Under the direction of theatre veteran and off-Broadway performer Matthew Glass, the community was treated to a brilliant production—Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead— at the Kendall Campuses Studio Theater.
The play ran through Feb. 27. With an uncanny resemblance to our favorite childhood gang, their white beagle, and a peculiar little yellow bird, Dog Sees God takes us down memory lane only to spring us forward once again.
The play follows the lives of eight teenagers as they go through a difficult stage of self growth, taking us to the heart of high-school—stereotypes and all.
The entire cast was far better than expected, fantastic even. Jaromir Garcia did a stellar job playing sexually-confused and socially-torn protagonist CB, whose acronym can be safely assumed to be that of a familiar childhood TV character.
Another truly outstanding performance was that of Angel Dominguez portraying Beethoven, a classically-alienated music virtuoso who happens to be a homosexual. Dominguez— possibly my favorite actor in the play—lit up the stage and stole the show, warming the audience’s heart with his tragic story.
The antagonist, Matt, played by Richard Pizarro was another noteworthy performance. An actor playing such a cruel and ignorant antagonist should strive to evoke a key emotion from the audience: hate. By the end of the play, I loathed Pizarro for what he had done.
Although Jacqueline Garcia— playing Van’s pyromaniac sister who happens to be in jail—rarely makes an appearance on stage, it was evident her stage-presence was remarkable.
Garcia was bathed in a luminous glow that is usually only found in veteran actors. It would have been a pleasure to see her in more scenes.
Sean Michael Haas, playing Van, is more than believable as a teenage pothead, even when one considers he smokes the ashes of his blanket.
Haas was not the only comic relief, Samantha Llanes as CB’s distressed and ever-changing little sister, takes command of the stage with her eccentric personality.
Rounding out the cast are Yonettsy Santos as the fierce Tricia York and Andrea Lopez as the intellectual Marcy, with decent performances from both.
All in all, Dog Sees God was a great play.
