If you’ve ever looked at the family dog and wondered what they’re thinking, there is a stage show that will have you coming home to hug your dog extra hard. In “The Jewish Dog,” which runs through November 19 at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, a family’s dog is abandoned after his family is arrested during the Holocaust.
A one-man show with an astonishing performance by Roy Abramsohn, it leads audiences through the experience of Cyrus the dog, telling the story of the Holocaust from the dog’s perspective.
The tagline of the show is clever and telling: “Don’t miss this unexpected view of history — from only 20 inches above the ground.”
Yes, there is a grown, adult actor in a dog costume on stage. And no, it isn’t exactly a comedy. It’s intense. It’s sad. It earns every minute. Of course, Cyrus’ naivete and misunderstandings bring moments of levity to the audience. Playing about 20 different characters, Abramsohn both inflicts and absorbs terror. At no point during the show is it confusing who Abramsohn is portraying in any given moment. He plays an old German woman, he plays a young Ukranian woman, he plays Nazis, he plays Jews, and he even plays more than just one dog. While his speaking voice is a heavy Philadelphia accent, Abramsohn is adept at slipping from character to character.
Abramsohn explains that the play resonates with him due to his Jewish heritage and love for dogs.
“It’s very easy to get emotional in this show for me,” Abramsohn told the Journal. “Sometimes, you’re on a film set or something and they say, ‘in this scene you have to be emotional and there’s 20 people around.’ But for a dog story, it’s easy for me to get emotional. It doesn’t take much. And yeah, I did have dogs growing up.”
Without spoiling any particular scene, audiences will notice that even after Cyrus the dog is left without a home, he still loves whoever loves him back.
“The Jewish Dog” was originally a 2007 bestselling book by Asher Kravitz. It was adapted for the stage by Israeli playwright and director Yonatan Esterkin. Abramsohn expressed multiple times throughout the interview his gratitude for Esterkin for casting him.
And although he’s performing in theaters nationwide, Abramsohn’s first live shows as Cyrus the dog were in a backyard during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Tom Dugan, from Dugan’s Backyard Playhouse, allowed me (for free) to do three shows in his backyard to get more experience and prepare for the show in Houston at the Holocaust Museum,” in January of 2023 to commemorate International Holocaust Day, Abramsohn said. “Tom is the definition of the word ‘mensch.’ The word was created for guys like him.”
Not only did his wife Betsy and children Benjamin and Madeline play a role in Abramsohn’s mind as he got into character(s), he also took cues from the family dog, a poodle-terrier mix named Charlie, whom he found roaming the Valley while driving his children to school. In many ways, Charlie was unwittingly a great coach for Abramsohn throughout the process of becoming Cyrus. Abramsohn took a moment away from Charlie to speak about the experience of playing Cyrus the dog on stage.
(The conversation has been edited for space and clarity.)
JEWISH JOURNAL: As an actor, do you think this show will be your legacy?
ROY ABRAMSOHN: I thought it’ll give me more shows to do in the coming years, because I’m 62 and everything gets harder. I have two kids, they’re 22 and 20 and everything gets tougher as you get older — physically and just doing stuff and remembering lines. So I wanted something in the next 10 years that I can go do all over the country. I want to do this.
JJ: Tell me about the audition and how you prepared.
RA: I taped an audition at my friend’s house. It was a section where the dog is sent to live with the closeted gay man and his wife, who’s a Nazi-loving woman. It was the kind of scene where there’s a lot of characters at once. And I just guess I’ve developed a talent for doing these quick character changes. And that’s the hardest thing to do. When I got the part, I read the show into my phone, all 38 single-space pages. I would drive around doing errands in Los Angeles wherever I would go. I wouldn’t get in my car without going over that script page by page by page. It took four or five months to really get it down. In this show, if you forget a line, you can’t look at your scene partner and hope they save you.
JJ: What’s something you learned about the history of the Holocaust by doing this show?
RA: I didn’t know that dogs were taken from their Jewish owners in Nazi Germany. Or in a sense, learning this part of the Nuremberg laws. The Jews had to give away all their dogs. First they took their guns. Then they took their dogs.
JJ: What surprised you most about audience reactions to the show?
RA: I was surprised at the laughter. The first time I did it, I thought, ‘wow, there’s a lot of laughs in this, and I’ve made it fun.’ I compare this show to the book “Maus” in a way where it’s another way to see the Holocaust that’s not so tragic and painful that you’re hearing a human being talk about the abuse they endured. You’re hearing a dog talk about it. So it removes you from the horror and pain just a bit.
The Jewish Dog is playing at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts through November 19. For tickets: https://thewallis.org/show-details/the-jewish-dog
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