Can money buy happiness? Or is it the root of despair? Jonathan Kline explores these questions in his intense, character-driven and hilariously dark new comedy Get a Dog.
The play is being performed at the Robert Gill Theatre until July 17 as part of the much-anticipated Toronto Fringe Festival. It explores societal attitudes toward wealth and the pursuit of money through the relationship between a self-made career woman and her therapist. On a sweltering summer day in Toronto, the wealthy Marwa Sayed (Fatma Naguib) attends her first therapy session. She is surprised to discover that – despite her careful research – the therapist, Alex Agarwal, (Andrew Pawarroo) is not the man she expected him to be. Patient and doctor test one other. And through their conversation, Get A Dog explores the price of wealth and its potential cure.
Kline is a Toronto-based divorce lawyer who won the 2010 Toronto Fringe’s 24-hour playwriting contest (The Tempest and the Birch Tree). And the play is directed by ACTRA-nominee Amanda Cordner, whom audiences know from her stage work and Sort of (CBC GEM), as the director of the award-winning Fringe show Drink of Choice, and as co-creator of the international touring solo epic Body so Fluorescent (Summerworks, Best of Fest).
SesayArts Magazine chatted with Cordner about how two rounds of “sheer destiny” led her to directing Get a Dog – and how the play’s exploration of wealth and status is universal and timeless.
SM: Let’s start with you. Tell us a little about yourself and about your life as an artist. Why did you choose to be an actor and director?
AC: I was lucky enough to have parents that allowed me to try every and any activity my little heart desired. I attempted to dance, play soccer, (do?) gymnastics and figure skate. I quit them all within months. I stepped on stage at 12 years old and have never looked back. It’s my longest and most toxic relationship to date. I’ll never leave.
Directing came to me by sheer destiny. A friend booked a Fringe slot back in 2019 and was looking for a director. I asked them, “do you want a director with experience?” They responded, “not necessarily.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. And so began this journey.
SM: What will audiences experience at Get a Dog, and what do you hope the play will prompt them to think about after they’ve seen it?
AC: What is my relationship to money?
Who am I with money?
Who am I without it?
What brings deep meaning to my life?
SM: Given the rampant inflation and sky-high prices we are currently experiencing, would you say that the play is particularly timely?
AC: I’d say this play is timeless. As long as the entire GLOBE continues to agree that money is and should be our prime goal, desire, and concern, then this play will continue to speak to audiences for lifetimes to come. Despite the adages “Money isn’t everything” and “Money can’t buy you happiness”, it tickles me how many of us want to claim for ourselves all the material riches available only to figure it out (later) for ourselves…whether or not what they say is true.
SM: What would you like us to know about how you came to this project as director?
AC: Another chance with destiny…
A mutual friend of Jonathan and mine linked us up. I was at said friend’s birthday party, and she approached me…
“Hey, a friend of mine wrote a play and is in the Fringe festival and needs a director. Can I give him your name?”
I said I needed to read the play first.
I read it.
Loved it.
Called Jonathan. We spoke about our needs and how we like to work, and from there our creative unity formed.
SM: Tell us something about yourself that is not on your resumé. Anything that might surprise us?
AC: I can do a great impression of a broken doll.
Reserve tickets to Get a Dog here.
© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2022
