Bone to Pick

Making fun of Hollywood is hardly sport, but that doesn't mean Four Dogs and Bone isn't still funny.

by Mark Cofta

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Published: Apr 17, 2007

Making fun of Hollywood's titanic budgets and monstrous egos is hardly sport these days, but that doesn't mean John Patrick Shanley's acerbic 1993 comedy Four Dogs and a Bone isn't still funny.

The amusingly named HATG (Heads Above the Gutter) Productions revives Shanley's dark ode to the movie biz at Shubin Theater, emphasizing laughs more than the bile fueling the Oscar winner (Moonstruck), who also wrote and directed the less successful Joe Versus the Volcano.

In Four Dogs, daffy starlet Brenda (Cherie Roberts) negotiates with producer Bradley (Steve Pollack) to increase her role in their "$8 million film being shot for five." Hedging her bets, she's also sleeping with first-time screenwriter Victor (Chris Cherkis), who's also pursued by jaded actress Collette (Bridget Dougherty). Though we never hear the entire plot of the off-Broadway playwright script, all are willing to gut it for personal gain.

If you've seen David Mamet's Speed the Plow, Robert Altman's The Player or HBO's Entourage, this is familiar territory. Shanley peppers his four-scene, 80-minute play (unnecessarily paused by an intermission) with clever banter ("If you had a friend," Victor says to Bradley, "you'd eat him") and funny quirks (Collette mocks Brenda's self-motivating chanting, deliberately mistaking her droning "I am famous" for "Uncle Remus").

I wanted to like at least one of these deliberately shallow characters — surely, Shanley's writer would prove noble? — but when Victor pulls an egg from his pocket and proclaims it "hard-boiled — like me," there's no self-respect left in Shanley's Tinsel Town. Other gems are Collette's: "Nobody wants to suck anybody's dick just to suck their dick," she points out while seducing Victor. She also offers the "monkey miracle" concept, which explains not only many bad movies, but also some current administrations: "Monkeys put it together and it miraculously works anyway — just enough to give the monkeys hope."

Set designer Penny Beane provides a black-and-white sheen with little decoration; all that's needed to establish Bradley's office is the trash can overflowing with actors' headshots. Director Dave Ebersole's energetic, rough-edged production culminates in a drenched free-for-all in Bradley's office after torrential rain ends a day's shooting. The soggy actresses, their too-perfect faces made monstrous by running makeup, are outdone by ambitions more selfish than their own. It's all deliciously nasty fun.

(m_cofta@citypaper.net)

FOUR DOGS AND A BONE, Through April 28,HATG at Shubin Theater,407 Bainbridge St., 215-525-1551,www.hatgtheater.com

 

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