There is a box theme in the uncredited set design for The Turkish Dogs are Racist. Most prominent is the large box centre stage, chest-high with a curtained front. Smallest is the hand-held white box that represents a dog’s skull. Most magical is the cardboard carton that becomes not so much a dog box as the living, breathing, box dog.  

The play starts in the dark. There is panting; there are head lamps; a creature/ person rises eerily to sit doglike on the big box. The educated English voice and her dog skull-inspired discourse on how wolves (Canis lupus) became domesticated dogs suggests we’ve happened across an archaeological dig. This will later be confirmed when it emerges a major tunnelling project under the Bosphorus Strait was “stopped by history” when the remains and other relics were found.

The second prologue is a monologue from Barnaby Olson who assures us what we are about to witness (albeit made manifest through ingenious theatricality) “actually happened”. I’m not sure we need his entire backstory from the time he graduated for VUW with a $50k debt to the time he ended up renovating a boat- in a Turkish marina – but hey, we’ve gone back to antiquity to ground the titular dog’s story, and later we’ll touch on mythology too, and Barnaby gives it a lively delivery, so fair enough I suppose.

Meanwhile the other actors – Tess Sullivan (who has given us the archaeologist), Andrew Paterson and Stevie Hancox-Monk – are mooching about mopping floors, reading books … And there is a strange sense of another indefinable presence …

The initial language difficulties with Turkish officials are amusingly depicted – and it’s admirable that a year or so later, when he’s at the Bulgarian border, Barnaby is suddenly fluent in what I assume is Turkish. We have not been privy to when, how and why he learned it.

What we do get is a group of exceptional boatyard characters: Stevie is Pea (pronounced Pee-ah) the German, and potty-mouthed Sarah from Dorsett; Andrew is South African Greg and Irish Mike, who is dutifully trying to read James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake; Tess – whose face transforms astonishingly and whose comic timing is exquisite – gives us rough-as-guts Ian and one-eyed Joe.  

“They’re a bunch of weirdos,” Barnaby observes, “but very hard working.” Some more so than others. Simple actions around the central box structure convince the boat-renovation is indeed underway. It’s Barnaby’s job to restock the food supplies – and the clever use of found props is exemplified in the way a zip bag is ‘slit’ to signify butchery at the market. That’s also when the street dogs are mentioned, which may or may not have something to do with the mysterious disappearance of the meat package from the boat – which we notice but the characters never comment on.  

The tediousness of their daily labour is interrupted by the arrival of the wounded dog, hit by a car. Represented, as aforementioned, by a cardboard carton, Stevie does a wonderful job of giving it just enough life for us to care. But a chap called Onder happens by and invites them all up to his house on the hill for a barbecue and the dog is left behind …

This is where I get confused. While Barnaby is playing the mythologizing Onder, the narrator role is taken by Stevie with an American accent and it slowly dawns that this must still be Barnaby. We have been told he has two passports because his father is American but (having ascertained my neighbour is also confused on this point) I have to make enquiries after the show to confirm that Stevie-with-the-American-accent is sharing the role of Barnaby. (Stevie also plays Barnaby’s Kiwi mother, by the way.)

The drama and black humour really kicks in when the fate of the mangy dog comes up for debate. There is plenty of space for us to consider what we would do before tough-guy Ian plays true to type – then subverts our assumptions brilliantly. Spoiler alert: the dog survives and chooses Barnaby as her ‘master’. It’s a little while before we learn why this proves the Turkish street dogs are racist.

The collective attempt to name the dog is a diverting interlude – and a stroppy, determined underdog character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream wins the day. Also amusing is Barnaby’s phone call with Debbie at MPI (NZ’s Ministry for Primary Industries) – is that really Tess again? – as he tries to find out if he can bring his dog home. Which leads him to the Bulgarian border.

En route he encounters an ageless fisherman/ dog whisperer/ ferryman figure called Erhan (Andrew as his portentous best) who calls up the archaeologist/ historian to deepen Barnaby’s understanding of what he has bought into.  

Anyone who has done their OE overland will identify with the extremely vexatious border scene, not to mention the sense of loss …

Has the ‘curtain call’ come too soon? All I will say is here is a coda that will warm all but the hardest heart.

In the media release, director Jonathan Price says: “Barney had been telling his friends this story for months, we couldn’t get enough of it. When we started work on turning it into the show, it revealed a richness and depth that we’re still uncovering. Turns out you can’t tell a simple Man-and-his-dog story without getting into identity, borders, centuries-old love stories, and Sir Lancelot.”

As a ‘what happened on my overseas trip’ story, The Turkish Dogs are Racist could have been quite prosaic in form but this creative quintet (with dramaturgy and mentorship from Aaron Cortesi) have created a theatrical piece that ingeniously replicates the way such experiences resonate in our memories and in the retelling. 

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