A TAIL OF LOVE ON A LEASH

Playwright Benjamin Schwartz and director Natalie Nicole Dressel, in league with actors Callie Ott and Spencer Weitzel, have served up in Dog of Carnage one of the sharpest comedies in the Hollywood Fringe. Set in a courtroom—presided over by a grating, tonal, squawking, authoritarian judge—Ott and Weitzel are a separating couple engaged in a custody battle. The object of their contest is the dog they once shared.

The narrative zips from the present to the past and back again, as their conflicting memories go spinning as if in a blender. Dressel laces these segments together with the two actors leaping into frantic, choreographed segues resembling disco rumbas in a mosh pit. Schwartz has produced a play that carries the dramatic intensity and mesmerizing magnetism of a car crash—only funnier and noisier. Dressel has adroitly crafted clarity out of Schwartz’s chaos, allowing the two actors to keep their heads above the din of battle. Thus, the tragedy beneath the absurdity of Schwartz’s work is allowed to rise to the surface—that tragedy being two people in love forced to face that they are divided by different dreams.

Schwartz’s intelligent and savage writing earned him the Theatre Theater Playwright Award. The production, meanwhile, proves that when sharp writing meets fearless direction and game performers, even a custody battle can bring the house down.

Dog of Carnage
Catharsis Theatre Collective (which also produced The Nina Variations)
The Broadwater (Studio), 1078 Lillian Way
part of Hollywood Fringe
ended on June 29, 2025
for more show info, visit Dog of Carnage