Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
So wrote William Blake, as he struggled to make sense of the eternal Other.
Blake is not the only writer to wrestle with our relationship with our animal relatives. Christopher Smart in Jubilate Agno asks us to consider his cat Jeffrey – and urges us to see him as a wondrous example of Creation. Jack London’s Call of The Wild invites us to note the huge gap between domestication and an animal’s natural state. Lord Dunsley’s My Talks with Dean Spanley (adapted to film in a version with Sam Neill) has a gentler take on this peculiar relationship.
Chicken in a Biscuit by Mary Rachel Brown and Jamie Oxenbould is the inheritor of a grand tradition.
These writers focus particularly on our relationship with pets, and the style is wacky fun.
It’s a loose collection of monologues. Half portray pet owners. Half portray pets. In a bold decision, all are performed by human actors.
In the portraits of pet owners, a common note is an interest in unusual expressions of sexuality and a gentle mocking of dagginess. Not that the piece presents as a satirical attack on pet owners – with 75% of Australian households owning a pet, it’s more a comment on humanity and what we find amusing about that very strange species.
The portraits of animals riff on familiar tropes – cats as proudly imperious and dogs as dumbly loyal. In our Age of Offence, I’m sure someone will find the anthropomorphism a little tasteless (maybe me)– but the writers are doing no differently than have generations of cartoonists.
Directed by Brown, performances by Mandy Bishop and Oxenbould are delightful committed silliness.
Paul Gilchrist
Chicken in a Biscuit by Mary Rachel Brown and Jamie Oxenbould
Presented by Fixed Foot Productions
At The Old Fitz until 18 October
Image by Becky Matthews
Theatre Red 