Writer and Director: Noah Alfred Pantano
Pup Play: A Queer Pseudo-lecture (of sorts) is raw and unforgiving in the topics and emotion it lays bare. This is unapologetic, non-conforming queerness in all its messiness. While loosely taking the structure of a lecture, Pup Play is much more of a one-person show about queer kink and the conflict that occurs when one’s self-presentation is both the thing that makes you feel safe in yourself and the thing that strangers will want to hit you for.
Noah Alfred Pantano’s performance spans a wide range of furious punk singing, chaotic dance, committed monologue, comedic puppetry, and throws in audience participation for good measure. At no point do the decisions feel safe, and Pup Play is all the better for marching fearlessly into the uncomfortable.
To facilitate its uncompromising stance, Pup Play opens with a clear opportunity for the audience to leave. Where, typically, this may seem overly cautious for a theatrical production, it feels more necessary here as Pantano makes no concessions for those of a reserved disposition. Unfortunately, this start is let down by a somewhat aimless opening in which Pantano cues the tech to begin. It creates a feeling of amateurishness to an otherwise highly crafted work.
Pup Play’s projections and lights are used excellently to reinforce key themes and emotions as well as drive the story forward. This intelligent use of tech jars against Pantano’s choice to use a microphone, which frequently gets in the way of clean movement in a space that does not warrant its use.
Where Pup Play is at its most exciting is in its study of “homonormativity” through puppetry. It is funny, uncompromising, filled with raw and thrilling choices. It fires along at a brutal pace until the whole sequence is derailed by the unnecessary and chaotic introduction of audience participation. This may work with more framing, practice, and clarity, but as it stands, it lets down an otherwise outstanding segment.
This really is the pattern in Pantano’s piece; fantastic and risky ideas are well structured, but executed just short of the mark. Pantano’s movement is similar, in the sections where dance is incorporated; the emotional resonance of these sections could hit much harder with a more strictly defined and rehearsed choreography. This is mirrored in Pup Play’s ending, which, despite calling for action, lacks a clear ferocity and peters out into a request to dance together. It is an ending which is overused in fringe theatre and bears little relation to the play’s topic, unless one is naïve enough to think that dance is a solely queer activity.
All in all, Pup Play takes risks, and Pantano’s commitment to these risks pays off, even if the execution is not always perfect. Perhaps, like its subject matter, it is to be celebrated for what it is, messiness and all.
Runs until 16 August 2025
Camden Fringe runs until 24 August 2025
The Reviews Hub Star Rating
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7
