Review: Zoe Wohlfeld: Dog Funeral, Soho Theatre

The title of Zoe Wohlfeld’s Dog Funeral promises exactly the kind of sweetly sinister paradox that the show delivers. It is a clown show about grief, an hour-long act of comic mourning that constantly balances the adorable against the disturbing.

The story begins with a slideshow charting the life of Twinkle, Wohlfeld’s beloved dog. The illustrations are so sweet and lovingly rendered that they become faintly ominous. We know where this story is heading. After an act of fatal negligence involving a new boyfriend, Twinkle dies, and Wohlfeld emerges as a professional mourner of sorts, determined to process her loss in front of an audience of strangers.

Her central character is a striking creation. With smeared make-up, gaping expressions and a childlike voice, she resembles a burnt Baby Jane or a Corpse Bride without the maggots, wandering the stage while she cries, mourns and seeks our attention. Her creepiness extends beyond the ghostly and gothic. Instead, it emerges from the childlike neediness that grief can provoke, reducing adults to creatures desperate for comfort, reassurance and affection.

Here, loss strips away dignity. It makes us want to be noticed, soothed and loved. Wohlfeld’s clown captures this impulse perfectly. She cries, sulks, flirts and manipulates with the emotional logic of a child. The result is both funny and unsettling.

This tension defines the show’s strongest — or worst — material. One audience member is recruited into a bizarre flirtation conducted partly through Wohlfeld’s backside. Another is sent on a mission to procure a “Pinot Gri-gee-o”. The humour comes from the absurdity of the requests, but also from the audience’s growing complicity in this strange and faintly disturbing spectacle. We laugh while simultaneously wondering whether we should be laughing at all.

That discomfort will not be to everyone’s taste. Some may find the character’s babyish flirtatiousness grating, while others may find it genuinely unnerving. Yet the show commits so fully to its logic that resistance becomes part of the experience. Wohlfeld never winks at the audience or retreats into irony. She trusts the character completely.

Whatever one’s feelings about these routines, there is no denying the strength of the show’s comic construction. In one sequence, audience members are instructed to repeat words fed to them by Wohlfeld, while another unfortunate punter is assigned a particularly suggestive sound. Once the pattern has been established, Wohlfeld casually inserts the phrase “my dog just died” before inviting the responses again. The laugh comes from anticipation, disbelief and the audience’s horrified recognition of what they are about to do. It is a simple mechanism executed with remarkable precision.

That precision extends to Wohlfeld’s performance throughout. Her facial expressions are extraordinary. With mascara bleeding beneath her eyes and a mouth capable of stretching into cartoonishly tragic shapes, she creates an image that is at once ridiculous and strangely affecting. It is the kind of character that can carry an entire hour, and Wohlfeld commits to it without hesitation. Like grief itself, Dog Funeral is messy, needy and occasionally uncomfortable. It asks the audience to sit with emotions that are rarely flattering and then find ways to laugh at them. The commitment and the craft are admirable, even if the show’s more provocative impulses will not work for everyone. Nevertheless, Wohlfeld proves herself a daring clown.

Written by Zoe Wohlfeld and Jack Grossman
Directed by Jack Grossman

Dog Funeral has completed its run at the Soho Theatre. The London Clown Festival continues.