The Stage

Ivan and the Dogs

Published Friday 15 October 2010 at 11:20 by Aleks Sierz

For its first production, following the departure of artistic director Bijan Sheibani, ATC teams up with Soho Theatre to produce this canine tale, which is set in Moscow in the early nineties (the Yeltsin era). After the fall of communism, there is freedom, but also poverty. Fed up with his drunken parents, four-year-old Ivan decides to leave home. On the cold streets, he meets Belka, a white dog, and finally eeks out a living as part of a pack.

Rad Kaim in Ivan And The Dogs at Soho Theatre Photo: Tristram Kenton

Ostensibly based on a true story, but actually written by Hattie Naylor as a fable of self-determination in a city of ghastly iniquities, the play shadows Ivan in his encounters with glue-sniffers, bully boys, down and outs and thuggish policemen. An urban folk tale, the text bristles with a rough doggy love, and growls with admiration for canine life. There are no fleas or scabs on these lovely beasts.

As a poetic story, it is full of vivid phrases - such as God pausing to count the dead in the silence after a shooting or other acts of violence - and it pulses with strong emotions. But it never quite manages to avoid sentimentality in its vision of a little boy in a dystopic metropolis.

Directed by Ellen McDougall, the play features designer Naomi Wilkinson’s cool white cube, and a loving performance by Rad Kaim. This Polish actor brings Ivan barking into marvellous life with his stillness, his fatalistic hand gestures, and his feral poses. It’s an engaging performance that mixes vulnerability and impishness, gripping you in its quiet, gentle charm, and protecting you against the horrors of the big bad city.

With its video projections by Simon Dinsett, and soundscape by Dan Jones, this is a short evening, but one that ends on a note of exaltation.