Tom Strelich

Full Length, Comedy

2 m., 2 f.

Ext.

The setting of this fascinating play by the author of Neon Psalms is a run down pet cemetery in the California desert. An intoxicating mix of the sublime and surreal, this dark comedy is a hilarious but disturbing study of devotion to ideals in the face of urban sprawl. Hertel Daggett is the physical and spiritual caretaker of the pet cemetery he inherited from his father. His solitude is intruded upon by an aspiring real estate magnate (a janitor who took a cable television real estate seminar) who enlists Hertel's ex wife (a jaded deputy sheriff who wants to move to Vermont or Australia) and his long lost mother (presumed dead but actually living in Sacramento) to turn the property into a shopping mall. Hertel's fight to protect the forty dried up, burnt out acres of dead pets from the forces of real estate and reality weaves dinosaurs, cave men, Egyptians, amoebas, television evangelists, Godzilla, and gospel music, answering the primal question: what makes man different than all the other animals?

"Shaggy sense of humor is the driving force." N.Y. Times.

"Dog gone it's good." N.Y. Post.

"Witty and crisp." St. Louis Post Dispatch.

"A daring and intriguing play." St. Louis Sun.

FEE: $75 per performance.