The Dog/The Cat

The Cat is out of the bag: out of the two separate plays that make up The Dog/The Cat, The Cat is the standout. Lally Katz is a deservedly critically acclaimed playwright whose flair for language and absurd plot turns make the play about a separated couple sharing a cat a real joy to watch.

That’s not to say that Brendan Cowell’s The Dog is a bad play – it’s a good play, a realistic play, a play that is so very Sydney – but it’s simply not as fun. The jokes sometimes felt divorced from the story, all sharp quips and cultural references, and the conclusion felt unsatisfying, but maybe that’s because the story about two men sharing a dog and feelings for the same woman, rang so true.

Xavier Samuel, Benedict Hardie and Andrea Demetriades make up the cast, playing all of their roles perfectly – particularly Xavier Samuel who returned from Hollywood to fill the part written for Cowell, and made us all chuckle as The Cat of the title, a cat who is inspired by Nicki Minaj and The Parent Trap.

It’s so incisive precisely because it’s theatre about our own lives (that of director Ralph Myers, who co-owns a dog with Cowell, and shares custody of a cat with his ex-wife) in a way that’s both funny and true, about relationships ending and evolving, and about the value of our pets.