Hound Dog
68

Hound Dog NYC Reviews and Tickets

68%
(18 Ratings)
Positive
44%
Mixed
39%
Negative
17%
Members say
Confusing, Entertaining, Ambitious, Quirky, Absorbing

A musician returns home and learns new things about her family, her home, and her music.

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Show-Score Member Reviews (18)

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125 Reviews | 12 Followers
88
Great acting, Enchanting, Absorbing

See it if you're interested in stories set in other countries; explorations of grief (though not mired in sadness); plays with music; great acting

Don't see it if you don't enjoy slightly fantastical pieces

546 Reviews | 64 Followers
69
Slow, Great staging, Confusing, Entertaining

See it if quirky show about a person finding herself with music

Don't see it if want a traditional musical. songs don't really add much. can be too quirky over substance.

WH
448 Reviews | 88 Followers
68
A disappointment, Title & premise are misleading, Very uneven performances, Doesn't hold together, Music better than show

See it if You want to support Arsb Nova.

Don't see it if Want a polished and consistent musical. This isn't it.

188 Reviews | 71 Followers
64
Personal, Dizzying, Entertaining, Great acting

See it if you like stories of people figuring out who they are, especially involving clashes of US and Turkish culture, grief and ambition.

Don't see it if there's dream sequences that aren't announced as such, so reality is hard to piece together sometimes

253 Reviews | 36 Followers
48
Disappointing, Slow, Confusing

See it if you want to get out of the house.

Don't see it if a coherent drama about a modern young Turkish woman fighting dilemmas is what you are are after.

492 Reviews | 120 Followers
41
Indulgent, Great acting, Great singing, Absorbing, Confusing

See it if You enjoy plays with music.

Don't see it if You need to always have a clear idea of what exactly is going on. Read more

44 Reviews | 12 Followers
84
Heartwarming, Delightful, Entertaining

See it if you like a bit of psychedelic mixed in with a heartwarming story. The music is lovely.

Don't see it if you require an absolutely linear plot. Honestly it's easy enough to follow, but they deal with ambiguity, purpose & other abstract concepts

28 Reviews | 13 Followers
77
Great staging, Great singing, Great acting, Edgy, Clever

See it if You enjoy complex family relationships explored in an honest, quirky and original way. Not perfect but great energy, ideas and staging.

Don't see it if You need a straightforward, completely well organized production.

Critic Reviews (8)

The New York Times
October 26th, 2022

"It’s hard not to feel that 'Hound Dog' is stuck on the outside of her own story, listening in."
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Theatermania
October 24th, 2022

"Little moments of insight brought me back: Hound Dog celebrates how the song of America becomes beautifully distorted as our cultural megaphone blares across the seas...It shows how people find freedom in the most unexpected places."
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Lighting & Sound America
October 25th, 2022

There's plenty of conversation onstage in Hound Dog -- whenever all hell isn't breaking loose -- but really, it's all talk, lacking in the power of suggestion. The title character -- yes, really -- of Hound Dog has some big decisions to make, but Aker forgets to make her (and her problems) engaging. The production's other amenities, including some attractive songs and a keen sense of the fantastic, can't make up for the general lack of interest.
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Talkin' Broadway
October 24th, 2022

"The intermingling of music and dream-like elements gives the sense that 'HOUND DOG' is working under its own system of logic, but it isn't clear what that includes...The production has yet to find a suitable tone."
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TheaterScene.net
October 30th, 2022

Director Machel Ross does little to guide this play to any semblance of cohesion. Scenes 1 and 13, between Hound Dog and Ayse, her childhood best friend, begin with the exact same lines and stage blocking up to a point…so, did one scene happen and the other one not happen? Which is the real scene? Scene 6, between Hound Dog and Yusuf, the neighborhood trash collector and best friend to Hound Dog’s father Baba, happened three days after their meeting in Scene 4, or is it, as Hound Dog perceives, only yesterday?
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Theater Pizzazz
October 24th, 2022

There’s much to appreciate in each performance and in several of the songs, but many of this show’s 90 minutes fail to register strongly enough on the scales of humor, emotion, lucidity, or even sociology. It’s good, however, to see something, even if tepidly done, about a rarely represented culture on the stage.
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Stage Buddy
October 24th, 2022

"The cast is on-point and the direction (by Machel Ross) smooth, and all in all it's an enjoyable, if not completely satisfactory, 90 minutes...Credit where it's due: watching 'HOUND DOG' is an entertaining and enjoyable experience. I just left with questions."
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New York Theater
October 29th, 2022

We eventually figure out that Hound Dog hasn’t fully processed her grief at the death of her mother a year earlier, and is also probably experiencing culture shock... The problem with the play is that the playwright doesn’t seem to have fully processed Hound Dog’s grief and culture shock either, which makes it difficult for the audience to figure out how we’re supposed to react, or even what’s going on.
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