Canine Logic and Reinvention in Southwark’s ‘Dog Mom’

‘At her core, Dog is a best friend. And the play is a love story.’

So says playwright Tate Elizabeth Hanyok, defining the emotional core of her offbeat comedy, Dog Mom. This autumn, this American play makes its UK premiere at Southwark Playhouse Borough, running from 14 October to 7 November.

Produced by EnActe Arts—America’s largest South Asian theatre company—the narrative follows Sarita, an Indian-American woman navigating life after divorce. Newly installed in a cramped Brooklyn apartment, having left both her marriage and suburban New Jersey behind, she seeks a quiet, uncomplicated independence.

Her carefully guarded existence cracks when she reluctantly takes in an older, relentlessly affectionate stray dog. What begins as a temporary arrangement soon drags Sarita into the chaos of dog parks and intrusive owners. Along the way, the animal’s relentless energy specifically assaults her desperate need for order, while pushing her toward unexpected community—most notably through her outspoken lesbian neighbour, Nell.

The production eschews puppets and excessive costumes, placing human actors firmly at the centre of its canine world. Director Ajay Chowdhury approaches this theatrical choice with evident sincerity.

‘By taking the dogs seriously,’ said Chowdhury. ‘They may say outrageous things, but the actor needs to know what the dog wants and why it matters. If the performance is only a collection of funny mannerisms, there’s very little for an audience to stay interested in.’

The comedy relies on human recognition of canine behaviour, framing an animal’s unfiltered devotion as a lens to explore human vulnerability.

‘Once the audience has accepted the dog, you can let the relationship develop without constantly reminding them what animal they’re watching,’ said Chowdhury. ‘The dogs’ attachments to Sarita and Nell has to mean something. If we get that right, the comedy belongs to a character you care about, and we have somewhere to go when the mood changes.’

“At her core, Dog is a best friend. And the play is a love story.’

Boiling Down Canine Logic

Giving a voice to a pet was a particular joy for the playwright. Hanyok notes that treating the exercise as a playground allowed for an exploration of highly specific animal psychology.

‘There’s something endlessly fun about boiling a thought down to its most precise canine logic, trying to see the world through the mind and heart of a dog,’ said Hanyok. ‘And different dogs have such distinct personalities, so imagining how each of them might interpret a moment opens up a whole other comic playground.’

At its heart, however, the play addresses a continuing absence in contemporary storytelling: the portrayal of middle-aged women embracing life without tragedy or judgment.

‘Fifty is the new thirty-five. There are so many chapters in a life, and I think it’s time we celebrate the middle more,’ said Hanyok. ‘I wanted to write a woman in her fifties who is starting over—and whose story still feels full of possibility.’

A Rolling Premiere and Cultural Specificity

Dog Mom arrives in London through the National New Play Network’s Rolling World Premiere programme.

Rather than a traditional world premiere—where a new play opens in one theatre and subsequent productions immediately become fixed revivals—this structure allows the script to develop iteratively across several distinct, independent productions. Importantly, it keeps the playwright actively involved as different creative teams interpret the text.

**The Cast of Dog Mom R-L: Vinita Belani, Patty Gallager, Tom Barnes, Joanna Holden, and Jarreau Antoine**

‘Every director tugs at different threads, and every actor inevitably brings something of themselves to the role,’ said Hanyok. ‘It’s been incredibly fun to see what each team gravitates toward and how every production puts its own stamp on the play!’

She embraces the fluidity of the model. ‘I’ve tried not to be result-oriented—to never look at one production and think: “This is how it should be done,”‘ she said.

For this iteration, the creative team tailored the protagonist to reflect an Indian-American experience. Chowdhury and actor Vinita Belani, who plays Sarita, utilised their own South Asian perspectives to shape the narrative.

‘The shift from a white American woman in her thirties to an Indian-American woman in her fifties changes the questions we ask about her,’ said Chowdhury. ‘What has she been expected to do within a marriage? What does she feel she owes her family? How difficult is it to admit that the life she built hasn’t worked out?’

Despite this demographic shift, the underlying script required minimal alteration. The play provides space for the character to remain contradictory and unreasonable, avoiding the burden of representing an entire community while negotiating a chaotic pet.

‘The lines remain largely the same, but the women are wonderfully different—and suddenly you see different colours and layers within the same words,’ said Hanyok.

From Boardroom to Rehearsal Room

Balancing the high-energy physical comedy of a dog with Sarita’s personal crisis obviously demands careful navigation. This is particularly true within the intimate performance space of Southwark Playhouse Borough, where a small reaction can register without the need to announce every feeling.

Chowdhury brings an unusually varied CV to the director’s chair. Alongside his theatrical background, he is an award-winning crime writer and a founding investor of the music recognition app Shazam. He also served on boards from RADA to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

He notes that the discipline required for clockwork plotting in fiction translates directly to the stage.

‘A thriller needs you to keep reading; a comedy needs you listening closely enough for the next line to surprise you,’ said Chowdhury. ‘Both depend on rhythm, and on trusting the audience to make connections.’

Yet, it is his corporate tech experience that offers the most intriguing parallels to the rehearsal room. When asked what theatre habit might get him laughed out of a tech startup, his answer points to the meticulous nature of comedic timing.

‘Probably asking everyone to spend a considerable amount of time deciding exactly how long a pause should be,’ said Chowdhury. ‘It might be difficult to explain in a product meeting that we’d made real progress by saying nothing slightly differently!’

Yet he sees common ground in that fixation on human response.

‘A good tech team spends a great deal of time on tiny details of how people experience something,’ said Chowdhury. ‘In a play, a fraction of a second can change a laugh or reveal a feeling. In an app, a small decision can change whether someone understands what to do next.’

That meticulous calibration serves a broader purpose than mere mechanics. Beneath the comic choreography and tech-disciplined timing lies a desire to use the universal bond with pets as an emotional anchor—grounding Sarita’s crisis in the recognisable.

For Hanyok, that bond provides the lever to explore experiences too often dismissed or sentimentalised in contemporary theatre, extending dignity to women forging non-traditional paths.

‘More and more women are reaching midlife without children, whether by choice or circumstance, and I think our storytelling—and society—needs to make more room for that experience without treating it as a deficiency,’ said Hanyok. ‘There is still love and purpose of all kinds to find.’

Featured Image: Dog Mom HERO Image – all images provided by Southwark Playhouse.