Performing a double- bill of Berkoff is no small feat, the British theatre practitioner’s reliance on physical theatre and experimental style is not for the faint of heart. Stephen Smith manages to pull off both Dog and Actor with aplomb.These one-man shows, performed and directed by Stephen Smith, Artistic Director of Threedumb Theatre came into being back in 2018 when Stephen was given an hour-long slot to fill at the Pump House Theatre during a local arts festival, Watford Fringe. Since then, he has toured the UK to acclaim.

“Stephen Smith manages to pull off both Dog and Actor with aplomb”

Berkoff first presented Dog in 1993, as a response to the pub-lad culture. Personifying this male hooliganism and insecurity is a skinhead and his foul-mouthed dog. Dog has Smith wrenched across the stage by his canine counterpart. Smith rises to the physical challenge this piece demands. The body tells a story as much as the text, and as you watch Smith be jerked around the stage his extraordinary attention to physical detail make it genuinely hard to believe that there is nothing at the end of that leash. Smith’s knack for physical transformation could make it easy for him to play a variety of nonhuman role, and on this occasion his seamless transformations from human to dog are so well- executed, they’re unsettling.

“The work of Berkoff means the audience is taken into a darkly comic, satirical world”

Actor was different in tone but every bit as demanding in terms of physical requirements. The piece is a spoken word monologue that chronicles the life and personal and professional struggles of an unsuccessful actor. It had moments where it provoked nervous laughter from the audience in recognition of the character’s woes, which grew rejection after rejection. Each time Hamlet is pulled out, an audition piece that the character keeps trying and failing at, there is a collective intake of breath within the audience because we can already feel the rejection that is coming, a testament to the beautifully done pacing of the show. The comedy hovers around absurdity but it’s Smith’s deliveries that mean the laughter lands.

Both pieces had minimal set design, making the fact that Smith almost single-handedly, aside from audio cues and cut-ins, carried the pieces. The work of Berkoff means the audience is taken into a darkly comic, satirical world that is vivid, heightened and grotesque. Smith found a beautiful balance in this, never going overboard while giving the pieces emotional capacity they deserved. Watching him stretch his physical and vocal expressive range so that they reached a state of heightened performance, and find a physical vocabulary so specific to Berkoff’s style was fascinating, if at times slightly alienating. If anything, it is at the very essence of Berkoff’s work to be alienating. Smith’s use of physical theatre involved a kind of non-realistic symbolic representation which challenged the audience. Running at just 50 minutes this is a sharp and nuanced production as well as a unique experience that has come to Cambridge, that is worth leaving your comfort zone for, and can be found at several other venues in the UK this summer.

Dog/Actor is playing at the Corpus Playroom at 7:45pm on the 8th and 9th of July.