct. As for Woman (Blazey Best), she is the invincible woman whose tough, easy banter breaks down as the nightmare rolls by, until it becomes a primal howl of grief.

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When a fourth character, Wild Dog, appears, the worldview shifts again. Wild Dog is a Frankenstein’s monster, the ugly lovechild of thoughtless brutality and elemental resistance. His language is rape and violence, and he is heir to the early pastoralists who massacred the First People.

Wild Dog is not subtle and nor yet is this production. Characterised by director Declan Greene as “Australian Gothic”, it treads a fine line between thoughtful experiment and blunt spectacle. Steve Toulmin creates a menacing underscore, while Renee Mulder’s design transforms the theatre into a claustrophobic den, with black plastic sacks strung from ceiling like so much strange fruit.

The animal masks are crude, the dingo puppet feels like an afterthought, and the climactic set reveal falls flat. All in all, the material elements of the production leave me yearning for much more or, perhaps, much less.