Theatre: Dogmeat

MKA: Theatre of New Writing
By Tobias Manderson-Galvin
Directed by John Kachoyan
With Luke Mulquiney, Devon Lang Wilton, Eric Gardiner and Tobias Manderson-Galvin
PICA until Feb 8

MKA, the much-admired Melbourne company established four years ago to foster new writing for the theatre, makes its Perth debut with a revival of its first play, co-founder Tobias Manderson-Galvin’s Dogmeat. 
There is a desperate poetry in Manderson-Galvin’s writing that requires great care in its staging, and Kachoyan and his fine cast gives it a clarity and precision that lets the writer’s words breathe.
Or gasp, snarl and whimper.
Ultimately, Dogmeat is as moving as it is horrifying. Manderson-Galvin is a poet as well as a playwright, and the blank verse of much of the dialogue is of deep quality and beauty.
He also understands the Well Made Play. For all its carnage and obscenity, Dogmeat tells its story with a meticulous respect for narrative very much in the great tradition of knockabout Australian theatre.

There’s an encore. A little later in the evening, MKA are giving readings of a work-in-progress, Will Mcbride’s Party Time Giftset, directed by MKA’s resident director Kat Henry. It’s clever, funny (and free), and, this Saturday night, it will be performed by a stellar cast of 25 (if they can round them up in time).

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian