Theatre in Review: Dead Dog Park (59E59)

	Eboni Flowers. Photo: Ashley Garrett

A couple of black kids invade an abandoned building in a bad New York neighborhood. Two cops go after them. While one cop is on the roof, in futile pursuit of one of the boys, the other boy, aged 13, goes flying out of the fourth-floor window. The second cop was right there. Did the boy fall? Was he pushed?

At first glance, Dead Dog Park appears to be a standard police procedural tied to the sort of hot-button incident that has led to an anguished national debate, street demonstrations, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Interestingly, however, questions of criminal responsibility are swept aside for the larger realization that just about everyone who is touched by the incident, however tangentially, suffers for it. For the people who make up Dead Dog Park, there is no justice, and there is certainly no peace.

The playwright, Barry Malawer, wastes no time in opening the trap doors that will send his characters plunging into their personal hells. Officer Rob McDonald is going stir-crazy in a room in police headquarters, waiting to hear if an investigation will be launched against him. His fears are not allayed by a visit from his partner, Ricky Romero, who pointedly refuses to endorse McDonald's innocence and frankly tells him that it's time to hire a lawyer. "I don't have the funds for that," McDonald says, revealing the depth of his denial. "I was saving for a vacation."

It doesn't help that McDonald has an already-shaky marriage to Angela, who is appalled at her husband's rapid decline since being put on leave. Coming home from the office, she takes one look and says, "You didn't get dressed today." "I watched Dr. Phil," he replies, as if that adequately responds to her comment. While she never says it, it seems certain that Angela isn't too sure that her husband is guiltless; in any case, she is soon living at her mother's house, ostensibly to avoid the press. And as the boy, Tyler, lies in hospital, unable to recall what happened and struggling to learn to walk again, his mother, Sharonne, hires John Jones, a slick, showboating lawyer who promises to get her a big payday. But first, Jones, who knows that managing the media is everything, pitilessly scours Sharonne's past, looking for details that could nail her as a bad mother. He also trains her in the rules of sympathetic behavior. ("You have to look the part of the grieving mother.") To say the least, Sharonne is skeptical: "And I'm supposed to say I don't care about the money? Even if it's a lie?" I think we all know the answer to that question.

At the trial, all sorts of unpleasant details are aired, and a verdict is handed down, but by then Dead Dog Park is almost entirely focused on the shattered marriages and friendships, ruined careers, and hardened racial battle lines in the incident's wake. The latter is most clearly seen in a brief exchange outside the courtroom in which Angela reaches out to Sharonne, who, by this point, is convinced that no act comes without an ulterior motive. "Ain't no sisters in arms here," she tells Angela. The aftereffects extend over more than a decade, until, in a neat and thoroughly unexpected coup de théâtre that produces (in a rather unexpected way) a character we haven't seen before, we are presented with two different versions of what happened that night, underlining the almost total impossibility of arriving at a reliable factual account.

It's a tough, taut drama, filled with some of the least sentimentalized characters in recent memory. In Eric Tucker's diamond-hard staging, five members of the company of six are omnipresent on stage, lost in their thoughts when not cutting deals or enacting little betrayals that have big consequences. (During the trial, each of them briefly takes on the role of prosecuting attorney in a series of rapid-fire interrogations.) Tom O'Keefe's McDonald has a flop-sweat intensity in the early scenes, as he defends himself against the knowledge that his career is in the tank; later, when he has toughened up considerably, he sends shock waves through a casual conversation with Romero, bringing up Angela and quietly asking, "Did you f-k her?" Migs Govea's Romero faces the unraveling of his own career and personal life with stoicism; a scene in which he tries to get Angela to support McDonald bristles with all sorts of unspoken emotions. Ryan Quinn's Jones smoothly admits to Sharonne, "I am not the best. I'm the loudest," making good on the statement with courtroom oratory skillfully engineered to put McDonald away for a good long time. Eboni Flowers' Sharonne is nobody's victim, especially when she starts making demands on Jones that will affect her boy's future. Susannah Millonzi vividly evokes Angela, a woman caught in a moral trap; already halfway out the door of her marriage, she finds the role of the stalwart wife to be an impossible fit. Jude Tibeau handily blows the play wide open in his eleventh-hour appearance, forcing McDonald to face possibilities that he has spent years hiding from. Tucker's staging is nicely supported by John McDermott's grungy interrogation-room set, over which hangs a peaked window, a permanent reminder of the incident; Joyce Liao's lighting; and Whitney Locher's costumes.

In the end, Dead Dog Park may not please those who insist that the truth of such incidents is easily gotten at. Until the issue of guilt is put back on the agenda, at the last possible moment, Malawer provides a complete and honest inventory of the collateral damage involved. He also makes clear that such events have repercussions that can last a lifetime. This is a play that will stimulate many a conversation; for that alone, it's worth seeing. -- David Barbour