Review: Heart of A Dog, Camden People’s Theatre

Camden Fringe

Despite Russia’s recent well-documented downturn in popularity, many of us still cannot resist its literature. This is in part, I’m sure, because a lot of it is, quite frankly, bonkers. Indeed, many claim the Reds invented magic realism, and it’s easy to draw a direct line from the early 19th-century and Nicholai Gogol’s free-spirited Nose to the 20th-century political writings of Mikhail Bulgakov, the author that the good people of Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club have adapted and brought to this year’s Camden Fringe.  They’ve selected Bulgakov’s novella, The Heart of A Dog, which draws directly on Frankenstein to tell the tale of a hungry stray pooch that is turned into a man on an archetypal mad scientist’s operating table. Written to challenge the uncomfortably eugenic communist desire to create an ideal Russian Man, The Heart of a Dog was, remarkably, only legally published in Russia in 1987, a full 62 years after it was written.

You would not, I think it is fair to say, necessarily pick up any of this history from this free-wheeling motor-mouthed throw-everything-at-it fringe adaptation. This isn’t inherently a criticism. I love theatre that commits, takes risks and, dare I say, enjoys itself. Here, however, some basic theatre rules are either forgotten or tossed aside. We need to be able to see. If you’re a dog on your hands and knees, lying down and rolling over like a Good Boy, but you don’t take care, the back three rows of raked seats will struggle to see your performance. If you have a long speech but rattle through it without timing or even a breath now and again, you’ll not be able to coherently tell your story. If you break the fourth wall, it stays broken. Once you sit your cast in the auditorium with us, we are distracted and aware that we are just watching a play. 

It feels as if director Olivia Krauze simply wanted to try lots of things out, and, to a degree, why not? Why not put all that energy and exploration on stage untamed and unconstrained? Maybe I’m just old and grumpy? The problem is, however, with so much going on, we miss great chunks of the work of Bulgakov and the show’s adapter, Miles Hitchens. Although, to be fair, Hitchens shares some of the blame as he also plays mad Professor Philipovich with exhausting, over-animated excess. The fact Isabel de Andreis is staid and workman-like as his medical apprentice, come maid, Zina is a blessing in comparison. Christian Longstaff finds comedy in the man-dog hybrid, especially once he relaxes into the slobbish boorish man the story demands. Joe Morgan completes the quartet of actors with multiple roles during which, to give him his due, he delivers the best-timed joke about armpit hair I’ve seen in years.

Despite everyone’s efforts, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the show’s broad hokum short-changes the source material. Yes, there are fleeting references to Party machinations and Professor Philipovich’s battles against bureaucracy, but they are token. Bulgakov’s central allegorical critique of political ideology was strong enough to get The Heart Of A Dog banned for over half a century in Mother Russia, yet here gets lost.

None of this ought to imply I had a miserable time at the Camden People’s Theatre. Far from it. The cast’s energy and commitment kept an appreciative crowd engaged, and the applause at the end was warm and well-deserved.  Future iterations, should they come, would, however, undoubtedly benefit from a more disciplined, nuanced approach.

Written by: Miles Hitchens
Adapted from the Novella by: Mikhail Bulgakov
Directed by: Olivia Krauze
Produced by: Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club

The Heart of A Dog plays at Camden People’s Theatre for Camden Fringe until 11 August. Further information and tickets available here.