THEATRE: Life and death in ‘Dog’

Now for something really spooky.

Dog, playing through March 27 at Theatre Network’s Roxy Theatre, sounds like a real chiller.

Set in the 1950s, the play deals with a happy young couple about to have a baby. When the wife suffers a miscarriage, they both sink into depression. Perfectly natural. But the husband just happens to be a psychotherapist doing experiments in treating depression with drugs – and you can see where this is going. The wife takes some pills, feels better and they adopt a stray dog. Everything is fine until the dog starts to talk – channelling the voice of the miscarried baby. OK! We get the picture. There is nothing scarier in the horror fiction genre than a creepy ghost kid. You might think twice about popping those fancy anti-depressants after seeing this.

Is ‘Dog’ any good? Unknown! There’s the fun. This is new, experimental theatre from the fledgling Edmonton company Surreal SoReal Theatre – a world premier full version of a script first worked over at the NextFest event for young playwrights two years ago. Dog stars the playwright Jon Lachlan Stewart as the husband, Sarah Sharkey as the wife and Vincent Forcier as the “dog.” Tickets to the show at 8 p.m. are on sale at Theatre Network here, or call 780.453.2440.