This is a comic play and it is excellent.

It  is in two parts: one written by Brendan Cowell (Dog Part) and the other by Lally Katz (Cat Part)

They are both prominent in Australian theatre. Cowell lives in downtown Newtown and Katz is one of Melbourne’s great comedic playwrights. She is also a great actress, though she doesn’t appear in her play.

The play has  three actors and the performance by the two men, Xavier Samuel and Benedict Hardie, deserve the highest superlatives. Andrea Demetriades is also darn good.    

Quite frankly the acting is better than anything I have seen for a long time. And this includes a lot of New York theatre.

The play centres around people, their pets and the way in which they infuse themselves and become entangled in both our lives and our relationships. The actors play multiple parts. The performances by Hardie  as a Dog, and Samuel as a Cat are unmissable. The scene in which Demetriades seduces her lover in front of the Cat is wonderful.

For those of you thralled by the strutting, humphing, harrumphing and hurrahing of certain Sydney superannuated establishment male actors who do little more than eloquently recite their lines, go and see this play.

You will be delighted.

THE DOG/THE CAT is playing downstairs at Belvoir Street theatre, 25 Belvoir Street, Surry Hills until the 26th July.