Red Dog Howls

The New York Theatre Workshop solicited a comment from the audience, and I wrote the following.  "I came to see Red Dog Howls last night, 26 September.  I was lured by the promise of Kathleen Chalfant's appearance, and her characterization of Rose, the hardened survivor of the Armenian Genocide, was credible, if a bit overwrought, and her histrionic climax gripping.  I am not familiar with the earlier plays by Alexander Dinelaris; but this one was rhetorically overstrained and dramatically flat like a history lecture in its effort to be political; as it often happens with a play which tries to be explicitly political the impact is doubly dissipated, dialectically and theatrically.  Plays that excite us instruct us implicitly.  The character of Michael addressing the audience aggravated this problem; and Alfredo Narciso's talent was wasted."