DOGS could use more beef

Hanna Kime has the nerve to premiere her hotdog-eating comedy in Chicago and use Nathan’s rather than Vienna Beef. It got personal for me even before the curtain when the Host (Julian “joolz” Stroop) decided my section would rep ketchup rather than mustard in his call-and-response shenanigans. Condiment preference and tube steak brand loyalty are no laughing matter.

Kime mixes broad comedy, soul-searching earnestness, philosophizing, and off-color double entendre in ways that often don’t quite blend in Becca Holloway’s staging. To be sure, a hot dog can be a stand-in for anything—from an entire nation’s character to the odd body part—but at some point, one has to commit to a tone or a premise in order to tell a story or make a point.

DOGS
Through 11/24: Wed–Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM; the Edge Off Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa, redtheater.org, $30 ($10 access tickets, $50 pay-it-forward tickets)

The five contestants are more archetypes than people—the perfect girl, the grizzled veteran, the intellectual, the jealous also-ran, and the newcomer. Gorging on encased meats for trophies is gross and unnecessary, it should go without saying, but using the contest as a metaphor for sometimes contrary life hurdles is just plain confusing.

I liked the silliest moments best. I wished there were more scenes where the sexy hotdog comes to life and addresses the women directly. This is a show that would benefit from being a lot messier, more visceral; pantomime stuffing one’s face with invisible sausages doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing. I kept thinking of what Clara Peller asked in that immortal Wendy’s commercial. Key ingredients have been left back in the kitchen.