DOG EATS DOG

Mary Gallagher

A funny, perceptive and often scathing satire on the collapse of the consumer economy.

The place is an affluent suburb in a mid-sized American city: the time - the 'possible future' when the national economy has gone from recession into depression and even worse. The action of the play follows the plight of some representative families as they face conditions never before imagined: job lost; business collapsing; the country club besieged by squatters and their old friends and neighbours turning into hoarding cadgers and thieves. Their attempts to survive while all is tumbling down are sometimes hilarious and sometimes genuinely moving as they turn torn curtains into clothes, dream up new ways to make zucchini appetising and fight over jobs they would have spurned in better days.

But whilst the story is told in broad comic strokes, the story is also a moral tale, for whilst the times are off kilter the resourcefulness and resilience of the people remains strong, and with this the conviction that if the spirit is undaunted, renewal and recovery are sure to come in time.