Show business – the business of celebrity – is the subject of Douglas Carter Beane’s wickedly funny deconstruction of the movie business. Diane (Alison Bruce), elegant and as sharp as a cut-throat razor, is determined to achieve stardom for her client, actor Mitchell Green (Paolo Rotondo) … And in true movie style, the question becomes, will he get the girl … or the boy … or both … or neither? And at what price?

It’s a clever play about deception. Using complex emotional layering, it examines the large and small lies people tell to justify and protect themselves and, of course, get what they want … or find happiness. Beneath a dazzling surface, it juxtaposes personal undercurrents and the professional masks that those desperate to succeed in the public eye present to the world. And it exposes the consequences for those, like Alex, who are on the outside: it’s tough, tender, courageous, hilarious. [More]

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The machinations of dirty Hollywood are exposed in the Silo Theatre’s biting comedy The Little Dog Laughed, which runs until November 15 at the Herald Theatre. If you enjoy speculating about your favourite star’s sexuality and Tom Cruise’s couch-jumping declarations of love had you equally appalled and entranced, then this is the play for you.

Written by Douglas Carter Beane and fresh from hit status in New York, this New Zealand premiere is an almost-love story about a closeted Hollywood playboy who must choose between his career, his agent and his cute toy boy. [More]
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John Verryt’s set evokes a kind of chic decadence with its split levels, shagpile carpet and the giant hotel bed, sideboard and white leather ottoman.  As the lights fade to an unusually vocal audience reception, hardboiled ballbuster Diane swans in wearing the first of many striking outfits each more fit for a Hollywood executive than the last, à la the definitive stylings of costume designer Elizabeth Whiting. 

Diane, played with some relish by Alison Bruce, is the sassy streetwise agent of rising Hollywood lead actor Mitchell Green (Paolo Rotondo).  It all starts innocently enough; lonely drunken Mitchell called up a male escort agency to send young hunk of man meat ‘Bryan’ over for some discrete fun times in said swanky hotel suite.   

Nothing at all abnormal about that, but not the kind of behaviour that helps the profile of a would-be Hollywood contender.  Which wouldn’t even matter so much except the unlikely pair find themselves drawn to each other, and Mitchell starts to spend a lot of his time with the rentboy, real name Alex Easterbrook (Charlie McDermott).     

Trouble is Diane doesn’t like that, and nor does Alex’s girlfriend Ellen, a snotty bimbo Paris Hilton wannabe played with excruciating accuracy by Sophie Henderson.  I’m not sure why the two women have only first names whilst the Mitchell and Alex get surnames?  Perhaps it’s a sly reference to the pecking order of showbiz, still essentially a man’s world after all these decades of expanding awareness.   

On the other hand, the male characters do seem generally more likeable, expressing more genuine humanity than the colder, exploitative females.  Actually though, every character is pretty much out for themselves, which is clear as each character partially narrates the play, in that they vocalise their inner thoughts unheard by the others.   

There’s an obvious comparison to Robert Altman’s ensemble cinema classic The Player, in that the storyline of the movie being pitched by Diane for Mitchell to play the lead in echoes the ‘real’ story.  Indeed, the proposed cinema vehicle serves as a kind of greek chorus to the actual unfolding events in his life.  

It’s a curious thing that might cause a headache with over-thinking, that this play is allegedly exposing the cutthroat amorality of the entertainment industry, itself a product of that same industry… How many of the problems faced by Diane and her ongoing feisty negotiations with her feared production colleague ‘He, meaning him’ were faced by Beane and company in getting The Little Dog Laughed to the Broadway stage?  

Just once or twice on the opening night I was feeling less convinced by parts of the performance – the levels of superficiality and sincerity are perhaps a tricky balance.  The tired old issue of a perceived overrepresentation of American theatre in the local profession is inevitably present, although Tinseltown is certainly world-famous as foreign lifestyles go.  

Ultimately it matters little as the audience hoot and howl, laugh and …maybe not cry, but instead laugh some more at the wit-ridden script of Douglas Carter Beane.  All this garnished with some graphic male nudity and homoerotic activity makes The Little Dog Laughed a play with everything – except maybe likeable women, let alone naked ones. 

It’s all actually even more complicated than what is detailed here; involving layers of sociopolitics and critical issues with conveniently radical solutions.   

The upshot of the whole thing would appear to be that in this day and age we still operate subconsciously or otherwise by the same archaic prejudices as our unenlightened ancestors, and also that to achieve one’s dreams may mean huge sacrifice.  At least, or especially, in dirty, filthy Hollywood.

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