Don Juan, Slightly Isolated Dog, The Q

 

"Slightly Isolated Dog" are a New Zealand team who tour inventive versions of classic stories that are fortunately out of copyright enough to let them fool around with a little. In this mini-season, two of their shows are playing in fairly quick repertory, both lo-fi productions with extensive audience interaction (although non-threatening, Kiwi kind of audience interaction). For Don Juan, for whatever reason (probably because it's delightful, or possibly because the version of the story they're doing is closest to Moliere's "Dom Juan ou le Feste die pierre"), they perform using over the top french accents, in simple stylish modern costumes, in a traverse style up close to the audience, and romp the Don through several seductions, duels, songs, murders and his eventual highly catholic comeuppance over a fast and fun 60-or-so minutes - the role of the Don split across the cast and signified by a baseball cap, sunglasses and a portable speaker having his dialogue spoken by another cast member. 

The quintet of performers all have wonderful moments, from Jonathan Price's frequent bloody deaths, to Comfrey Sander's confrontation with a caddish audience member, to Andrew Patterson's bold dashing about the stage in quite substantial high heels, to Susie Berry's irritated nun, to Jack Buchanan's gasping reactions to the events going on around him, and the audince members are roped into providing additional entertainment, whether reacting to performers, engaging in conversation, taking on roles or providing scenery assistance (including a quite astonishing river escape sequence), and all in all this is a friendly version of a classic story with several delights, songs, diversions and hilarities.