INTERVIEW: New solo show finds actor playing his dog during the worst of times
Photo: Michael J. Feldman wrote and stars in No, But I’m Definitely in a Better Place Than I’ve Been in a Long Time. Photo courtesy of Jeff Lorch / Provided by Shark Party Media with permission.
Performances of Michael J. Feldman’s acclaimed solo show No, But I’m Definitely in a Better Place Than I’ve Been in a Long Time continue through June 1 at New York City’s The Brick. In the piece, which he wrote and also stars in, Feldman plays the dog he and his husband rescued during the pandemic. In the meta-solo show, Feldman explores the absurdity of writing a piece of theater from a dog’s perspective while the world is turning upside down and COVID-19 is raging around the planet.
The dog character is an anxiety-ridden German shepherd, according to press notes. He comes to life on stage during the second half of the performance, offering some humor during the darkest of times.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Feldman about this unique show, which has already had runs in Los Angeles and Brooklyn. His previous theatrical efforts include Musclebound and Fairy Tale Theater: 18 & Over. He is currently a writer, along with his writing partner, Debbie Jhoon, on TV’s Not Dead Yet. He also wrote the script for Mafia Mamma starring Toni Collette and Monica Bellucci. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What inspired you to put pen to paper and create this show?
During the pandemic, I — like everyone on the planet — was losing my mind. It had been a few years since my last solo show, so I thought — why not start writing a new show, just as a way to stay creative and busy. Immediately I hated everything I was writing, and I hated myself for thinking that this was a good idea (did I mention I was losing my mind?). I went back to not writing and just doomscrolling and mainlining all the New York Times and CNN that I possibly could.
I soon realized that that decision was, by far, way worse than not writing. So I went back to writing, but with zero pressure to perform. I just thought of it as an exercise for me and me alone, and I actually found it to be very cathartic. But it was still missing something for it to be a show that would be entertaining … you know, if I decided to perform.
And then my husband and I started to discuss the idea of rescuing a dog, an idea everyone had during that time — just a cute, cuddly, lazy lap dog, something that would be genuinely therapeutic and remind me that hope was possible. Well, we ended up adopting a 75-pound German shepherd with severe anxiety.
So here I am, this anxious neurotic mess, who’s now forced to take care of this equally-if-not-more anxious neurotic mess, and I thought, oh, the show wants to be from her perspective, dealing with me. And that’s what inspired me to dress up as my dog! And once I started believing that there was actually a show here, I reached out to a brilliant, hilarious actor/writer/director, Tom DeTrinis, who helped me shape the show into what it is today.
Do you believe comedy disarms the difficulties of dealing with weighty topics and the overall struggles of life?
Absolutely! I think that just presenting serious, weighty topics in itself can heavily risk being self-indulgent, and I really believe the best way around that is to make people laugh. If you can make people laugh, then they’ll put up with whatever deep, dark, twisted thing you’re trying to tell them. I’ve always been a huge fan of dark humor. I find myself constantly gravitating towards presenting very serious issues in the lightest/silliest way I can think of.
For instance, I had a show in LA that I performed for years that was a collection of original fairy tales with morals and lessons for grown-ups. One tale was called The Bipolar Bear & The Co-dependent Inuit. It was based on several fraught relationships I found myself in when I was younger, but told with a mix of puppets and people in animal costumes, so it wasn’t just like, “Hey! Watch this abusive relationship unfold before your eyes, and let it traumatize you just like I was traumatized!” (And yes, animal costumes are definitely a recurring motif in my work).
And in this current show, I love grappling with weighty topics like mental illness, global crises, and the decision whether to take medication or not, all under the structure of the silliest possible character I can think of: my neurotic German shepherd with a set of eight massive teats.
What’s it like to become your dog on stage?
Umm … insane? I mean, playing anxious, terrified, high-strung characters is easy for me because I’m, well, me. But it does feel a bit nuts to look so disturbing (it’s a really insane costume), and to be inhabiting someone I live with who has absolutely no say in how she’s portrayed and has zero awareness of what’s going on, or what a solo show even is.
How did the Los Angeles and Brooklyn runs go? Has the piece changed since then?
They went great! I love performing the show, and audiences seem to love it. So that’s why I keep wanting to keep it alive. The piece has changed very little. I’ve mostly cut it down/tightened it and added a few more updated jokes in various sections. Also certain jokes are very specific to NY or LA, depending where I’m performing.
The show explores “blatant selfishness” during difficult times. Can you explain?
Earlier I mentioned where the idea of playing my dog came from, but the next and final piece that I incorporated into the show happened right after that. So there I was, writing and exploring from the perspective of my dog, and it was silly and stupid. But because of how f’ed up the world was, it felt a billion times more silly and stupid. I kept thinking, “How can I keep rolling around on the floor, barking like an idiot, while chaos and mayhem have gripped the planet? How can I ask people to leave their homes and come watch me roll around on the floor, barking like an idiot?” And I knew I had to capture that feeling, and that’s when the final element of the show clicked into place — that I’m trying to put up this show about my dog as the world is literally ending from an apocalyptic event.
There is an inherent selfishness to creating art, especially a one-man show which is just like, “Hey! Look and listen to me and nothing else for the next hour! Because I say so!” And that selfishness is magnified tenfold when there’s some catastrophic event going on.
I remember thinking during the early days of the pandemic, “Boy, do I feel sorry for anyone who is about to launch a Kickstarter campaign for their web series right now.” It’s a delicate balance. Putting up a live show, especially in this day and age when we have a billion other things vying for our attention, is so incredibly tough that it requires you to believe in what you’re doing with all your might. But at the same time, you can’t lose sight that at the end of the day, you’re just running around a small black box in the middle of Williamsburg dressed in a dog costume trying to make a handful of people laugh. I attempt to encapsulate that feeling in my show when the character I play (an exaggerated version of myself) has an epiphany and shouts, unironically: “I need to do a solo show about my dog to save the world!”
When did you realize you were funny?
Not sure there was a specific moment, but I do remember around the end of elementary/beginning of junior high school coming to terms with the fact that I was painfully bad at baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey and football (I used to lie about having a heart murmur so that I wouldn’t be asked to play, like, “Sorry, can’t football with you guys! Doctor’s orders!”). I was a nerd who was always the teacher’s pet, and I was picked on constantly. I soon realized that the only way I would ever make friends (or at the very least have some social standing on the playground) was by making fun of myself. And I was relentless! The more they laughed, the more I delved deep within me to find every awful thing wrong with me and use it as material.
I thrived at making myself the butt of every joke, and I worked hard to point out and laugh at my own flaws before anyone else did. And I guess that impulse is still very much alive in me, since my show is filled with self-deprecating humor. For instance, at one point, my dog says (referring to me), “Don’t get me started on his posture! He’s shaped like an apology!”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
No, But I’m Definitely in a Better Place Than I’ve Been in a Long Time, written by and starring Michael J. Feldman, continues until June 1 at The Brick in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
