Dogmouth

Time is the 80’s. Does a group of Vietnam veterans – not unlike the Hell’s Angels – really exist hoboing around on the rails and is it as large and powerful as it is portrayed by journalists – or is it a media creation drawing the heat for every murder on the rails from Arizona to California? And has its leader become a changed man dedicated to his young wife –
or is he an unrepentant racist criminal bent on plotting to murder
a rival who’s moving in on his turf? These are the things that come up in John Steppling’s dark and controversial play Dogmouth. The fact that he focuses on the depth of war veterans’ alienation – the ones who drop out, – not into some utopian world of therapy groups – but rather into some nightmarish arena where murder is reflexive – is what makes this play so riveting. And that he also manages to deftly slip in ruminations on death and dying, the gap between those with money and those without, even survival of the fittest on the streets of Phoenix – is what makes this play dark and riveting – and as John Steppling often proclaims “Art is not your friend’….” This is a nightmare that you don’t want to have but one you won’t want to miss.