‘Little Dog Laughed’ is all bite

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 9 / November 24 -30, 2006

chelsea: arts&lifestyles

THEATER
‘Little Dog Laughed’ is all bite

THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED
By Douglas Carter Beane
Directed by Scott Ellis
The Cort Theater
138 West 48th St.
(212-239-6200; littledoglaughed.com)

Photo by Carol Rosegg
Julie White and Tom Everett Scott in the hilarious, satirical play about a closeted actor, “Little Dog Laughed.”

By Scott Harrah

There are, unfortunately, so few gay-themed plays that make a statement about the realities of gay life in America. That’s why it’s so refreshing to see a hilarious satire like Douglas Carter Beane’s “The Little Dog Laughed.” What is truly remarkable about this show is the fact that it doesn’t try to sugarcoat the truth about how gays are perceived in society, and this is what makes Beane’s story so topical and ultimately politically incorrect. The playwright, however, isn’t concerned with being “PC” and instead seeks to expose the unsavory truth about high-profile closeted gays in Hollywood. Beane’s show couldn’t be more timely since we now live in a nation where proposed anti-gay marriage laws seem to appear on every state’s ballot each time there is an election. Despite years of progress in the gay-rights movement and a more positive profile in the mass media, it’s no secret that America is still mired in the ugly prejudices and ignorance of homophobia, and Beane gets this point across in a breezy, entertaining yet sobering manner.

“The Little Dog Laughed” was Off-Broadway’s sleeper hit of this past spring when it was originally produced at Second Stage Theater. Although some of the four-character show’s intimacy may have been lost in the transfer to Broadway, it is still a powerful, funny and poignant comedy of manners that is certainly one of year’s “must-see” plays. One may have heard the hype about the harmless full-frontal male nude scene, but it simply involves guys putting on their underwear and happens so fast that it can hardly be considered gratuitous.

Julie White gives an incandescent performance as the tough-talking Hollywood agent/producer Diane. Each time she’s onstage, she commands immediate attention as she speaks in catty, cynical tones about what her client, rising movie star Mitchell (Tom Everett Scott), needs to do to secure a high-paying movie role. The problem is, Mitchell is gay and has just come to New York and is falling for male prostitute Alex (played with amazing sincerity and warmth by Johnny Galecki, last seen as David on TV’s “Roseanne”). Mitchell wants to come out, but Diane (who is also gay) insists that he go back in the closet and play it straight if he expects to maintain his career. It may seem shocking that a lesbian would tell a gay man to hide his sexuality, but Diane is far more interested in the financial bottom line than in being true to one’s self.

To make matters worse, Alex is uncertain whether he is actually gay, and lives with a pretty, blonde 24-year-old, know-it-all party girl, Ellen (Ari Graynor). Like Alex, Ellen is also a person of questionable morals and ethics. After being dumped by a sugar daddy, she uses his credit card to go on a wild spending spree and even maxes out her ex’s credit by putting Alex’s past-due rent on the stolen plastic.

However, the character of Diane — a woman who’s a delightful mix of mirth and menace — is the true villain here. Although the villain rarely wins in modern dramas, this is that rare play in which nothing can be solved with a simple happy ending. Whether she’s dishing Hollywood secrets, trashing the way people in L.A. order salad or negotiating the adaptation of a Broadway play for a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster, Diane eviscerates every cliché and machination about show business with her acid tongue and Beane’s witty, scathing dialogue. Every time things seem to be going well in Mitchell’s clandestine love life, Diane pops up, cell phone in hand, like a bitchy member of a Greek chorus in designer duds. She cooks up a shrewd plan to keep her client locked in the closet for eternity in order to salvage his “straight” box office persona. White, sporting elegant outfits and exaggerated mannerisms, delivers each line with a touch of scabrous wit and no-nonsense veracity. Hers is a performance so strong and domineering that it stays etched in one’s mind long after the curtain comes down, and there are so few actors today that can have such an impact on audiences.

Beane has written an eloquent, dark story that does much more than merely expose the callous truth about show business. With its razor-sharp script and Scott Ellis’s deft direction, “The Little Dog Laughed” makes a groundbreaking statement about gays in the new millennium. While some gay activists may think that TV and media exposure have finally made gays seem “normal” to middle America, the country’s narrow-minded attitudes about homosexuality are still anything but hospitable. It’s truly ironic that “The Little Dog Laughed” — a play that proves that sometimes all those tabloid rumors about closeted stars are true indeed — opened just weeks before a certain overly hyped media circus of a wedding between a Hollywood superstar and his beard of a bride.