DOG MOM
Southwark Playhouse Borough
★★
“The strong performances do rescue the play, but we never fully embrace it”
There is no shortage of apps out there that offer to translate your pet dog’s barks, growls and whimpers into English. Writer, director and actor Tate Elizabeth Hanyok has done the job for us in her play “Dog Mom” in which two of the cast play canine characters. Replicating the animal physicality, they speak in plain English (of the Downtown Brooklyn variety). With shades of cartoonist Gary Larson’s comedic perception, we get a feel of what they might be really thinking. It is played for laughs, but there is a lot we can learn from their vocabulary and, in turn, help make the world a be a better place.
Sarita (Vinita Belani) is at a bit of a standstill in her life. On the rebound from a relationship that failed to yield children (an unexplained hysterectomy is cited at one point), she is trying to rebuild her life by moving into a cramped New York tenement. Her prying and meddling neighbour, Nell (a garrulous Joanna Holden), calls it the ‘commune’. Taking this as an invitation, a stray golden retriever follows Sarita into her home. Unwelcome and unnamed, the dog is marched off to the local pound, but when the only alternative is an early end to the poor pooch, Sarita reluctantly adopts it. So far so ‘Colin from Accounts’, but without the rom-com factor. Patty Gallagher astutely personifies the dog (now christened Foster) with a spry energy and attention to its quirky mannerisms and presumed thought processes. Nell has her own dog, the more softheaded Rubens (played with equal gusto by Tom Barnes). Circling the odd couple of couples is Jarreau Antoine who nimbly plays a variety of characters; including a vet, a dogcatcher and a flexible feline who cannot help but antagonise the mutts it looks down upon.
The focus is on the comedy in the first act, establishing the personalities under the fast-paced direction of Ajay Chowdhury. Behind Sean Cavanagh’s straightforward set, the back wall is dominated by Aarushi’s video creations depicting Brooklyn’s brownstone backdrops. Film theme tunes pepper the action in short bursts; sometimes whimsical, sometimes clichéd. The second act, however, sees the play’s quirkiness shift into something resembling a self-help manual, while a visit to the vets sets the story in a predictably mawkish direction. The dogs are tiring now of forever chasing things – a metaphor for Sarita’s realisation that she should perhaps stop chasing perfection, meaning, her dreams… herself even. She hasn’t rescued the dog; the dog has rescued her. The platitudes are laid on thick and fast, and an earlier rift between Sarita and Nell is smoothed over with a second coating of schmaltzy earnestness.
By taking itself a touch too seriously, “Dog Mom” weakens the messages that are better served with humour. The more it is spelled out, the more the spell is broken. There are moments when Hanyok’s writing becomes an exercise rather than an entertainment, and we feel we should be taking notes for our ‘compare and contrast’ homework assignment. The strong performances do rescue the play, but unlike Sarita’s loving acceptance of her adopted dog, we never fully embrace it.
DOG MOM
Southwark Playhouse Borough
Reviewed on 16th October 2026
by Jonathan Evans
