Dog Sees God: Hyde Park Theatre

Dog Sees God is sort of like The Breakfast Club if Quentin Tarantino had written the dialogue. Potty-mouth lovers will delight in the communication skills of the characters, particularly Matt, he of the cartoon counterpart that rhymes with Big Ben. The kids are adolescents now, struggling with death and theories of the afterlife, sexuality, and whether or not it’s important to reveal certain truths to one another and self.

There’s weight to the argument that really none of us ever gets past high school—that the dramas and angst of teen lust and love and frustration and cafeteria table seating arrangements and regrettable blow jobs follow us, one way or another, right on through til the grave. Dog Sees God drives this home and despite the (intended) melodrama there’s a lot here that, like it or not, applies to real grownup life offstage.

Tom Coiner, as C.B., has a whiff of a young, bemused Bill Murray about him. Xochitl Romero as Tricia and Bethany Esfandiari as Marcy deserve some kind of award for hilarity. Pulling off their roles individually would’ve been tricky enough, but their tandem acting creates a sort of third being as they play off each other brilliantly, their cafeteria cocktail scene enough to make you spit milk out your nose. And Paul Davis’s set is flawless as, once again, he manages to pack a huge visual punch in an incredibly tiny space.

The ending teetered a smidgeon too close to sermony with the full ensemble onstage delivering the playwright’s final punch line. Still, with Webster directing, they managed to pull it off.

The show’s been selling out regularly and here’s hoping the run gets extended.