The Puppy Steals the Show

Plot and Duck met this puppy last night in the hallway leading to the lobby of the Aurora Theater. She turns out to be appearing in Act Two of "Awake and Sing!", the Clifford Odets classic play that runs until September 27.

When Plot and Duck got to the theater, the doors were locked. When they banged on them, the double doors inside opened and the puppy dashed through them, as her handler ran frantically behind her. When the human was forced to open the doors to the street, to admit Plot and Duck, the puppy ran out onto Addison street and her handler ran after her, yelling "No! No! I need her for Act Two!"

See, Plot missed Press Night last Friday, so he could go to Hanky Girl's party. Last night was the make-up night, except that the Aurora has only recently started offering performances on Tuesdays and they have slated Tuesday curtains to rise at 7pm, not 8pm.

Plot and Duck didn't leave their house across the bay until 7pm, but even with a long traffic tie-up on the University Avenue off-ramp still got to Berkeley in plenty of time for the 8pm curtain, if only it had been an 8pm curtain. As it was, the dog was waiting for her entrance in Act Two, and the lady caught her and brought her back into the theater and told Plot and Duck they would have to wait for Act Two also.

But the Aurora must be used to this because they were all set up with listening devices in their office. Plot and Duck and one other couple sat there listening with headsets to the end of Act One being performed on stage a hundred feet away, and to tell the truth it was a lot of fun. Odets wrote this play in 1935, during the Golden Age of Radio, and the dialogue felt just like it would have while gathered around the Motorola in the parlor seventy five years ago. Plotnik could hear that the characters were sitting around a dinner table and he saw that table in his head, heard their Philadelphia accents and imagined what each person looked like when he heard his or her voice.

When you're in the theater, you don't see the actors running through the backstage hallway to get from one onstage exit to another onstage entrance, but you do see them when you're in the office. You hear them on the headsets leaving the stage, then watch them silently tear through the hallway, then hear them enter on stage through the headsets again.

Then came Intermission, people filed out and got their coffee and cookies, but Plot and Duck had already gotten theirs. Everyone came out and Plot and Duck walked in.

Act Two was very interesting. The puppy made her appearance, entering Stage Right in Moe's arms, to a resounding "AWWWWWWWWW" from the dog-loving audience, then Moe handed her to Papa Jacob who put on his overcoat and took the dog out for a walk. It was the last thing he did and the only thing she did, and while it probably wasn't Tony material she did elicit the audience's only "AWWWWWWWW."

Awake and Sing! did not get such a great review from The Witt, but Plotnik enjoyed it. He'll try to get back for Act One before the run closes.