
A girl and her dog (Krystal Millie Valdes and Caleb Scott) Photos by Morgan Sophia Photography
By Bill Hirschman
Obviously, the attention-getting element of Bad Dog is the sight of a Miami New Drama actor dressed in a jock strap and a few yellow straps, inhabiting the bizarre essence of a performance artist assuming a dog persona.
And while his precise visuals of the dog sniffing and panting is, indeed, remarkable, it is only one memorable aspect of the world premiere of Bad Dog , the complex comic satire with thematic underpinnings by Harley Elias.
Considerable praise and admiration is due Elias’ fascinating, intriguing script provoking laughter and introspection and elevated by a skilled production.
Besides the premise of an art gallery owner comically exploiting this artist’s “masterpiece,” Elias has intertwined serious themes including the true nature of art, the mendacity of the art world, the basic human nature of artfully lying about nearly everything, and more.
But this work is one of the first resulting from the Y6K Jewish Play Initiative Project created post-October 7 by Miami New Drama and the Wasserman Project to address the crisis of anti-Semitism. Therefore, woven inside all of the above is an identity examination of what is means to be a Jew. Or not to be a Jew. Or to be perceived a Jew.
In his lengthy prerecorded message excerpted here, the artist David says: “I am a Jew. I do not want to be a Jew because to be a Jew is to be perceived as a Jew. I am, as many of you know, constantly perceived as a Jewish artist. In a time when in the art world at large, all art must deal with one’s identity, the only art that people allow me to make, is art that deals with my Jewishness. Otherwise it has no exchange-value in the marketplace. But society is uninterested in real Jewishness, only in a politics of identity that they can control, access, digest, consume, and ultimately, use as the basis for their conspiracies. I resent this, and I resist this. I do not resent my Jewishness; it is society that does that for me.”
That’s precisely where some audience members will understand its connection with those earlier theme. But likely many others will question how clearly Elias makes those themes relate to each other, making it almost seem like two different plays crushed together. Doubtless Elias sees them as interwoven, but audience discussions around a table after the show might make it clearer to many.
Unquestionably, what makes the evening land is the superb direction of company artistic director Michel Hausmann, the performances of three fine actresses and the outstanding work of Caleb Scott embodying the dog Buddy.
To sketch out the setup: the “Gallerist” is a beautiful, suave, sophisticated Miamian preparing her empty gallery for the arrival of the famed visual artist David who will unveil his secret final magnum opus for her coming assemblage during Art Basel.
The space is being prepared by her first “Assistant” and her second-in-command “Gallerina.” We may expect them setting up for a huge painting or such, but slowly we see their preparation is bringing in a collection of silver feed bowls, pads for an animal to pee on, a fluffy pet bed and plastic chew toys.
And eventually, they bring in and place on a chain this somewhat good-looking nearly naked man who sounds and acts precisely like an untrained hound.
Is his steadfast pretending one more extension of what is considered Art? Has he gone insane and believes he is a dog? Has somehow has he actually been transformed into a dog? (In this satire, you can’t rule that out).
But ingeniously illustrating Elias’ major theme, each woman over the next month uses the dog as a non-judgmental receptacle for confessions – much of it about lying and deception in their lives.
The women’s journey twists and turns in on itself with surprises we will not spoil here including one major one everyone can go to the bar later and argue whether it was exactly Elias’ point or whether it undercuts his point.
One brilliant stroke of Elias’ script, actors and director in tandem is that you are always wondering if the artist is faking it, gone insane or has made himself believe it, or what? You keep waiting for the revelation that may or may not come. And that’s terrifically engrossing.
Elias, author of Miami New Drama’s recent Museum Plays and its current Lincoln Road Hustle, gives the women gloriously articulate arias delivering insights as well as humor.
For instance, the gallery owner says, “But art… is the best lie of all. It’s the only one that matters. Art is the lie so deceitful it’s true. Art is… it’s the holy lie. It’s a… a sacrament. A benediction. No it’s… art is: … atonement. For every other lie in the world. It makes us human again. Yeah, sure, humans have always told each other stories in the dark, told each other lies around the fire. But with art… you get to lie in the hot sun. You get to lie with the lights on. And how bright it is! Don’t you see! It’s the only true lie!”
All three actresses flourish as characters simultaneously canny and naïve, ambitious and manipulative.

Mia Matthews and Krystal Millie Valdes
Tall with a cultured coif, much honored Mia Matthews immediately convinces as the tempestuous, anxious owner who hides secrets including who her inner self really is.
Liba Vaynberg who starred in one of MND’s first musicals, The Golem of Havana, plays Gallerina, a shrewd observer of how to make the most of a situation regardless of the price.
Krystal Millie Valdes is the tightly-wound Assistant who also reveals a different inner person. Valdes, who has shown considerable skill at both comedy and drama more than a dozen times locally, delivers both here. But she has obeyed one of Elias’ stage directions too faithfully. He writes “They speak feverishly, desperately, maniacally, assuming that they will never finish a sentence.” But she does this so faithfully that 25 percent is unintelligible. She and Hausmann will likely work this out as the schedule continues.
Scott, who has worked here six times, pulls off a wonderfully limned performance as David/Buddy. Both he and the character he plays impersonate dog moments from the mouth hanging open, the scrambling paws, on and on. As he snarls at first and then snuggles, you almost, just almost, forget.

Liba Vaynberg propelling an office chair while confessing to the dog
Hausmann’s pacing and insight is finely tuned, but his physical blocking is inspired. For instance, when Gallerina unleashes a 15-minute philosophical venting confession to Buddy, Hausmann breaks it up by having her roving the entire empty gallery, notably sliding atop a rolling office chair.
While Gallerina and Assistant dress in appropriately subserviently black clothes, the Gallerist is blessed by costume designer Christopher Vergara with an endlessly changing procession of long multi-colored caftan-like dresses that could be works of art themselves.
Elias has a solid hand at droll humor, but here are warnings for the easily offended: The language is steadily X-rated. Characters roll on the floor sniffing the dog’s butt. References are common for the dog’s feces and feces-making using every possible vocabulary. And (minor spoiler alert) there are some visual representations that may or may not have been dramaturgically necessary.
Our script concerns should not keep anyone from seeing the play or not having it performed in the future. Back in the day, most new plays appearing on Broadway often premiered after four, even five weeks rehearsal plus a week or two of previews. During that period, the script was rewritten, cut, added to, reordered. Then good or bad, the play appeared to the audience as a finished, polished work.
But in the 21st Century, an inaugural production often bows in professional regional theaters with two or three weeks of rehearsal plus one or two previews. The playwright takes the script back the word processor and then rewrites, cuts, adds to and reorders for use in the next two or three productions such as occurs with the National New Play Network series.
There is nothing at all wrong with this. Indeed, it is an advantage that eventually results in an improved final play. We’d look forward to seeing this again in the future.
The Playbill states that Bad Dog is the first of two plays developed by the Y6K Project responding to “the alarming rise in antisemitic sentiment, now openly expressed in various spaces including academic and cultural institutions, has created a climate of unprecedented vulnerability for Jewish communities.”
Bad Dog runs through Feb. 16 at Miami New Drama, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach. Performances 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. Running time 1 hour 45 minutes without an intermission. Box office (305) 674-1040 or boxoffice@miaminewdrama.org