In a stage adaptation by Frank Galati, recipient of two Tony Awards for his production of Steppenwolf’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” Mikhail Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog” continues through Saturday, Jan. 27, at the Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre. Staged by University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Theatre and Dance Department Chair Charlie Oates and cast with graduate students, it’s an excellent diversion from the usual ” the polar opposite from, say, the musical “Ace” that just opened at the Old Globe Theatre. The glory of university programs is that they do not have to please subscribers: they can afford to explore, offend and provoke. An excellent example, this play does just that.
A journalist, playwright, novelist and short-story writer, Bulgakov was born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1891. He died in Moscow in 1940. A novella, “Heart of a Dog” was written in 1925 and concerns itself with a stray dog named Sharik (the wondrous third-year MFA student Ryan Shams). Because of his appetite for sausage, Sharik is enticed into the home of a mad scientist named Professor Preobajensky (second-year MFA student Brandon Taylor), who experiments on animals and humans. He is particularly noted for his ability to enhance performance and enlarge sexual organs, prodigiously so in the case of a Man With Green Hair (Rufio Lerma), who fortunately wears boxer shorts. Preobajensky’s little fiefdom ” laboratory, clinic, dining room and personal and servants quarters ” encompasses a seven-room apartment, threatened by the Party’s “compression” committee, which believes that no one needs that much space (think “Dr. Zhivago”).
In one of Preobajensky’s experiments, the already anthropomorphic Sharik receives the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased criminal. Sharik’s rise in the local communist party eventually threatens the professor, who must make a tough choice.
The young actors are exceptional in the physical comedy demanded by the bawdy piece. Depending on one’s receptivity, it’s a rollicking good time. Others in the company are Lorene Chesley, Michelle Diaz and Molly Fite.
The audience of 80 or so is seated on the stage, allowing the actors to use the entire theater for scenes and entrances. Hong Sooyeon’s lighting is particularly effective, as is Christian DeAngelis’s sound design. Because of the limited seating, reservations are a must for remaining performances, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Saturday (Thursday’s show is sold out.) Tickets are available from noon to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, by calling (858) 534-4574 or, if available, at the theater district box office in the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre one hour prior to show time.
A schedule shift allowed impromptu attendance of the Jan. 18 student performance in the 22nd annual Playwrights Project Plays by Young Writers. The bill of fare included 18-year-old Los Angeles playwright John Glouchevitch’s “The Courier,” sensitively staged and wonderfully cast by La Jolla resident Stephen Metcalfe. Author of “Emily” and “Strange Snow,” Metcalfe mentored the writer during his San Diego residency. The play concerns a wounded World War II serviceman (Andrew Jason Miles, a double major at University of San Diego) who delivers condolence letters to families whose sons have perished in the war. In a talkback following the play, artistic director Deborah Salzer asked how many children had parents or relatives serving in Iraq. The numbers of raised hands was sobering indeed.
Selected from 234 submissions, four winning scripts, including “Elevated” by 16-year-old University City High School student Ariel Cowell, were produced during the two-week festival that ended Jan. 21.
