Nada mucho. Foot-fagged. Vaudevillians, story-tellers, scavengers and soothsayers. These all may be words, phrases or descriptions that might be unfamiliar, but in the world of Dog Act, a one-act play of actors acting as actors acting after the apocalypse, the past has been destroyed and the present is a desolate society where these phrases are part of a common vernacular.

“Dog Act,” written by Liz Duffey Adams and described as a “post-apocalyptic vaudeville comedy,” will premier in the Byron Flexible Theater in the Newman Center Friday Feb. 27 with performances throughout that weekend and the next.

“Dog Act,” originally premiered in San Francisco in 2004, follows Zetta Stone, a traveling performer, and her companion Dog (a young man undergoing a voluntary species demotion) as they walk through the dangerous wilderness of the former U.S., heading toward a gig in China.
The show is a meta-performance, with most characters being rag-tag thespians themselves called “vaudevillians.” Characters also perform their own travelling “morality plays,” which are contorted Biblical tales. The actors address an imagined audience, while also addressing their true audience. The language they use is part Shakespearean, part wild colloquialism and part pure profanity. The very first scene of the play in fact possesses the f-word over 20 times.

“Reading the script was so strange at first. It didn’t make any sense, but now after really putting the actions together with the dialogue, I love it. It’s a great story,” said Trevor Fulton, a freshman theater and communication studies student from Grand Junction.

Fulton plays the character of Coke, a ruthless “scavenger” who preys on other travellers so he and his companion, Bud, played by Hao Liu, junior marketing major from Tsing Tao, China, may “recycle” them. The term “recycle” is used to describe the act of stealing a victim’s belongings and killing and eating them. Fulton studied movie villains to gain inspiration about how to present his character.

The cast doubles as the stage crew, with every costume and scene change in plain sight. Only six characters and actors are in the entire show, and two stage managers and one assistant director to help keep the behind-the-scenes action fluid. Each character is on stage for the majority of the play. A few scenes have musical pieces embedded in them as well, but mostly as a complement to the dialogue and therefore not necessarily enough to describe the play as a “musical.”

The set is mostly bare, save for the one major set piece that the play centers around: the large, ramshackle cart wagon that the vaudevillians use to store their necessities.

The cast and crew have been practicing every night, Monday through Friday, for at least three hours starting the second week of winter quarter.

Playing protagonist Zetta Stone is Jasmine Sympruch, a junior political science major from Denver, and her companion, Dog, is played by Garrett Bigs, a freshman English major from Mountain View, Calif. The other major pairing in the show is Vera and Jo-Jo, played by Cheyenne Michaels, a senior theatre and strategic communications major from Louisville, and Ashley Campbell, a freshman theatre and english major from Albuquerque, N.M. The play is directed by the head of the theater department, Rick Barbour.

“[Dog Act] is pretty much theater doing what theater does best,” said Tony Ryan, assistant director and theater major from Larkspur.

According to the cast, the play may be a great comedy, but also contains tragic elements as well, tackling questions such as the basis of loyalty, tribal dynamics and the importance of theater.

“Dog Act” uses references from pop culture, history and literature to spin together a world where the characters are both savage and sympathetic and every tribe is faced with self-preservation.

“It’s different than most of the other theater I’ve worked on. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s shocking, it’s just a great show to come and see,” said Ryan.

The play runs February Feb. 27, 28, and March 1, 7, 8 and 9, with doors opening at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10. For more information visit newmantix.com.