Review: Bark Bark

Experimental theatre group Buzzcut’s newest work Bark Bark is an eerie, playful, and often immersive piece that blurs the lines between human and animal, reality and dreams, theatre and film.

A small group of performers perform with hand-crafted puppetry, while the work is filmed and projected above them in real time. The resulting show blends quaint DIY aesthetics with exposed technical craft, underpinned by a story that is equally endearing and disquieting. A frail-looking dog, whose perspective leads the show, is looked after for a short time by a new couple that the dog and audience see mostly from the legs down. The couple themselves are in a strange situation, looking after a stranger’s dog. The dog meanwhile dreams from an aging body of the simple brushstrokes of life and death.

Live scoring provides a soundtrack that is fittingly minimalist and poetic, featuring a simple sensibility that supports the show’s DIY existentialism. Displaying some visually stunning sequences, this performance succeeds technically without resting on its laurels. Production and story combine to meditate inventively on perspective, offering a bittersweet and comic tale that plays charmingly with some of the boundaries of live performance.