At the end of Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel, when soloist Tim Crouch is finishing the curtain call on his 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival First, he lets audience members know he’s only at the Soho Playhouse through January 8. He asks them to recommend his piece to friends who enjoy “strange meta-theater.”
He said “strange meta-theater.” I didn’t, but I’ll repeat it, not because I’m a big fan of meta-theater outright—too often it comes across as pretentious or twee or both—but because I believe this example of meta-theater is indeed strange enough and strong enough to be highly recommended.
Crouch — whose list of presentations is at least an arm long (though very few have been performed in the States) – has also said in a 2007 interview, “Theater in its purest form is a conceptual artform. It doesn’t need sets, costumes, and props, but exists inside an audience’s head.”
In Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel, he sticks to his guns. There is no set. There is no costume, just the lean, lanky Crouch in dark trousers and a grey jersey that exposes a narrow strip of his stomach when he raises his arms. They’re likely culled from his own wardrobe. Maybe he wore them to the theater and will wear them home.
Breaking his rule, he does use two props. One is upstage, a stool on which he keeps a bottle of water. The other is a virtual reality headset he wears for perhaps half of the 70-minute running time.
When he dons the headset, he’s usually downstage and behaving as if he’s spotting specific patrons. He points into the auditorium, which is fully lighted, and identifies this one and that one as, for instance, an usher or his director. (Karl Janes and Andy Smith are the actual directors.) Or he points to a representative from an imaginary “Deloitte theater party,” or someone who’s brought a dinner-theater package for an impressive number of quid, or someone clearly uncomfortable in her seat or so on and so forth.
In other words, he’s making much of ticket buyers as part of the two-part actors and audience theater-going experience. This is a significant element of his attitude toward the changes, as he sees them, in theatergoing today.
He is more explicit during the sequences when he takes off the headset. For these he explains that we’re all watching the third act of King Lear, William Shakespeare’s tragedy. That’s the one where Lear has come to Gloucester’s home, though Cornwall and Regan have taken control to such extent that Cornwall takes the opportunity to put out Gloucester’s eyes—and thereby further emphasize Shakespeare’s theme of real and symbolic blindness.
Crouch further explains he’s playing the Fool in the production at hand. As anyone knows who’s seen the play or read it, the Fool is anything but a fool. He’s the wisest character, always speaking truth to his monarch, although maybe he’s not so wise speaking truth to even compromised power: thus his “truth’s a dog that must to kennel” wisecrack that serves as Crouch’s title.
Using the Fool’s guise and the fact that the Fool isn’t seen after act three, Crouch gets to his point about something special reaching an end. Obviously a theater lover who takes theater seriously, he’s concerned with theater’s place in today’s transforming cultural climate.
He’s worried that the notion of many people gathering in one place to experience a possibly life enhancing, life-changing event is becoming, or has already become, obsolete. Aren’t people more inclined these days to stay home and watch television? Isn’t isolating a more dominant current disposition?
That’s why when in the headset he’s pointed at imagined persons visibly uninterested in what was occurring on stage. He’s pointed at persons present only because for some reason it was the proper thing to do.
For people who still love the theater, though, the urge to resist Crouch’s worries encroaches. An intriguing Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel aspect is an ambivalence about his theory. For a while convincingly somber espousing it, he doesn’t fully maintain the pose.
His joy in theater peeking though, audience members, no matter how many quid or dollars they’ve spent, might find his hope contagious. Won’t audiences always turn out in large numbers to see live performances featuring actors –and actor-writers — of Crouch’s caliber?
Full disclosure: Crouch considers King Lear Shakespeare’s greatest play. I’m with him there. I reached that conclusion (and have held to it) since I was in a high school production. I played Cornwall and enjoyed hissing “Out, vile jelly!” while squishing Gloucester’s eyes. All the same, I wasn’t very good. Even so, the event surely makes me an ideal Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel candidate, as is anyone else fond of “strange meta-theater.” There must be multitudes. So go be strange.
Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel opened December 28, 2022 at SoHo Playhouse and runs through January 8. Tickets and information: sohoplayhouse.com
