REVIEW: A Supa Awesome Day at the Theatre with Dog Man: The Musical
Photos by Jeremy Daniel
“The kids were especially into the Robo-Dance Party, which occurred in the second act as a revolving disco ball turned the theatre into a childlike rave while audience members rattled and shook in their seats along with all six actors on stage.”
As a parent-who-is-also-a-musician, I’m constantly on the lookout for arts events that my kids will enjoy. I want to expose them to the beauty of performance across all mediums, and feel that one of the lowest barriers of entry is kneeling down to their level and immersing in childish humor together. When I learned of Dog Man: The Musical, I knew this was a perfect opportunity to get out of the house and share a couple hours at the theatre with my eight-year-old.
If you’re a parent yourself, you likely know all about the Dog Man series already. And if you’re not a parent, what follows is going to seem extremely silly and you’re going to want to either go read some other article, or turn your brain off completely. Allow me to explain as briefly as possible.
Dog Man is a hit book series from author Dav Pilkey, who you probably know without realizing it. (His claim to fame for Millennials and Gen Z alikewas Captain Underpants, which has sold 80 million copies since its inception in 1997, and even solidified its place on Banned Books lists aplenty because… kids can’t handle underwear? Or poop jokes? Not sure.) Dog Man is Generation Alpha’s version of that, in graphic novel form with dialogue that’s geared towards elementary schoolers, puns that are geared towards the parents reading them aloud, and messages that are honestly geared towards everyone. If you can get past gags about diarrhea and Living Spray—a spray that makes ordinary objects or dead animals come to life and turn evil—each story does find a way to remind us that kindness is the way, no matter how much the world wants us to believe otherwise. Quite a concoction, right?
Anyways, there are 13 books, plus an offshoot series that is five books deep called Cat Kid Comic Club, and my daughter has read them all multiple times. She even stays up after she’s tucked in to read these books to herself, with a book light. It’s incredible. If you’re looking for the Patron Saint of Children’s Literacy, I’m going to make the bold claim that it’s a 59-year-old man named Dav Pilkey.
The musical that came through Proctor’s last weekend was based on this series, but written in a way that only really makes sense if you’re familiar with Pilkey’s ‘universe’. This wasn’t just a group of performers acting out one of the books; it was laid out as if the two characters (George and Harold) who created the comic book Dog Man back in the Captain Underpants days were brainstorming and working out how to write and perform a musical version. Try and keep up.
This pair of mischievous sixth graders was played by two adult actors (Marquise Neal and Mundo Ballejos) who had a blast being ridiculous and silly in not just these roles, but others throughout the play as well. The villainous cat—yes, there’s a villainous cat, but he’s eventually redeemed, don’t worry—was played with tremendous eccentricity by Jake Wernecke (more on him in a bit), and his clone/child Li’l Petey was portrayed wonderfully by Sadie Jayne Kennedy, baby-fied voice and all.
Then, there’s the titular character. In the first book of the series, we learn how Dog Man comes to be. In spectacularly goofy fashion, this character is created in a lab after a cop and his K9 partner are blown up by a bomb that the dog tries to diffuse only after which the cop remembers that dogs are colorblind. Thankfully there’s a silver lining here – only the dog’s body and the man’s head died as a result. Naturally, doctors sewed the dog’s head onto the man’s body, thus creating the supa cop known as Dog Man. This was hilariously reenacted on stage, and when Dog Man himself emerged, it was pretty amusing to see not an actor wearing a dog head mask, but Brandon James Butorovich donned in a blue cap with dog ear attachments and a push-on black nose. He then proceeded to flail his body around the stage, barking and howling for the next 75 minutes. What a delight.
Honestly, what happens next in the plot isn’t really the point. Looking at the phenomenon Dog Man has become, it’s hard not to think of it as a form of counterculture for the younger generation. Pilkey doesn’t play by the rules, and for good reason. The aforementioned characters George and Harold are based on Pilkey himself. As a child, he was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD, which he considers his superpowers. (There’s literally a robot character in Dog Man called 80-HD who eventually becomes a superhero). Pilkey had a hard time paying attention in school and was often punished for doodling and making comics instead of doing his school work.
He took his story of being misunderstood and ostracized in school and turned it into multiple book series that have won over the hearts of multiple generations of kids. A remarkable feat, and one which was undoubtedly appreciated by the packed crowd of parents and kids at Proctor's. The kids were especially into the Robo-Dance Party, which occurred in the second act as a revolving disco ball turned the theatre into a childlike rave while audience members rattled and shook in their seats along with all six actors on stage.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the post-show surprise, when Butorovich asked the audience to stay an extra couple minutes to sing “Happy Birthday” to the evil-cat-portraying Wernecke. The cast then surprised him by bringing out his mother from behind the curtain, who had driven up from Maryland to see him perform. It was about as wholesome a moment as one could ask for.
Family programming like Dog Man: The Musical may seem scarce, but when the opportunity arises, it’s well worth introducing our children to. Being able to step into Pilkey’s universe at Proctor’s and drown out the adult world for a bit with my daughter was definitely a supa awesome way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
