“Devil Dog Six” horses around with racial and gender themes
What is it about young women and horses? That’s kind of the central question in Devil Dog Six, now playing at The Detroit Repertory Theatre through May 15.
Devon Tramore (Jaclynn Cherry) is a good and up-and-coming jockey who has taken a spill on the track and in the hospital with a brain injury. The circumstances around the tumble are suspicious, potentially involving another jockey intentionally fouling her. As an investigator (Madelyn Porter) queries everyone, and it is revealed that Devon is the target of sexual harassment and sexism at the track.
The play, by Fengar Gael, takes often amusing cul de sacs concerning Devon’s ability to leave her own body as she is trying to recover from her accident, and connect supernaturally to the a horse–specifically Devil Dog Six. “My feet are hardening into hooves.”
The play is a tour-de-force of minimalist stagecraft. All the actors play multiple roles, including horses. This is done by each actor picking up what appears to be a wicker horse’s head, and, at the appropriate times when a race is called for, lining up and moving their body in the motion of a running horse. They line up in a starting gate made simply from 2x4s, and all double as jockeys by donning silks. In fact, the character changes can happen so fast that it is jarring at times. But it stays on the right side of good direction, ably handled by Leah Smith.
Racial tolerance is explored through the relationship between Devon and horse groom Fonner Brighton (Jeffry Chastang) who is black. The play is set in Louisiana, so the attitude toward this relationship on the part of the white male jockeys with whom Devon flirts is predictable. Her parents, Bernard Tramore ( Wayne David Parker) and Josellin Tramore (PJ Jenkinson) are track rats–she Devil Dog 6’s trainer and he a gambler and tout–and are far more accepting; Anything in the name and advancement of their daughter and the almighty equine is fine by them.
The sexism theme is carried not only with the jockeys who are loathe to have a female interloper in their locker room, but with Devil Dog 6’s owner, the Saudi Omar Nad Al Sheba, played by Matt Hollerbach, who plays six characters in all plus a horse.
The plot of Devil Dog 6 is actually a bit thin. And the first act drags just a little. But there is a quality of these heavy themes being delivered in such whimsical stagecraft that keeps the whole thing pretty light, airy, digestible and enjoyable.
Ms. Cherry is the shortest player in the stage by design, of course, with the suggestion made that her character has been so enamored with the equine since birth that she stunted her own growth to keep her size and weight down. She is always sparky and ready for a fight, but with the emotional grounding that makes us completely understand her love of the chief groom of the stable rather than one of the flashier jockeys. She is so horsey that we can fully imagine that her idea of total relaxation would be having Fonner brush her hair just as he brushes the horses–and preferably with the same brush. When she doesn’t smell of horse manure and sweat, she carries the aroma of a clean saddle.
It’s too bad there is a lot of harsh language in the play, because the literal horseplay on stage would no doubt engage a younger teen audience, especially those horse-crazy girls we all know. With such relevant and timely themes and a fun delivery through this script, perhaps the playwright (who was in the house on the night I saw it) might consent to a version where the language is cleaned up and a little of the sexual action toned down. True, a racetrack locker room and stable isn’t where you hear, “Oh fiddlesticks,” but allowances might be made in the script in the name of box office and a more family rating? I could even see high schools wanting to do the play, but for the language that might be a problem.
I certainly know a lot of young actresses who would like to play the horse-crazy Devon.
Bottom Line: Devil Dog Six trots important themes down a fun and often funny track.