The Dog Problem
by David Rabe

The Dog Problem

Synopsis

Longing and confusion.

Hearts pounding, time ticking away.

Early 1960s in a Midwestern town.

Danny Mueller's working class life is one of fierce loyalty to childhood friends, Jake and Terry.

But the bigger world is stirring once he meets Karen, back from college in the east and alluring because of what she knows, and unsettling for that same reason.

The grip of Danny's past is intensified by his father, a German immigrant mourning a vanished world of lost prestige.

For Pop the question is how to let go of a son and life he never quite had now that the future has shrunk to almost nothing.

While Danny hopes to change without betraying the bonds that have sustained him, Karen, a whirl of brilliance, looks to J.D.

Salinger for answers and to Danny for a simplicity he does not possess.

To fall in love, to have a destiny, to know what it is.

That's what they all want, even Benji hanging onto Pop, and Shirley, too, adrift in a way she could not have foreseen.

The old look backward and the young look ahead, while we watch from the future they long to inhabit.

And it's all about to burn in the heat of whatever's coming.

The way it always does.

Performance

Cast

A small cast size of 7 total roles, 1 female and 6 male roles.

Publication

Publisher
Samuel French
Year Published
2002
ISBN 10
0573627967
ISBN 13
9780573627965
Binding
Paperback
Print Length
110 pages
Place Published
New York
Language
English
LCCN
2007390926
LCC
PS3568.A23 D64 2002
Print
The Dog Problem is a American play written by and published by Samuel French in New York, 2002. The print edition has an ISBN-13 of 9780573627965 and an ISBN-10 of 0573627967.

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